🪣 Bucket

A milk bucket (milking pail) is a handled container that catches milk at milking and carries it away from the cow. It can be wood or metal. Museums hold a wooden one from Southern Africa and a steel one made for a milking machine.

Cleanliness starts here. FAO says milk has to be kept clean during milking, storage and transport, and all the equipment cleaned and sanitised. The strainer filter must be clean, and animals or dry material should never travel with the milk. FAO likes containers that are light but strong, smooth, and free of any taste, and it says to avoid copper and iron.

The Horniman Museum has a wooden milking pail from Southern Africa. It is a cylinder that narrows toward the base and the top, with carved handles and a stained pattern of trefoils and leaves. The record gives no date.

Museum Wales holds a pail from around 1956 in stainless steel and rubber, made by R.J. Fullwood and Bland for a bucket-type milking machine. It is 37.5 cm high, 19.7 cm across the top and 33.6 cm at the base. The body is welded to the base, and the handle carries rubber rings.

So you have two pails with different materials and the same job. Next to a milk can, which FAO sizes at 50 litres, the pail is smaller. Compared with a bottle, it is a tool, not a package for sale. If you milk by hand, smooth metal is easier to scrub, and FAO wants clean milk all the way from the cow to the kitchen.