You can talk about why milk is bitter. Indeed, what are we talking about? Is there a problem with a store batch product? Or do you need to understand why milk is bitter from your own cow? Perhaps the problem is with the product that has been stopped? There are quite a few reasons, but they are all well known. Knowing the initial circumstances, you can always figure out why milk is bitter in a particular case.
What are we talking about?
Before you find out why cow’s milk is bitter in the fall, it’s worthwhile to understand what this liquid is. This is a highly dispersed product produced by the mammary glands of female individuals, formed by a huge number of elements. The complexity of the composition is easily explained from the point of view of biology: milk is intended by nature for the proper nutrition of a newborn calf. Therefore, it should contain the substances required by the young body, giving it immune protection, helping to develop. Therefore, milk is:
- proteins;
- useful trace elements, including essential;
- enzyme compounds;
- vitamin complexes.
Everything is important!
The more components in the composition of a substance, the more factors that affect its quality. Understanding why milk begins to be bitter, you will have to consider all possible reasons in order to find the best way to deal with them. In addition to taste, the smell sometimes changes (the milk yield of some cows has a specific aroma).
Nutrition
Any owner of an animal should know why milk is bitter from a cow immediately after milking in order to prevent such a situation. Much is determined by the nutrition of domesticated ungulates, therefore, the shepherd has a special responsibility for choosing pastures: there should not be some plants. For example, figuring out why milk is bitter, you need to check whether animals feed on bitter plants. Most often, the taste deteriorates after walking in the meadows where wormwood is found. The plant is bitter, but it is not bad for cows; therefore, no animal bypasses it. The human task is to ensure that the walk is carried out in areas where there is no wormwood and similar herbs. For example, such as:
- yarrow;
- lupine;
- field mustard;
- wild onion varieties.
What does a cow have in tongue ...
Often, beginning livestock breeders hope that the livestock, once in the pasture, will itself bypass the bitter herbs. Indeed, if a person has no more than 9,000 taste buds, then a cow has 25,000 of them, which makes cattle significantly more sensitive to the taste characteristics of food. Nevertheless, animals enjoy eating bitter foods. Veterinarians assure: this is not only not unpleasant, but increases appetite, has a positive effect on the state of the digestive system. Some beginner, inexperienced farmers think that bitter herbs are harmful to the animal, so it will bypass them. In fact, such an opinion is erroneous, but the quality of the milk obtained is only human concern.
It has long been known: what a cow has in its tongue is in milk. This observation is absolutely true: milk incredibly accurately conveys the flavors of everything that enters the animal’s food. Moreover, the liquid reflects the coloring of the feed, depending on the consistency. If cattle eats beet pulp, the product will be watery, carrots in excessive concentration will turn red in tones, and fishmeal in combined feeds provokes a change in smell: as if a fish had lain here.
When things get more serious
When asked why milk is bitter in a cow, the veterinarian can give an answer: it is known that this is one of the signs of diseases of varying severity. Quite often, this is a sign of a violation of the proper functioning of the liver. Timely medical attention is needed. Thinking about why homemade milk is bitter, you need to seek help from a doctor, ask him to examine the animal, determine the diagnosis and select a therapeutic program.
You need to understand why the cream of cow's milk is bitter during treatment. Medicines strongly affect the animal’s body, any injections, other drugs cause a change in milk taste.
Fascioliasis
This disease occurs most often, and its development always leads to a change in taste. By this term is meant infection with helminths (trematodes) of Fasciola hepatica, gigantica. For these parasites, cattle is the main host. Malicious organisms live in the cow's liver, in the bile ducts. Due to the structural features (special suction cups), the parasite is fixed on the organ wall and provokes injury to living tissues. As a result, the cow suffers from inflammatory processes, bile stagnates, there are constant pain in the liver.
The infected animal is rather weak, palpation in the liver area reveals painful symptoms. The cow is noticeably tired even with small loads, sweating increases. Most notably this is at the withers and shoulder blades. Fascioliasis can be suspected by the bitter taste of milk.
What to do?
If fascioliasis is suspected, it is necessary to take stool samples of the animal and send it for examination to a veterinary clinic. Laboratory assistants will check the presence of eggs in the biological substance, if the result is positive, the doctor will advise and give appropriate recommendations.
Experienced cattle owners know that more often bitterness is observed either at the end of autumn, or at the beginning of the cold winter season. This is due to the biological cycle of the development of the parasite. If the cow caught harmful parasites during watering, on a pasture, helminths develop just in time for this. Such infection leads to serious damage to the liver tissue. The danger of infection is due to the fact that the intermediate owner of the parasite is a pond, living in many fresh water bodies.
Pregnant cows
If the milk starts to be bitter, it's probably time to start. Before this, you need to reduce the frequency of milk production, gradually reducing them to zero. This will help the animal to gather strength for labor and resolve a healthy calf, and then feed him. For highly productive cows, start-up should begin one and a half to two months before the birth of the offspring. With dry cattle, in need of rest, it gets the necessary opportunities for the preservation and use of nutrients for the developing fetus. Highly productive animals often force the owner to carry out a complex set of work to stop milking. But cows with low productivity often go into the run on their own.
Bitter milk is evidence of deep pregnancy. This smack indicates that the body of the animal is undergoing complex work on internal restructuring, due to the approach of childbirth. In addition, cow milk is necessary for feeding the calf, and preparation for this process also provokes a change in the taste of the product.
What else plays a role?
Another common cause of changes in milk taste is mastitis. In addition to this characteristic, the process is accompanied by color adjustment. In rare cases, milk does not bite, but becomes salty. This happens due to ingestion in milk:
- pus;
- spotting;
- fibrin flakes.
With the advanced form of the disease, there is a danger of the death of the animal. Often, the diagnosis leads to culling of the cow, but even if this does not happen, the productivity of the animal is significantly reduced. It is necessary to constantly monitor the status of the goals in the herd in order to prevent such problems.
Cleanliness, beauty!
For the taste of milk to be exactly as expected, the task of the breeder is to maintain impeccable cleanliness in the barn. Hygiene is very important, including when preparing for milking and during this process. It is precisely the non-compliance with this condition that explains why milk is bitter during souring: the liquid is filled with harmful microscopic life forms. Hence the unpleasant smell.
What else could be the matter?
Veterinarians pay attention: bitter milk indicates problems in metabolic processes in the body of the animal. Often this indicates a lack of trace elements, malnutrition. Taste qualities strongly depend on the concentration of cobalt in the body of cattle. In some cases, studies are carried out on the basis of milk bitterness, revealing anomalies in the development of internal organs and possible problems of the whole organism.
If before the milk was of high quality, but its taste suddenly changed, and this is not related to pasture or the expectation of offspring, you need to consult a doctor to prevent possible complications and loss of livestock. This will help in each case to determine why milk is bitter when standing.
Milk from the store
Occasionally, people who are very far from animal husbandry are confronted with the problem of poor taste, and they purchase milk in ordinary supermarkets in packaged form. According to experts, the cause of bitterness in this case is the insufficiently high-quality process of selecting consumables during the industrial process, that is, the plant processed a bad product. An alternative is a feature of processing at high temperatures: sometimes this provokes the breakdown of protein structures. Regardless of the reason, it is recommended not to use bitter milk for food.