Natural consistency of cow's milk

[HareBrain]

This morning on a walk I saw some beef cattle and watched a calf suckling its mother. It was making a messy job of it, and quite a bit of the milk escaped, which let me see that it looked very thick, more like single cream than even the full-fat cow's milk you get normally. I just wondered, is this more what milk is like in wild cattle, does anyone know? Has the breeding process by which we've got to high-yield dairy cattle watered down the milk?

 

[Valtharius]

I don't think it's the breeding, but milk naturally separates into different elements if left alone, some of which are thicker and and some thinner. Modern dairy processors have all sorts of wizardry to ensure that doesn't happen to the milk we buy. In the US all the milk bottles have printed on the label somewhere the word "Homogenized", indicating such processes.

 

[CupofJoe]

From the little live milk [aka unpasteurised] I've tasted it tasted more like thin single cream. I think the process of getting a standardised whole, semi or skimmed milk means the extra cream is taken out.

 

[HareBrain]

I've had raw milk from dairy cows, and it was delicious, but still nowhere near as thick as this stuff looked.

 

[Alex The G and T]

If the calf was less than eight days old; you might have been seeing Colostrum.

Colostrum - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Parson]

I think @Alex The G and T has it right. In my youth we would feed bucket calves their mother's milk and it was the same milk we sold. There are some cows who have richer/creamier milk (Jersey, Swiss) but most milk (at least in the States) which is bottled for human consumption is from Holstein cows, whose milk is slightly less creamy, but whose quantity of milk is much greater, probably a galloon or more per milking. They are the preferred milk cow because quantity more than makes up for the slightly lesser price. (Unless things have changed dramatically lately.)

 

[HareBrain]

I think the calf must have been more than eight days old, as it was much bigger than another nearby calf which I assumed must have been almost new-born. I was surprised to see it still suckling at that size (and oddly, the new-born was grazing, or trying to).

I'm assuming the cow it was suckling must have been its mother, rather than the new-born's?

The cattle weren't Holstein but dark-red beef cattle (maybe North Devon). But from what @Parson says it does seem like beef cattle milk might be creamier because dairy cattle have been bred for quantity not richness, so that's probably the answer. Thanks all.