milk \'milk\ n [ME, fr. OE meolc, milc; akin to OHG miluh milk] 1: a fluid secreted by the mammary glands of females for the nourishment of their young. After spending an evening at home watching films, drinking wine and generally chilling out one Saturday night, Debs and I decided it was late and went to the kitchen to make some tea and retire for the evening. It was gone two-thirty in the morning after all! When I got the milk out of the fridge (a six pint carton), I commented that we must have most of the contents of a cow's udder in there. Having had a few drinks and being together for the last nineteen years the conversation that ensued after this statement predictably went from the sublime to the downright bizarre. Deb's suggestion that piggies have rows of outlets "so how come we don't..." to my statement of "just think of all the plumbing - it's all in the plumbing - the plumbing up of a pig..." resulted in the birth of this webpage. I wanted to create something amusing based on our conversations of the previous night. I started to consider suitable diagrams showing how pigs, whales and rats could be milked. An hour's trawling the web changed this. The strange thing I found was that the facts seemed more interesting than the dying humour of the previous night. Posting thoughts of rats milk being given to children by the Mafia, whale milk ice-cream being a wonderful marine treat and yaks milk being brewed by Tibetan Monks for three years then strained through the Dali Lama's sweaty socks are amusing but not easy to share thoughts. The facts (aka lactiferous wonders) are pretty enlightening though. Read on...

Is the concept of adult humans drinking milk natural or are we genetic mutations ask the veggies. There are 2 million cows in Great Britain. There are typically around 80 cows in a herd. 20 Litres per day over about two milking sessions for 300 days in the year. Cows consume 100kg grass every day. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music. A milking game to relieve the boredom Udder Madness To make 1 pound of cheese, a dairy cow must first eat 3 pounds of food. In 1852 Disraeli delivered his budget speech to the House of Commons while drinking a glass of milk! Growth hormones and unnatural milking schedules cause dairy cows' udders to become painful and so heavy that they sometimes drag on the ground, resulting in frequent infections and overuse of antibiotics. Cows -- like all mammals -- make milk to feed their own babies -- not humans. Cow's milk is an inefficient food source. Cows, like humans, expend the majority of their food intake simply leading their lives. It takes a great deal of grain and other foodstuffs cycled through cows to produce a small amount of milk. And not only is milk a waste of energy and water, the production of milk is also a disastrous source of water pollution.. Dutch engineers have developed a computerized machine that allows a cow to milk itself. Each cow in the herd has a computer chip in its collar. If the computer senses that the cow has not been milked in a given period of time, the milk laden animal is allowed to enter the stall. The robot sensors locate the teats, apply the vacuum devices, and the cow is milked. A dairy cow produces 54kg of waste every day - equal to that of two dozen people, but with no toilets, sewers, or treatment plants. 200 cows will produce as much nitrogen as in the sewage from a community of 5,000 to 10,000 people. Dairy products are a health hazard. They contain no fiber or complex carbohydrates and are laden with saturated fat and cholesterol. They are contaminated with cow's blood and pus and are frequently contaminated with pesticides, hormones, and antibiotics. Dairy products are linked to allergies, constipation, obesity, heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. Dairy products may actually cause osteoporosis, not prevent it, since their high-protein content leaches calcium from the body. When you drink milk, the supposedly hip milk mustache is actually a creamy layer of mucus, live bacteria, and pus. Most of milk's protein is contained in casein -- which is also a raw material for commercial glue. Undigested, it simply sticks to the intestinal walls and blocks nutrient absorption. Bovine Growth Hormone BST boosts a cow's milk output, but some European experts say BST has such yummy side-effects as increasing the amount of pus in milk, promoting infection in cow udders and potentially increasing risks of breast and prostate cancer in humans who drink the milk. A study in Cancer has shown that men who reported drinking three or more glasses of whole milk daily had a higher risk for prostate cancer than men who reported never drinking whole milk. When cows are milked, there's sometimes a great deal of blood that comes out with the milk. This tainted milk can't be sold so companies that make chocolate milk use it since cocoa hides the blood. Early American Colonists and Shakers painted their furniture and interiors with Milk Paint using a formula that dated back to Ancient Egypt. Up until the middle 1800's paint was not sold commercially. People made their own. The most common recipe contained milk protein, quicklime and earth pigments. Because of the unique durability of Milk Paint, many fine examples still exist that are hundreds of years old and whose finish is just as true as the day the paint was applied. Ice Cream was invented in China in about 200 B.C., when a soft, milk & rice mixture was further solidified by packing it in snow. Most ice cream contains more milk protein weight for weight than is present in milk itself. Cream weighs less than milk. If you are allergic to cow or goat milk - unless you are lactose intolerant, sheep milk is the ideal alternative. Such allergies cause a wide range of often undiagnosed problems. Being told to come off 'Dairy Products' usually only means Cow milk products NOT sheep or goats. Calcium deficiency can occur if all milk products are eliminated from the diet. Sheeps milk is both nutritious and delicious. The Milk has a rich, bland, slightly sweet taste. It is much higher in total solids than either cow or goat milk and contains up to twice as many of the minerals like calcium, phosphorus and zinc and the all important B group Vitamins. A cup of hot sheep milk before retiring aids a peaceful nights rest. This has been shown to be particularly beneficial for children and elderly people with a bed-wetting problem. You can buy Nanny Goats Milk Tablets as a food supplement for young and old alike especially those with digestive problems and allergies. Goats Milk is rich in proteins and minerals like calcium, iron, natrium and kalium as well as vitamin A, B1 and B2. Feeding a baby Hedgehog on a Goat's milk solution turns its droppings from the normal green to light blue. Goats milk soap, cleansing/moisturising cream and hair shampoo is also available. Several other formule are available using Goats Milk such as Goats Milk with seaweed, Goats Milk with rice pearl, Goats Milk with Gamat oil, Goats Milk with wheatgerm oil, honey & egg white. Many cats are unable to properly digest cow's milk. Milk and milk products give them diarrhoea and can also contribute to liver failure. Experimentation is taking place using goats as a 'factory' for producing vaccines in their milk. This started with mice but since they never produce enough milk to go beyond the experimental stage, experimetns have begun using the same process with goats. Human use of Buffalo, Water Buffalo and Yak's milk is commonplace in the areas where these animals are found. An Australian man plans to set up business milking camels. Neil Waters will open the country's first camel dairy near Alice Springs. Neil, who runs Camels Australia, says the milk has a similar nutritional quality to goats' milk. Some ants keep "cows", and even build tiny barns of leaves for them. The cows are aphids, or plant lice. The ants milk the cows by stroking them on their backs with their antennae, giving them a sweet, clear milk called honeydew. Male goat gives miracle milk. People in an Indian village say a 13-year-old male goat has started giving milk. It lives at a temple and is producing half a litre every day. Residents of Gopegram in West Bengal believe the 'miracle milk' can cure diseases. African natives were recently reported to encourage cows who are withholding their milk into releasing it. The report notes, "It is remarkable how their methods have been confirmed by recent scientific research. "They use a dummy calf, a boy suitably dressed, and then when the cow sees the "model" they blow up the vagina with air by mouth. A reflex is initiated and the milk flows. A two million Euro study is under way which may make cows less flatulent and smell sweeter. The EU funded research will investigate the possibility of adding herbs and plant oil extracts to cattle feed. A Canadian lobby group is using farting cows in an advertising campaign against the Kyoto Protocol. The National Citizens Coalition's campaign appears on local radio in Vancouver. The advert criticises a proposed grain subsidy programme to reduce the methane cattle creates. Yak's milk is pink. Refuse chiefs in Indonesia have drafted in hundreds of Officials in Yogyakarta say the animals can chew their way through most household waste and clothing. About 200 cows work alongside volunteers, who sift out dangerous pieces of glass, plastic, metal and paper. Locals say the scheme has an added benefit, as the cow dung helps the remaining waste decompose. Camel's Milk does not curdle. Duck Billed Platypus lays eggs but suckles its young on milk - animals that do this are called monotremes. Humpback whale milk is some of the richest milk in the world. It is well over 50% fat, and has the consistency of cottage cheese. The Humpback Whale Calf nurses by suckling on the mother's single teat, squirting the milk right into its mouth. This way very little milk is lost or dissipated in the water. A calf will consume between 100 and 120 gallons per day. Fifteen times the production of a cow is needed to achieve this!. Dutch farmers are ready to start commercially milking rabbits, pending authorization from European authorities. But that doesn't mean bunny cheese will soon be on store shelves — the genetically engineered rabbits would be milked to churn out a potentially lifesaving drug. Developed by Netherlands-based biotech firm Pharming, the rabbits have been outfitted with a human gene that produces a protein called C1 inhibitor. (Source National Geographic 1-DEC-2009) Got Milk? - a wacky site with all things cow

 

A typical comparative analysis of Sheep, Goat and Cow milks.
Whole Milk	Sheep	Goat	Cow
Total Solids	18.3	11.2	12.1
Fat	6.7	3.9	3.5
Protein	5.6	2.9	3.4
Lactose	4.8	4.1	4.5
Calorific value /100g	102	77	73
Vitamins mg/l
Riboflavin B2	4.3	1.4	2.2
Thiamine	1.2	0.5	0.5
Niacin B1	5.4	2.5	1.0
Pantothenic acid	5.3	3.6	3.4
B6	0.7	0.6	0.5
Folic acid ug/l	0.5	0.06	0.5
B12	0.09	0.007	0.03
Biotin	5.0	4.0	1.7
Minerals mg/100g
Calcium (Ca)	162 - 259	102 - 203	110
Phosphorus (P)	82 - 183	86 - 118	90
Sodium (Na)	41 - 132	35 - 65	58
Magnesium (Mg)	14 - 19	13 - 19	11
Zinc (Zn)	0.5 - 1.2	0.19 - 0.5	0.3
Iron (Fe)	0.03 - 0.1	0.01 - 0.1	0.04