Copy of `USA Dairy Glossary - Milk terms`

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USA Dairy Glossary - Milk terms Category: Food and Drink > Milk Date & country: 04/06/2011, USA Words: 170

Acute
Used to describe disease where symptoms are readily evident. Treatment is generally required.

Acid Rinse
Part of the equipment cleaning process for stainless steel and rubber parts, removes fat, protein and minerals and also reduces bacteria. (See Equipment Sanitization)

Alley Scraper
A "V" shaped mechanical blade that is dragged over an alley by chain or cable to pull manure to collection channel at the end of the alley (or possibly the center of the barn). The blade then collapses and is drawn back to the opposite end of the alley.

Alley
A walking area for cattle within a barn such as a loafing alley, feeding alley or cross alley (walkway) from a barn to the milking parlor.

Antibiotic Test Kit
Test kit for use on the farm to detect residues of antibiotics in milk before the milk is picked up for delivery to the plant.

Antibiotic Residues
The presence of traces of antibiotics or their derivatives in milk or meat.

Antibiotic
A metabolic product of one microorganism or a chemical that in low concentrations is detrimental to activities of specific other microorganisms. Examples include penicillin, tetracycline, and streptomycin. Not effective against viruses. A drug that kills microorganisms that cause mastitis or other infectious disease.

Barn Cleaner
Usually a chain linked system of paddles that moved manure from gutters, up a chute, into a waiting manure spreader. Most often seen in tie-stall or stanchion barns.

Bedding
Material used to absorb moisture and provide cushion. It is easily cleaned to provide a clean, dry surface and reduce the incidence of mastitis. Possible bedding materials include: straw, sawdust, wood chips, sand, ground limestone, separated manure solids, shredded newspaper, corn stalks, bark, peanut hulls, sunflower hulls and rice hulls.

Bedded Pack
Open housing in a barn that is commonly used in conjunction with an outside feeding area.

Biosecurity
Any of a broad range of practices enforced at a dairy farm to prevent transmittal of pathogens from other sources by feed, cattle, people, or other animals.

Blind Quarter
A quarter of an udder that does not secrete milk or one that has an obstruction in the teat that prevents the removal of milk. A nonfunctional mammary gland.

Bovine
Refers to cattle or oxen.

Broken Udder
Term used to describe an udder that is loosely attached or pendulous.

Brisket Board
A raised part of the freestall platform about 6.5 feet in front of rear of the stall to keep cows positioned properly while lying. Usually made of wood or plastic, but occasionally concrete.

Bull
A sexually mature, uncastrated bovine male.

Bulk Tank
A refrigerated, stainless steel vessel in which milk is cooled quickly to 2 to 4

Bucket Milking System
A system in which the milk coming from the cow is drawn into a bucket or pail and manually transferred to a collection area or the milk house.

Bunk
A feed trough or feeding station for cattle.

Bunker
(Sometimes called Bunker Silo) A flat rectangular structure with concrete floors and walls used to ensile and store forages.

Cannula
A special tube designed for placing drugs into the udder through the teat end and streak canal.

Calf
A young male or female bovine. Usually referred to as calves until reaching sexual maturity.

Churning
The process of stirring and agitating cream in the process of making butter. Churning causes the fat globules in cream to clump together and separate from the liquid.

Chronic
Used to describe recurring symptoms or disease.

Cheese Curd
The clumps of casein and other milk components that are formed during the cheese making process. These curds are then pressed into blocks or barrels for proper aging and curing of the cheese.

Chalk Sticks
Used to mark treated, fresh, or special-needs cows.

Clinical
Symptoms are present, supportive therapy or treatment is necessary.

Cow Trainer
A tin or wire structure supported a few inches above a cow to prevent her from soiling the platform of her stall by administering a gentle electric shock if she arches her back to urinate or defecate while too far forward in the stall.

Cow
A mature female bovine. Usually referring to any dairy females that have borne a calf. Some may consider females having given birth only once as "first-calf heifers" until they have a second calf.

Coverall
A brand name, but commonly referring to any of a group of hoop type barns with opaque or mylar fabric covers over a tubular steel frame.

Corn Belt
The area of the United States where corn is a principal cash crop, including Iowa, Indiana, most of Illinois, and parts of Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

Contagious
Disease that can be passed from one cow to another through a number of possible ways.

Conformation
The body form or physical traits of an animal or parts of the animal in the case of udder conformation.

Concentrates
High energy or high protein feeds consisting primarily of the seed of the plant, but with out stems and leaves.

Composting Pad
A concrete or hard packed surface that provides an area on which manure and discarded feed may be composted with ready access to aerate the composting materials.

Commodity Storage
Usually a steel framed shed that provides storage for commodity feeds, such as cottonseed, brewers grains, chopped hay, etc.

Colostrum
First milk following calving. High in fat, protein, and immunoglobulins that may be directly absorbed by the newborn calf in its first 24 hours of life.

Crowd Gate
A motorized or manual gate at the end of the holding pen that may be moved forward to guide cows toward the entrance to the milking parlor.

Crate
An elevated stall for a calf in an indoor facility.

Culture
In microbiology, a population of microorganisms in a growth medium or the act of growing bacteria in media for identification. A pure culture contains only organisms that initially arose from a single cell. Cultures are used in manufacturing cultured dairy products and most cheeses.

Cull Cow
A cow having been identified to be removed from the herd or having recently left.

Cull
To remove a cow from the herd. Culling reasons in clued voluntary culling of cows for low milk production, or involuntary culling of cows for reasons of health or injury.

Dam
Mother or female parent in a pedigree.

Dairy Steer
A neutered male of any of the dairy cattle breeds. The "dairy steers" are raised for meat production and usually managed like beef cattle.

Dairy Herd Improvement (DHI)
A specific testing plan which requires supervision and compliance with all official DHI rules.

Dairy Cow
A bovine from which milk production is intended for human consumption, or is kept for raising replacement dairy heifers.

Denitrification
The biochemical reduction of nitrate or nitrite to gaseous nitrogen, either as molecular nitrogen or as an oxide of nitrogen.

DHI Records
Generic term used to refer to records computed by the Dairy Record Processing Centers.

DHI Supervisor
An officially trained and DHIA-certified employee qualified to collect milk samples and record milk weights on the farm for all official types of testing plans.

Dock
To remove a cow's tail. This practice may keep cows udders cleaner, but may also result in cows being less content, especially in fly season.

Downer Cow
A cow unable to arise due to disease or injury.

Dry Cow
A cow that is not lactating or secreting milk after it has completed a lactation period following calving.

Dry Lot
An open lot that may be covered with concrete, but that has no vegetative cover. Generally used as exercise areas in most of US, but may be used as primary cow housing in the more arid climates.

Edema
The presence of abnormally large amounts of fluid in the intercellular tissue spaces of the body, as in a swelling of mammary glands commonly accompanying the initiation of the birthing process in many farm animals.

Electronic Feeders
Stations in which cows are fed specified amounts of feed by a computer that recognizes their unique electronic identification transponders.

Environmental
Derived from the animal's environment, bedding, housing, etc.

Equipment Sanitization
The removal of microorganisms and fat, protein, and mineral residues in milking equipment through use of water, heat, and chemicals.

Extra-Label Drug Use
An antibiotic or other chemical used on the advice of a veterinarian in a dosage, route of administration, for a different disease or in some other manner not included on the approved printed package label.

Fibrosis (fibrotic)
Of a condition marked by the presence of interstitial fibrous tissue, especially in the mammary gland resulting from mastitis.

Flat Barn
An area for milking cattle where the person milking is on the same level as the cow. May be used with a pipeline or bucket milking system. Generally the same area is used for cow housing.

Flush System
A manure removal system in which an area is cleaned by high volumes of fresh water, or gray water that is recycled from a manure pit or lagoon.

Forestripping
Expressing streams of milk from the teat prior to machine milking to determine visual quality and to stimulate "milk letdown."

Forequarters
The two front quarters of a cow. Also called the fore udder.

Forage
Feedstuffs composed primarily of the whole plant, including stems and leaves.

Footbath
A long shallow tub or depression in the concrete where cows walk through a mild solution (usually including copper sulfate or formalin) to promote foot health. Usually located along an alley where cows return from the milking parlor.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
An agency of the U.S. Government responsible for the safety of the human food supply.

Fresh Milk
Dairy products having original qualities unimpaired and those recently produced or processed.

Fresh Cow
A cow that has recently given birth to a calf.

Freestalls
Resting cubicles or "beds" in which dairy cows are free to enter and leave, as opposed to being confined in stanchions or pens.

Garget
A common term for an inflammation of the udder of the cow or the resulting abnormal milk. More accurately referred to as mastitis.

Germicidal
A substance that has the ability to kill germs.

Grooved Concrete
Floor surfaces with grooved patterns cut or depressed into concrete to provide better traction for cattle.

Greenhouse Barn
Commonly referring to any of a group of hoop type barns with translucent or plastic covers over a tubular steel frame.

Gray Water
Water that is considered waste and not to be used for cleaning milking systems. Usually including recycled water from a lagoon or milk house waste. Even water only used to cool milk in a plate cooler is considered gray water, though it is often fed to cows to reduce total usage.

Gutter
A shallow to deep channel located behind cows in tiestall barns capture manure and urine.

Hay
Dried feed consisting of the entire plant. Alfalfa, clover, grass, and oat hay are used in dairy rations.

Harvestore Silo
A brand of oxygen limiting (air tight) upright silos with bottom unloading.

Handlers
Processors or dealers of milk who commonly purchase raw milk and sell pasteurized milk and milk products.

Hand Milking
The manual milking of an animal as opposed to the use of mechanical milking devices.

Herringbone Parlor
A milking parlor in which cows stand side-by-side, angled towards the pit. This allows milking from the side of the udder.

Herd
A group of animals (especially cattle), collectively considered as a unit.

Heifer
A bovine female less than three years of age who has not borne a calf. Young cows with their first calves are often called first-calf heifers.

Headlocks
Self-locking stanchions along a feed alley in which cows voluntarily enter the head slot when going to eat. All cows may be held until herd health work is completed, and then all cows may be simultaneously released. Headlocks may be adjusted to remain open, allowing cows to come an go at will, when restraining the cows is not necessary.

Hot Quarter
A quarter of the udder that is infected and may actually feel hard or hot to the touch due to elevated temperatures.

Holding Pen
An area in which cows congregate prior to entering a milking parlor to be milked.

Hutch
An individual housing unit for young calves. Often made of white fiberglass or polyvinyl.

Immunity
The power an animal has to resist and/or overcome an infection to which most of its species are susceptible. Active immunity is due to the presence of antibodies formed by an animal in response to previous exposure to the disease or through live or modified-live vaccines. Passive immunity is produced by giving the animal preformed or synthetic antibodies as with killed vaccines.

Intramuscular
Injections given in the muscle.

Inorganic
Not capable of sustaining life. Often refers to dirt or soil.

Inflammation
Swelling caused by the accumulation of lymph and blood cells at the site of infection or injury.

Lagoon
An earthen pond used as a primary storage site for manure.

Lactate
To secrete or produce milk.

Letdown
The process in a cow where physical stimulation causes a release of oxytocin and the contraction of smooth muscles surrounding milk alveoli resulting in fluid pressure within the udder and milk flow.

Legume
Any of thousands of plant species that have seed pods that split along both sides when ripe. Some of the more common legumes used for human consumption are beans, lentils, peanuts, peas, and soybeans. Others, such as clover and alfalfa, are used as animal feed. Legumes have a unique ability to obtain much or all of their nitrogen requirements from symbiotic nitrogen fixation.

Leg Bands
Cloth or plastic strips of a bright color used for marking treated cows, fresh cows, or cows needing special handling.

Liner Slips or Squawks
Slippage of the liner and teat cup during milking. Caused by a sharp change of milking vacuum within the unit or cluster by drawing in air alongside the teat. Generally creates a "squawking" sound.

Liner
A flexible sleeve in the milking teat cup or rigid-walled liner holder. Responsible for massaging the teat end and intermittently cutting vacuum at the teat end during milking. Also called an inflation.

Loose Housing
Facilities that allow cattle access to a large, open bedded area for resting (also known as free housing). Loose housing should provide at least 200 square feet per animal for feeding and resting (freestall housing uses only 90 square feet per animal). (See Open Barns)

Mattress
Bedding material compacted to 3 to 4 inches and sandwiched in a heavyweight polypropolene or other fabric. Possible fillers include: long or chopped straw, poor quality hay, sawdust, shavings, rice hulls and, most commonly, shredded rubber.

Maternity Barn
A special needs facility where cows can be closely monitored during the period immediately before and after they give birth.