As I sit down to write this, I can hear the cow bells gently jangling through the open window. I can see the snow-capped Alps in the distance as I eat freshly picked cherries (photo, right) and blueberries. The midday heat impedes work so as I take a break I let my mind wander over everything I have seen during my stay with the first of three families in Switzerland.

Rolf and Trudy Knüsel are from Meierskappel, Luzerne, and have 30 Holstein cows, 4ha of forestry and a number of fruit trees. It is a family farm in the truest sense of the word. Rolf’s parents live next door and have a daily input to the farm work: his mother cleans the milking machine and his father brings grass to the cows while they are indoors during the day when Rolf is at work.

Trudy minds the four children, grows their own fruit and vegetables for the house and lends a hand on the farm also. The children also help out with the chores.

Cows brought in from the heat

The daily routine begins with milking at 6am. The cows are fed a diet mix (silage, hay, maize, minerals and salt) indoors during milking before being let out to graze at 7.15am. While they are out, the Pottinger wagon is used to bring in fresh grass for the cows. The grass is mown with a machine similar to a push lawn mower, but the blade is a lot wider (photo, right).

At 11am, the cows are brought in again because of the flies and the heat, their bells are taken off and they are locked into their individual stalls. Each cow has a specific place and is known by name, and character.

The cows who have had their calf within the last three months get concentrates twice a day. The evening milking is at 5pm and the five Fullwood milking units are mobile; they are moved to each cow and plugged into the overhead pipes (photo, below).

A habit of licking the milker

My first milking here was most confusing as I was used to facing the cow at a totally different angle in the herring-bone parlour at home. Here the clusters are put on from the front rather than behind. The cows have a habit of licking you at the same time!

One calf was born while I was here and within a week, she was off the teat and drinking straight from the bucket. She was tagged and her number and name were registered with the Swiss equivalent of the Department of Agriculture. The calves’ names begin with the first letter of their mother’s name.

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A day's work on a Swiss farm: milking at 5am atop a mountain – and getting 74c/l