The dairy farm has always been one of the central branches of the kibbutz. From its early days, when the number of cows stood at three, to the present day milking herd of 300, it has always made an important contribution to the kibbutz finances. Working with animals requires patience and care but whereas the first kibbutzniks milked by hand and did a large amount of heavy, physical work, today's dairy workers have a lot more technology at their disposal. Firstly, you won't see the Holstein-Friesian cows wandering around in fields - in an arid country like Israel cattle grazing in open fields is impractical. Instead they are zero grazed, meaning they are housed in large, open-sided yards and their daily rations are brought to them. But forget images of hauling food by hand - an Israeli manufactured mixer/feeder self loads a mix of silage and concentrates and moves from yard to yard delivering specific rations to the different groups of cows. As well as the milking herd, there are about 400 followers, i.e. calves both male and female. The females are raised as replacements for the older milking cows, whilst the bulls are fattened for 18 months and then sold for slaughter. The milking operation is mechanized and computerized. Each cow has a tag permanently attached to her leg. When she enters the milking parlour (the cows are milked three times a day) the computerized milking machine reads her number. The computer software assesses her activity during the previous hours, which gives a good indication of whether she is in heat and ready for artificial insemination. It then records her milk yield and also checks for infection in the milk. The computer also senses when the milk flow has virtually stopped and automatically removes the milking machine thus reducing the risk of overmilking. Israeli cows are some of the highest yielding in the world. The average milk yield on Kfar Masaryk is 10,300 litres per year. Despite this mechanization the work can still be hard and physically demanding. One day a milker may begin work at 2.30 in the morning and the next day he may work until 10.30 at night. Taking care of the calves is meticulous work and is the kind of job that can only really be learned through experience. There are seven permanent workers in the dairy, made up of kibbutzniks and outside workers and there is also additional, occasional help from school age children of the kibbutz. The overall aim of the the dairy farm is, nowadays, to increase the quality and fat content of the milk. This had become more important than sheer quantity of milk. The Kfar Masaryk dairy farm is well equipped to meet this challenge.