How To Become A Milker: What It Is and Career Path

What is a milker and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a milker. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.59 an hour? That's $30,339 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 1% and produce 6,900 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreMilkerUS Average

Salary

2.4

Avg. Salary $30,339

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

6.6

Growth rate 1%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

8.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.18%

Asian 1.82%

Black or African American 4.43%

Hispanic or Latino 23.27%

Unknown 3.07%

White 66.22%

Gender

female 41.29%

male 58.71%

Age - 39

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 39

Stress level

6.6

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.4

Complexity level is intermediate

7 - challenging

Work life balance

5.8

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a milker

Explore milker education requirements

Most common milker degrees

High School Diploma

46.5 %

Bachelor's

18.3 %

Associate

16.3 %

Start to develop specific milker skills

Skills	Percentages
Milking	61.33%
Dairy Farm	11.79%
Calf	6.14%
Milk Cows	3.48%
Goats	3.33%

Complete relevant milker training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New milkers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a milker based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real milker resumes.

Research milker duties and responsibilities

Milk cows, treat sick cows, clean stalls/barns, tend calves, and assist with calf births.
Perform tasks such as feeding, medicating, washing, breeding, farrowing, and processing the pigs.
Power wash the milk room when finish milking, shovele the barns, and fed the calves and cows.
Assist farrowing sows through birth, sort pigs by size and by the amount of pigs she can nurse.

Prepare your milker resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your milker resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a milker resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable milker resume templates

Build a professional milker resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your milker resume.