--- title: Udder Bliss: One Cow, Three Cats and Some (Very) Fresh Milk description: In 1954, LIFE's Nat Farbman made a series of photos of some enterprising (and entertaining) cats on a dairy farm near Fresno, California. canonical: https://time.com/3690638/udder-bliss-one-cow-three-cats-and-some-very-fresh-milk/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-08-29T20:23:10.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:05:56.153Z og:title: Udder Bliss: One Cow, Three Cats and Some (Very) Fresh Milk og:description: In 1954, LIFE's Nat Farbman made a series of photos of some enterprising (and entertaining) cats on a dairy farm near Fresno, California. og:url: https://time.com/3690638/udder-bliss-one-cow-three-cats-and-some-very-fresh-milk/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49a22f9ae5a5499/69877cfd524fc0f86ddec3dc/150130-cat-cow-farbman.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Two, Cats, Blackie and Brownie, 1954 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Udder Bliss: One Cow, Three Cats and Some (Very) Fresh Milk twitter:description: In 1954, LIFE's Nat Farbman made a series of photos of some enterprising (and entertaining) cats on a dairy farm near Fresno, California. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte49a22f9ae5a5499/69877cfd524fc0f86ddec3dc/150130-cat-cow-farbman.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Udder Bliss: One Cow, Three Cats and Some (Very) Fresh Milk by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Aug 29, 2013 8:23 PM UTC  Brownie gets the milk as Blackie waits his turn. Brownie gets the milk as Blackie waits his turn.Nat Farbman—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Aug 29, 2013 8:23 PM UTC In 1954, LIFE photographer Nat Farbman made a series of pictures of some enterprising (and entertaining) felines on Art Badertscher’s dairy farm near Fresno, Calif. It seems that one of Badertscher’s cats, Squirrley, rose up on her hind legs one day for a squirt of milk right from a cow’s udder—and ever since, the farmer had been training all of the farm’s cats to do the same. In Farbman’s most famous picture of the critters—the shot above that has been reproduced countless times through the years—Brownie (Squirrley’s son) makes a perfect catch while Blackie, a stray that “just wandered in one day and joined the act,” waits his turn. In the shot below, Blackie gets the good stuff while Squirrely (right) and Brownie duke it out.   Brownie gets the milk as Blackie waits his turn. 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