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Good News Week

Self-milking Cows (GNW 6/7/09: Strange But True)

Coming soon – self-milking cows! Dairy Australia says technology is nearly ready that will allow “voluntary milking”, whereby cows wander into the dairy whenever they choose and get milked by robotic arms. Cows and robots – together at last!

Of course treating cows with such respect and freedom is bound to make them much more delicious when butchered.

However, they still do require some encouragement to get killed and gutted.

At last, barnyard cows will be free from the tyranny of the clock! Rejoice, cows, for at last you are truly free! At least until it’s steak-time.

Plans have now started on helping cows self-marinate, self-bone, and self-sear-on-both-sides-and-serve-with-a-red-wine-gravy.

In a similar scheme, farmers are now installing robotic self-serve spit-roasters.

A laser pointed at the teats will identify the cow and where to best fit the cups. And yet we still don’t have lightsabers.

Of course, a cow’s willingness to be milked is different depending on which robot is milking them. Having C3P0 yank on your teats is just creepy.

Mmm! Robot-fresh!

Previously for cows to milk themselves they ran a real risk of hoofed udder.

Unfortunately, there have been some terrible contaminations to the milk when a bull wandered in by mistake. (Although it’s meant to be high in protein.)

Everybody wins – the cows get to relieve their milk when they want, the farmer doesn’t have to do the milking, and the robots get to take over just that little bit more of the world.

I think it’s a mistake. Give the cows a little taste of freedom, and before you know it they’ll arrange a bovine revolution!

But putting the robots in charge of the milk is just asking for mass extermination!

The milking robots can be heard across the fields, calling to the cows – (dalek voice) UNG-U-LATE! UNG-U-LATE!

Some cows have decided they don’t want to be milked at all. In fact, some of them have decided they are chickens.

If only I had some system whereby I could milk myself. / milk myself whenever I wanted. / milk myself with robotic arms.

On average, the cows voluntarily milk themselves just over twice a day, though some cows volunteer for five milkings. The hyperactive ones.

Unfortunately the resulting milk can only be drunk by other robots.

Cows being milked by robots. There’s some sicko out there who’s really turned on right now.

It’s a touching show of respect for the cows, and many have been quite moooooooooooooved.

In return, the cows will learn how to keep the robots virus-free. / will learn basic soldering, computer maintenance, and low-grade robotics.

Sheep are looking forward to having their own self-shearers, chickens are keen for a self-layer, and bulls are hanging for some robotic relief.

Getting the cows milked by a machine is also a great way to get an incredibly fresh cappuccino. / ungu-latte.

By Wok and Mat

Warwick Holt and Mat Blackwell are long-time writing partners, who created the mega-award winning web series Bruce, and wrote loads of jokes for TV shows including Good News Week, The Sideshow and The Glass House. Several years of their raw material for those shows is posted right here on this blog.

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