First Milk in Capalonga

Capalonga is a fourth class municipality in the Province of Camarines Norte located 73km Northwest of Daet and 367km South of Manila. My first impression is that its seclusion from the national highway has limited its growth as a municipality. However, the town boasts of rich coastal and marine resources as well as fertile farmlands.

About four years ago, Dr. Hulsey Orit, then an agriculturist of the municipality, asked NDA for dairy cattle frozen semen. He was trained in artificial insemination and the town invested on a liquid nitrogen tank. There was no reason not to give him what he asked for. So Hulsey did artificial insemination with the purpose of upgrading the local stocks into dairy. This continued for sometime without much NDA supervision.

Last year, we were invited to conduct a dairy orientation seminar for those who are interested. We learned that the municipality has established a two-cow dairy farm making use of the upgraded animals. It was a surprise indeed.

By this time, Hulsey is now the municipal agriculturist, and have undergone training on dairy in the Netherlands. However, they were having problems with the performance of the animals. They could only get half a litter in every milking.

We tried to understand the problem by asking questions. Surely the animal is capable of producing more than half a litter since it was a product of crossing native cattle with dairy through artificial insemination.

We advised them to separate the calf from the dam every 4pm. This way, more milk can be taken from the animal. Hulsey and the rest of his staff hesitated. They feared that it would affect the calf’s growth. We simply said that if it’s a dairy animal then it would have more than enough milk for the calf.

The following day we visited the farm again and observed them milking. We pointed some things that they need to improve on in the milking routine. But the best part was that they were able to get about four liters from just one animal. Not bad for the first day. We later learned that the animals averaged about five liters.

As soon as we finished milking we taught Hulsey how to pasteurize and bottle the milk using only kitchen vessels and utensils. Hulsey, obviously proud, literally paraded the milk to the municipal hall and presented the milk to the Mayor.