We visited Monte Vista Dairy in Greeley, CO. Currently, they are milking 3,200 head. We toured their facilities, and I thought I'd post some pics and explain the process.
For those that don't know, there are two different classes of cattle. You have beef cattle and dairy cattle. Beef breeds are raised for-you guessed it-BEEF. Those breeds muscle up more and finish out to produce ideal steaks and other beef cuts. The milk produced by those cows is only enough to raise a momma cow's calf. (We raise beef cattle, by the way.) Common beef breeds are Angus, Hereford, Limousin, Simmental, Brangus, and many, many others.
Dairy cows, on the other hand, are raised to produce milk. The females of the dairy breeds have extremely large udders and produce massive amounts of milk. Dairy breeds include Holstein, Jerseys, Guernseys, Brown Swiss, and a few others. (FYI: Those are Holsteins in the pictures.) In the old days, everyone ha
d a cow which they milked every day for their family's milk needs. Today, however, farmers have herds of dairy cows which they milk in their "parlors" twice a day, every day. In Henry County, our dairy farms range in size from 30 head to 500 head. The parlors also range in sophistication. I've only visited the parlors that are like the one at Monte Vista, so that's what I'll explain. Keep in mind, though, that there are other set-ups. Also keep in mind that they do this on a MUCH larger scale than many dairies.
d a cow which they milked every day for their family's milk needs. Today, however, farmers have herds of dairy cows which they milk in their "parlors" twice a day, every day. In Henry County, our dairy farms range in size from 30 head to 500 head. The parlors also range in sophistication. I've only visited the parlors that are like the one at Monte Vista, so that's what I'll explain. Keep in mind, though, that there are other set-ups. Also keep in mind that they do this on a MUCH larger scale than many dairies. 
First, the girls file into the stalls. They walk down the lane then turn 90 degrees to stick their heads through the gates. As you can see in the picture, this puts their rears and udders at eye level with the farmer standing in the working area. Dairy cows are extremely gentle and docile animals.
The farmer then comes through and sprays all the udders with a cleaning solution. He then goes down and wipes off every teat on every cow. The important thing here is that he uses a clean rag for each cow. That way, no infections or bacteria will be transferred from cow to cow. Once every teat is cleaned, the farmer turns the suction on the milkers and puts a milker on each cow. If you look closely at these pictures, you can see that one milker has 4 metal tubes. Each metal tube suctions onto a teat to milk the cow. The milker carries the milk through pipes to the milk storage tanks. The milk is stored there until the milk truck comes to pick it up and take it to a local processing plant.
The frequency of the milk truck depends, of course, on the number of cows milked (which is directly correlated to the volume of milk collected).
Oh yeah...that's just the morning shift. It all has to be done again in the evening! Twice a day, EVERY day.
Another little tidbit that I find interesting is that in some set-ups, the cows decide when they want to be milked. They make their way up to the pen to be moved into the parlor. Isn't that cool? I guess the mom's that have nursed their children can relate....engorged mams aren't fun.
