Yes, letdown is different than production, as MadGardener described, in cows as in people. I grew up on a dairy farm. Without letdown, the only milk that will come out, is what is in the big milk ducts and the cisterns (about 20% of the volume stored in the udder at any given time). That can be removed from the udder by overcoming the teat sphincter barrier (basically, by a calf sucking on it, a human hand mimicking that pressure, or the inflations of a milking machine mimicking the motion). - side note, the vacuum of a milking machine never sucks the milk out - instead it varies the pressure of the inflation against the teat . The inflation is the flexible part inside the steel tube that the teat goes in. The other 80% of the milk is stored in tiny sacs (alvioli) and small ducts. This will only come out is the muscles around them contract. These muscles have no nerves to them. They contract in response to the presence of oxytocin in the blood. Oxytocin is the hormone released during letdown.
The robot-milked cows on the farm I visited had a free stall barn. They also had extensive pastures for the lactating cows as well as dry cows and young stock. Some dairies don't have pastures. Many do.
Buffalo, bison, deer, antelope, mountain goats, big horn sheep, etc, all carry young nearly every year. As do beef cattle managed as range cattle with bulls with the herd all year.
This artificial insemination is a bad thing idea is one of the more obvious attacks on cattlemen for the sake of attacking them; nothing to do with the health or well-being of the cattle or kinkiness on the part of humans (which is also being added to the narrative). It takes the bull literally ten to fifteen seconds to do the deed. There isn't any courting as there is in chickens. The cow is either in standing heat or she is not. If she is, she accepts anything putting pressure on her back. If she is not, she rejects everything mounting her. What is sometimes labeled "courting" on youtube videos is the bull testing whether she will stand yet - by scent mostly, sometimes by laying his chin on her back. It is the same for a bull that is a herdmate as it is for a bull that was trailered in two minutes before the act. If he is trailed in when she is in full standing heat, he doesn't bother resting his chin on her back because he knows she will stand.
This is long enough, so I won't start into the cow burps and farts cause the majority (if I did Gate's math in "How to Avoid a Global Catastrophy" book correctly) of human-activity global warming nonsense.
The robot-milked cows on the farm I visited had a free stall barn. They also had extensive pastures for the lactating cows as well as dry cows and young stock. Some dairies don't have pastures. Many do.
Buffalo, bison, deer, antelope, mountain goats, big horn sheep, etc, all carry young nearly every year. As do beef cattle managed as range cattle with bulls with the herd all year.
This artificial insemination is a bad thing idea is one of the more obvious attacks on cattlemen for the sake of attacking them; nothing to do with the health or well-being of the cattle or kinkiness on the part of humans (which is also being added to the narrative). It takes the bull literally ten to fifteen seconds to do the deed. There isn't any courting as there is in chickens. The cow is either in standing heat or she is not. If she is, she accepts anything putting pressure on her back. If she is not, she rejects everything mounting her. What is sometimes labeled "courting" on youtube videos is the bull testing whether she will stand yet - by scent mostly, sometimes by laying his chin on her back. It is the same for a bull that is a herdmate as it is for a bull that was trailered in two minutes before the act. If he is trailed in when she is in full standing heat, he doesn't bother resting his chin on her back because he knows she will stand.
This is long enough, so I won't start into the cow burps and farts cause the majority (if I did Gate's math in "How to Avoid a Global Catastrophy" book correctly) of human-activity global warming nonsense.
Last edited:
