Learning to Milk - The UDDER simulator

Simulation is nothing new, and we have quoted many of the original simulators and their designers in previous articles... I happened across this when recently researching models used in Veterinary Simulation.

Background - During the 1st and 2nd World Wars many male farm labourers in Britain joined the armed forces and the shortage of workers on the land was filled by a female workforce known as the Land Army. Many of these women were from the cities and had no experience of farm work and needed to be trained.

Simulation tools were developed to teach the Physical skills required to undertake the countryside work - enter the Artificial Udder.

The Artist -In 1940 Evelyn Dunbar was appointed an official war artist by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee (WAAC). In her works she recorded contributions to the war effort being made by women. This painting, accepted by the WAAC in 1940 and now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, is of three Land Army girls learning to milk using artificial udders.

Milking Practice with Artificial Udders (Art.IWM ART LD 766) image: Three Land Army girls practising with artificial rubber ‘udders’, learning the milking technique.

Copyright: ? IWM. Original Source: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/8162Evely

Evelyn Dunbar Died in 1960, but some of her work is still owned by Oxford Brookes University here in the UK.

The citation from the Imperial War Museum

“Land Army girls are introduced to agricultural practice and ‘nature’ through the use of contemporary technology. Dunbar plays with the obvious visual humour of the surreal situation. At what point does the machine stop pretending to be a cow? The painting is also a comment on how technologically driven modern, urban life has now become the means of access to both agriculture and, by implication, the natural world.”

Random fact

Modern Day Udder simulators are not too far removed from those of 1940, and are made for both Agricultural Colleges and for "milking competitions".

They are Rubber in construction, and usually come attached to a table - Similar to the 1940's version.

Whole Cows are also available with the Udders attached.(Fibreglass).