Here's part one If you missed It- http://forums.bowhunting.com/showthread.php?p=188895#post188895 Here Is the biggest dairy farmer I pick up milk at. They usually get right around 51,000 pounds of milk a day (600 to 700 cow dairy). I go here every day. They have 2 tanks. One tank Is a 4,000 gallon and the other Is a 3,000 gallon tank. On the average the dairy farmers I pick up milk at get about 9,400 pounds a day. So yes this Is a big dairy farm. The truck Is just about loaded, all axles are down. In these pics the truck Is pumping the milk. It takes about an hour to pump 51,000 pounds of milk on from this dairy farm. On average It takes me about 2.5 hours to fill the truck going to multiple dairy farms. I go to 24 different dairy farms a day. Some dairy farmers can make It 2 days before their tank Is full while others can only make It one day. Depends on the size of their tank In the milk house. The farmers I pick up milk at are only picked up by me. Each milk hauler has their own area. Farmers wouldn't like It If they had strangers (different milk haulers) In their yard (home) every day. I wouldn't like It either. Some of these farmers are like family, I've known them for years and they (some) feel the same. Every other day Is the same exact pick ups. Here Is everything In the back. I'll explain In the next pic what everything Is and does. Below this picture Is a description of what everything Is. The black circle Is a sanitized dipper. At every dairy farm I pick milk up from I have to take a sample of the milk and put It In a small 2 oz vial and put that sample In an Ice filled cooler. The farmers are paid on the quality of their milk so I gotta make sure I take a proper sample at each farm. That sample Is given to the laboratory at the cheese plant and they then check It for quality. Good quality milk Is high butterfat, low Somatic cell count, high protein, low bacteria. The better them qualities the more the farmer gets paid. The yellow circle Is the cooler of Ice where the samples go. The blue circle Is the electric motor that's powered from the milk house that turns the pumps. The red circle Is the pumps that pump the milk Into my truck from the farmers tanks. The white circle Is the meter. It counts the milk going Into my tank. It's just like a gas meter at a gas station but Instead It counts pounds Instead of gallons. Here Is a close up of the pumps. Inside the pumps they have rubber propellers that spin In circles pumping the milk. These pumps pump about 900 pounds a minute give or take. The meter. You can't see It but there's numbers counting In the small window. The port hole. This Is where I put the hose and the electric cord In from the truck to the tanks and electrical outlet In the milk house. Here's the electrical outlet the cord from my truck plugs In to. Here Is where I connect the hose to the tank In the milk house. These tanks are just like refrigerators. Their cooled with a refrigeration unit (compressors) at about 40 degree's on average. Here's a pic of the 2 tanks from Inside the milk house. After I'm done pumping and empty the tanks the tanks get washed. Pictured below Is what washes the Inside of the tank. Soap and acid are used to wash these tanks. Your milk hauler for the day!
Extremely, extremely cool Steve... Like I said, I'd love to ride with you for a day and see it all up close and personal. Guess I could have easily enjoyed doing Mike Rowe's job if I'd thought it up first, cause that's the type of stuff I enjoy: learning about new stuff like that. Dig the last shot where you can see the camera in your sunglasses. Quick question: so as you unload the truck, do the axles raise back up off the ground?
Awesome Steve-O. Very cool post! I'd post something like this, but remember......I work for my dad... He's a water and SEWER contractor in Minneapolis/St. Paul :D
Pretty cool post. Always neat to learn what others do, especially step by step like you have given us in your post.
They've come a long way from back in my child hood. Then the driver took a dipper and tasted it. LOL Then it was all stored in Milk Cans in a cooler of water. We as kids use to walk into the local farmers barns, pull a milk can out with the hoist. Knock the lid off and pour some milk in from the can and drank it from the lid. It was our refreshments when we were working and helping to get in the hay. So tell me.... does this pasturization take out all the problems. What if a batch is really contaminated? Is it dumped down the drain or can it be saved.
now thats what im talking about! absolutely fascinating! i love learning about "every day" stuff and how it gets done. cant imagine how much work this process takes! thanks schultzy
One never knows where he could be at any given time. Like a said also, give me a call If your ever In Mn and we'll do It. The axles are operated by me. I can raise or lower them by a click of a switch. Their ran by air. A set of air bags lift them up and a different set of air bags lower them down. The back tag axle In back of the drive tires Is a solid axle. You don't want It down when your taking a sharp corner. It can be hard on tires and the hub. The 2 pusher axles In front of the drive axles are steerable. They can stay down when I make sharp turns and corners. You don't want any of these axles down though when your backing up, specially the pusher axles as they will bind.
Very cool and informative post!! I had no Idea what a milk hauler does. We dont have a ton of dairy farms here so its not apart of daily life for me. Very cool!!
Thanks Kyle and Dave! I remember them days too but I wasn't much older then 5 years old or so when cans finally were done. My dad and my grandpa used to pick up some canned milk way back then 30+ years ago when they were the milk man. Them cans were heavy!! That whole milk sure tastes good doesn't It? From what I understand all pasteurization does Is mainly take out the bacteria If there Is some. Good questions David!! Keep em coming everyone!! If someones milk Is contaminated It's no good for nothing. In the last 12 years or so I've had right around a dozen full loads of milk that I had to dump because a farmer had antibiotics In the milk. Remember the samples I take at each stop? That's how we find out who's got the bad milk and they then get charged for the load of milk. Whatever the going price Is for milk they get charged that per 100 weight. Example would be a load of 50,000 pounds. Take that load and divide that by 100 and then times that by the current milk price (we'll say $13.00 per hundred weight). Dairy farmers get paid by the 100 weight by the way. Anyhow 50,000 pounds of milk divided by 100 Is 500. Take 500 times $13.00 and you get $6500. The farmer then has to pay for that money to the milk plant. That farmer also gets put on probation by the Department of Agriculture for a year. Antibiotics Is medicine the farmers use for their cows If theirs problems with them. These sick cows still have to be milked but the milk can't go Into the tank so they dump It. Sometimes the farmer screws up and accidentally puts the contaminated milk In the tank. It happens, they sure don't mean to do It though. When they do though and don't catch It, It can cost them.
Cool business man. I seen on 20 20 once where a guy hauled chemicals of some kind, dumped them, poured in a gallon of bleach went around the block to sanatize (lol) then hauled milk. I hope I'm getting some of the milk you haul brother!
That's done at the milk plant. All I do Is haul It from the farm place to the plant. They do allot of other stuff there also at the milk plant to the milk but I'm In no way knowledgeable enough to talk about It. I have a DVD of what they do to the milk there at the plant that explains It better then I ever could. I wish I knew how to get the video on here. They use this video as a tool to sell their cheese that they make. It's kinda neat too that they have my truck In the video picking up milk at one of my stops I go to every day. Anyone know how to get a DVD video on here? Maybe It's not possible either, I don't know.
That's the reason I decided to go Into detail with my job, not many know what all goes on with a milk hauler. Thanks Issac, Matt, Isiahi, Willie!
Don't surprise me none. About 20 years ago one of the milk haulers that use to haul milk to the same plant I do got busted putting diesel fuel In one of his farmers tanks before he pumped It out. He was trying to get the farmer In trouble cause he didn't like him. What a dumb **** hah? There sure Is some winners out there.
