Why milk is bitter: reasons

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

You can talk for a long time about why milk is bitter. Indeed, what is it about? A problem with a store-bought product? Or do you need to understand why your own cow's milk is bitter? Perhaps the problem is related to the standing product? 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 is it about?

Before you figure out why a cow's milk is bitter in the fall, it's worth understanding what this liquid is. This is a highly dispersed product produced by the mammary glands of females, formed by a huge number of elements. The complexity of the composition is easily explained from the point of view of biology: milk by nature is intended for the full nutrition of a newborn calf. Therefore, it must contain substances that are required by the young organism, giving it immune protection, helping to develop. So milk is:

• proteins;
• useful trace elements, including essential ones;
• enzymatic compounds;
• vitamin complexes.

Everything matters

The more components in a substance, the more factors affecting its quality. Understanding why milk starts to taste bitter, you will have to take into account all the possible reasons in order to find the best way to deal with them. In addition to the taste, the smell sometimes changes (the milk of some cows has a specific aroma).

Food

Any animal owner should know why a cow's milk is bitter immediately after milking in order to prevent such a situation. Much is determined by the nutrition of a domesticated ungulate, so the shepherd has a special responsibility for choosing pastures: there should not be some plants here. For example, when figuring out why milk is bitter, you need to check if animals eat bitter plants. Most often, the taste deteriorates after walking in meadows where wormwood is found. The plant is bitter, but it suits cows well, so not a single animal bypasses it. The task of a person is to make sure that walking 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's on a cow's tongue…

Often, novice livestock breeders hope that the livestock, once on the pasture, will by itself bypass 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 much more sensitive to taste.food. Nevertheless, animals are happy to eat bitter foods. Veterinarians assure: this is not only not unpleasant, but it increases appetite, positively affects the state of the digestive system. Some beginner, inexperienced farmers think that bitter herbs are bad for the animal, so it will bypass them. In fact, such an opinion is erroneous, but the quality of the milk received is only a human concern.

It has long been known that what a cow has on its tongue is in its milk. This observation is absolutely correct: milk accurately conveys the flavors of everything that gets into the food of the animal. Moreover, the liquid reflects the color of the food, depending on the consistency. If cattle eat beet pulp, the product will be watery, carrots in excessive concentration lead to a red color, and fishmeal in combined feeds provokes a change in smell: as if a fish had lain down here.

When things get serious

When asked why a cow's milk is bitter, a 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 assistance is needed. Thinking about why homemade milk is bitter, you need to seek help from a doctor, ask to examine the animal, determine the diagnosis and choose a therapeutic program.

You need to understand why cow's milk cream is bitter during treatment. Medicines have a strong effect on the animal's body, any injections,other medicines cause changes in the milky taste.

Fascioliasis

This disease is the most common, and its development always leads to a change in taste. This term is understood as infection with helminths (trematodes) Fasciola hepatica, gigantica. For these parasites, cattle is the main host. Harmful organisms live in the cow's liver, in the bile ducts. Due to the peculiarities of the structure (special suction cups), the parasite is fixed on the wall of the organ and provokes injury to living tissues. As a result, the cow suffers from inflammatory processes, bile stagnates, constant pain appears in the liver area.

The infected animal is rather weak, palpation in the liver area reveals painful symptoms. The cow noticeably gets tired even with small loads, sweating increases. This is most noticeable at the withers and shoulder blades. You can suspect fascioliasis by the bitter taste of milk.

What to do?

If fascioliasis is suspected, it is necessary to take samples of the animal's feces and send them 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 consult 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 development cycle of the parasite. If a cow has picked up harmful parasites while drinking, grazing, helminths develop just in time for this.time. 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 snail that lives in many fresh water bodies.

Pregnant cows

If the milk starts to taste bitter, it's probably time to start. Before that, you need to reduce the frequency of milking, gradually reducing them to zero. This will help the animal gather strength for labor and resolve into a he althy calf, and then feed it. For highly productive cows, the launch should begin one and a half to two months before the birth of offspring. When dry, cattle in need of rest receive the necessary opportunities to preserve and use nutritional components for the developing fetus. Often highly productive animals force the owner to carry out a complex set of works to stop milking. But cows with low productivity often leave on their own.

Bitter milk is evidence of deep pregnancy. This taste shows that a complex work of internal restructuring is taking place in the animal's body, due to the approach of childbirth. In addition, cow's milk is necessary for feeding a calf, and preparation for this process also provokes a change in the taste of the product.

What else plays a role?

Another fairly common reason for a change in milk taste is mastitis. In addition to this characteristic, the process is accompanied by color correction. In rare cases, milk does not taste bitter, but becomes s alty. going onthis is due to milk:

• pus;
• bleeding;
• fibrin flakes.

When the disease is advanced, there is a danger of death of the animal. Often the diagnosis leads to the 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 condition of the heads in the herd in order to prevent such problems.

Cleanliness, beauty

To ensure that milk tastes exactly as expected, it is up to the breeder to keep the barn spotlessly clean. Hygiene is very important, including in preparation for and during the milking process. It is the non-compliance with this condition that explains why milk is bitter when sour: the liquid is filled with harmful microscopic life forms. Hence the bad smell.

What else could be wrong?

Veterinarians pay attention: bitter milk indicates the problems of metabolic processes in the animal's body. Often this indicates a lack of trace elements, malnutrition. Taste is highly dependent on the concentration of cob alt in the body of cattle. In some cases, on the basis of milk bitterness, studies are carried out that reveal abnormalities in the development of internal organs and possible problems of the whole organism.

If milk used to be of good quality, but its taste has suddenly changed, and this is not due to pasture or the expectation of offspring,it is necessary to consult a doctor to prevent possible complications and loss of livestock. This will help in each case to determine why the milk is bitter when standing.

Milk from the store

Sometimes the problem of bad taste is faced by people who are very far from animal husbandry, and who buy milk in ordinary supermarkets in packaged form. According to experts, the reason for 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 option is a feature of processing at high temperature: sometimes this provokes the breakdown of protein structures. Regardless of the reason, it is recommended not to use bitter milk in food.