Despite following many non-technology hashtags there's lots of computer technology chatter in my #mastodon feed. Let's change that for #sunday!
So #fediverse: have you ever milked a cow? (or goat, sheep etc.)
edit: it's sunday, best to put a CW on photos of you milking your hamster.
Note: if you have milked a goat, sheep or cat (wtf) I'd say that also counts as a yes.
@Pepijn I'm scared to look at the replies after that clarification
@afewbugs I'm a bit afraid of someone showing photographic proof of milking their hamster.
Rí Rua
@Pepijn I answered no but the answer is actually yes. It was a locked away memory, not good bad reasons just or was a very long time ago
@Pepijn I'd try it once, if a farmer showed me how to make it drinkable.
@Pepijn I have seen it done by hand, but never handled a teat myself, well not on a cow... Or a cat 
@Pepijn Absolutely. Stepfather owned a farm, 750 animals (pig, calves, bulls). Also had to perform an emergency slaughter on 12 or 13 bulls. Can't recall it precisely, it was in the mid 70s and after that, my younger me (14 or 15 yrs old) was covered in [no specifics here] from head to toe.
@Pepijn
Yes, a cow. Super gross. But no more gross than computer touching.
@Pepijn it feels odd to vote No as someone who was born onto a dairy farm, but the family left it soon after, and frankly even by then all milking was done by machine.
(and to spare age-date checking that was the early 1960s)
FWIW similarly with the sheep farming side of the family, where I helped muster the flock into my teens, no-one had shorn by hand for years.
So it's an interesting type of question.
@geraldew Thanks. Maybe scale plays a role as well. On Dutch dairy farms (~100-250 cows) even today most people will have some limited experience with milking by hand. This mostly in special cases for a sick cow or one that just calved.
@Pepijn Yes, milked a cow on the farmers day in the first year or secondary school. Wasn’t a great success, I think the cow was already empty.
@smveerman You know, I've been wondering all day on how weird it is that we have entire classes of teenagers come out to a farm and awkwardly fondle a cow all the way until it's empty.
Here's hoping the cows are not self-conscious about it.
@Pepijn The worst thing is: the farm we went to was operated by my French teacher during the first and second year 
@smveerman Maybe 'bad experience' is a theme here. We had a cow "bite" a kids hand, everyone panicked and only two kids (both farm kids..) got to milk the cow. Memorable experience though: made me not want to be a teacher.
Or snake / spider
@Pepijn You suggest other animals than cow but I presume you are excluding non-human here, as I would assume the majority of people in the world were breastfed and hence technically milked their own mothers. Just sayin' 
@Pepijn I've milked a goat a handful of times. Her utter band had snapped from giving birth too many times so the kiddies were only drinking from the easy side. So we had to empty the other side for her.
@Pepijn When I first moved to Ceredigion, I lived on a smallholding that had a single Jersey cow, and I took turns milking her every morning. We took in an extra calf so there wasn’t too much milk for the two of us humans. We made our own butter and cottage cheese, but it was still A Lot.
When we moved to a smaller place, I went back to being vegan! (We found the cow a home in a small dairy herd, but I still feel bad about it.)
@Pepijn Said "No" but I actually might have. I was very young at the time and don't recall it. But was around such animals a fair bit.
@Pepijn 35 years sgo, i milked a Saahnen goat for most of the year round, for about three years, except when she had a kid. I made a helluva lot of yoghurt and soft cheese as i never got used to the taste of goat milk.
Goat’s name was Barli. I was fond that goat, even if she was a drama queen.
@th @SallyStrange @Pepijn "coming out of a bar" (your alt text 
) … where's the rest of that joke?!
@Pepijn Goat yes, cow no
@Pepijn I don't do it much myself these days, but I often work with those who do. I have milked cows and goats. I once had a job where my main duty was feeding and collecting eggs from 800 - 1,000 chickens
@Pepijn The very best ice cream I ever had was made with cream separated from milk that I had milked that morning and strawberries we picked that afternoon.
@Pepijn
As soon as I could walk! (Though I haven't in ages)
@BlippyTheWonderSlug Adorable 
Funky little shoe covers btw.
@Pepijn did you see the guy at a farmers protest; the cops turned up with riot gear, this comrade went over to a nearby cow someone had brought along, as one does; grabbed a teat and hosed a riot shield like a firefighter! Man that Friesan lady was ready 
@Pepijn
does it count if an old farm hand said: "milking a cow is easy. Just do it like this!" and filled up the bucket so fast the milk frothed, and then, I honestly tried to imitate what he did, but I totally failed. (This happened on about 2 or 3 different occasions).
@Pepijn as a child, yes. Not since though
@Pepijn I'm shocked by my answer... That really should be fixed.
@Pepijn I mean, I tried once when I was about five or so and couldn't manage.
