Comments on: Pig's milk, and other difficult dairies

By: rawmilk

rawmilk — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 23:16:00 +0000

Pigs only make milk when the piglet is suckling it (their glands don’t fill with milk automatically) and they only make milk for 15 seconds. So how this guy was able to get a sleeping pig to make produce milk with his fingers is dumb. A breast pump fits on one nipple which is farrrr away from the other one. You are supposed to hook up 14 breast pumps to a pig to milk it? This guy seems a little off.

By: Justin Kalm

Justin Kalm — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 09:23:00 +0000

I can’t believe I’m the first person to mention that this might finally lead the way to the creation of a true venezuelan beaver cheese. Yum?

By: Layne Magic

Layne Magic — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 04:23:00 +0000

Human milk can’t make cheese. There is an issue with the proteins. A woman did a series on trying to do so with her left-over breast milk. That, and human milk has a higher chance of carrying human-targeting pathogens.

By: Kristin Reed

Kristin Reed — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 02:07:00 +0000

My 12 year old slider turtle recently laid eggs. Unfertilized. What do I do with them. Omelet anyone?

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:26:00 +0000

Let’s not forget goat milk!

By: Diogenes

Diogenes — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:24:00 +0000

Gee, I thought most of the replies were fairly pleasant. Are you sure you aren’t being “hyper-sensitive”?

By: Mr. Winka

Mr. Winka — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:18:00 +0000

“I have nipples Greg. Could you milk me?” Even though it would be healthier for people to eat cheese made from healthy women, most people wouldn’t want to eat that and especially not Robert De Niro cheese right? Yet many people have no problem consuming milk from cows which are often unhealthy. Consider leaving non-human milk to the non-humans.

By: Mr. Winka

Mr. Winka — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 12:58:00 +0000

This induced ROFL! Thank you!

By: CitizenJohnJohn

CitizenJohnJohn — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 06:37:00 +0000

Don’t forget to take her out for a movie too…

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 05:56:00 +0000

And?

By: Visceral Vixen

Visceral Vixen — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 04:59:00 +0000

See, this is why you can’t ask a reasonable question concerning production of meat or dairy. You get butthurt hyper-sensitive meat-eaters going: HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME I DON’T CARE I EAT KITTENS AND PUPPIES BECAUSE I’M A MANLY MEAT-EATING MAN SUCK IT VEGANS!!11!

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 02:43:00 +0000

Initial tests suggest that creeping up to humans while they are sleeping and frantically pinching at their nipples gets a similar response to the pigs.

By: billstewart

billstewart — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:53:00 +0000

Modern dairy cattle have been bred to produce far more milk than their more natural ancestors. A few years ago there was an article in the NYTimes about the decline of traditional breeds of cattle in Africa. The Americans introduced Holsteins and similar breeds that produce 10-20 times as much milk, and it’s financially advantageous for Africans to breed them into their herds, even though the modern cows are far more fragile and dependent on industrial agribusiness technology to stay alive and productive, as well as being acclimatized to American conditions rather than African. Some of the African breeds have amazing curved horns, much bigger and heavier than the ones on Texas longhorns, so they can fight off predators and live on more marginal land – but when the difference in milk production determines how many of your kids will live past childhood and maybe get an education, keeping traditional-style cattle loses out.

By: billstewart

billstewart — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:47:00 +0000

Most cheese is even labeled so you can tell whether it’s animal rennet or microbial. And I’ve got enough North/West European ancestors that’s I’ve got the adult-lactose-tolerance mutation (though in practice I almost never drink milk unless there’s coffee in it.)

But yes, there’s an ethical issue in that cows only produce milk if they’ve had calves recently enough, and while the female calves may become the farmer’s next generation of milk cows, the males are going to end up as meat. I don’t eat meat, but I’ll still use the milk.

By: billstewart

billstewart — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:42:00 +0000

I’d expect “acid cheese” to be something you ate along with hash brownies….

Meanwhile, if you want sheep milk products, Whole Foods carries sheep-milk yogurt, and there’s lots of sheep and goat milk cheeses around. There was somebody in the news a few years ago doing camel milk.

By: billstewart

billstewart — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 01:36:00 +0000

If you’ve read James Heriot’s books about being a vet, pigs like beer, and there are times it’s useful to calm them down. And if you’ve got leftovers from brewing on your farm, they’ll be happy to consume them, so you won’t have to make Marmite with the rest.

By: Boris Bartlog

Boris Bartlog — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:37:00 +0000

Pigs, not cows. Cows are usually pretty cooperative (5000 years of breeding), though I’m sure that the folks that milked the first aurochs suffered lots and lots of injuries. Anyway, I don’t think cows would drink beer – but I could be wrong.

By: Boris Bartlog

Boris Bartlog — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Not yet… I did give them a bunch of old fruit mash that had turned alcoholic, but it apparently was not strong enough to do much of anything. Remember, grown pigs weigh 500+ pounds… it’d take a bit to affect them. Someday when I have a little more time and a vat of something fermented I might do the experiment again.

By: emacsomancer0101

emacsomancer0101 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:42:00 +0000

Do frat-bros feed their conquests snacks afterwards?

By: cdh1971

cdh1971 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:18:00 +0000

Well…I bet this stuff is _far_ more easy to obtain than ‘tiger’s milk’. More likely to be authentic too. I’ve always been skeptical about how much tiger’s milk is in ‘tiger’s milk.’

By: cdh1971

cdh1971 — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 22:13:00 +0000

What to do with pig ovaries & uteri?

Ask this guy….

By: Jesseham

Jesseham — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:54:00 +0000

They weren’t reading it as milk *for* cats, they were reading it as the milk *of* cats…

By: Forkboy

Forkboy — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:31:00 +0000

We’ve got a farm nearby that produces Horses’ milk. It was even a mini-hype a couple of years ago because of its alleged health advantages (eg. less fats.) Never tried it though.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:24:00 +0000

Do you get this way about ‘biscuit’?

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:05:00 +0000

I’m not even really seeing a problem with that.

*disclaimer* I don’t particularly care for animals…

People seem to spend astronomical amounts of money on their pets and I can a market for something like that. I mean we have Similac formula for human infants, I can’t see that the idea is much different.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:59:00 +0000

The only thing that trumps cheese and milk is bacon.

By: travtastic

travtastic — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:41:00 +0000

(Insert half-hearted rationalizations.)

(Insert mention of how delicious Food X is.)

By: Jesseham

Jesseham — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:30:00 +0000

I started this conversation a long time ago at work, (presumably ending many others before they even started) when I got a container of this and left it on my cube wall.

“Is that real!?”
“Yep.”
“Gross!”

By: Jesseham

Jesseham — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:27:00 +0000

We all draw the line somewhere. Ice cream certainly has some extra gravity for moving it towards us…

By: voscerote

voscerote — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 20:14:00 +0000

Yeah, domestic cows are pretty different from their un-domesticated ancestors. Just like dogs are so different from wolves–and in countries where domestic dogs have been introduced but the culture isn’t so pet-crazy as the states it creates a huge problem. The dogs depend on on humans for food so they roam the streets scavenging. Gutierrez is right. You can’t undo those eugenics in one generation.