Milk Cows

Doomsday Prepper Forums

Help Support Doomsday Prepper Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Today was our first day of loading up in the milking staunch to eat. May need to rethink the way we did it this morning. I haltered her up and started down the lane heading for the milking parlor before Hunny started laying down feed, BUT she heard it and stopped. I basically had to drag and coax her the whole way. She has gotten to the point where we do not both fit into the staunch. I have basically lead her thru, only stopping for a short period and then go out. Today was different. I basically lead her in, just a couple feet away from the feed I laid out and then I went out the back. Had to spank her on the backside to get her all the way up. She did good and ate, but not the amount she normally would. I get it, it was a new environment to eat in, but she also had no competition. Think tomorrow I need to get her totally out before Hunny starts feeding the others. I will need to take care of her before the goats.
 
Training has gotten better now that Hunny fixed our issues on the first day in the milking parlor due to settling. I do have to keep goats away while I am trying to get Claire out and turned around to load up into the milking staunch. We both can not load up now due to her size and I am only able to go in so far. I had already laid out her feed thinking she would smell it. So now, we need to do her before the other cows. She loads up to a point, and hunny needs to pour in feed. No problem, if it is 2 of us. Eventually I honestly think it will just be a natural thing for her to do. If it is just me, I know she knows what whoa means so know she and I could figure it out if need be. With the milk my baby girl can provide in a short period of time, can actually mean a lot in these times of our economy. Just hoping that is never the case.
 
Right now I am leaning towards Clara Belle. When we got to the dairy, he had 2 to chose from. One the 2 week old and then this one that was 6 weeks old. I felt that the 6 week old could handle the stress of being moved a little better than the younger and this one seemed to have warmed up to me pretty fast. She was sniffing and licking me from the get go. A large goat halter ended up being a perfect fit for her and we tied her into the back of the truck. We had put the headache rack on the back and also some boards to hold her in and not fall out. Lose enough that she could lay down if she wanted to and we also put some fresh hay down for her to lay on and she did end up eating some on the way home too. She calmed down rather quickly and was basically up and down on the 150 miles home.
Once here, I put her in a smaller pen I use as my sick barn. I wanted her in a contained area where she and I can bond and she gets down the bottle feeding first. I spent the first hour and a half out with her and after a lot of coaxing she downed 2 quarts of milk replacer. I did end up putting my goat Sissy over with her so she doesn't get to lonely when I'm not out there, but in all honesty Sissy didn't seem impressed.:)
Next milk feeding should be at 5 AM but she also has hay out there to eat on and fresh water to drink. I just needed to come inside to eat since I hadn't yet today. . . . I was getting a headache so that had to get taken care of. I'll be heading back out soon.
Before I read this post, I looked at her and said Clara Belle.
 
I'm tired tonight, after work I came home to do housework again, so brought Claire straight to the milking staunch to run her thru. Did give her a little grain and then had to basically coax and drag her back to the main pasture. She was upset we didn't have our normal "walk", but we have thunder and a few big drops coming down. I got no loving tonight, but I do understand.
 
So Claire had her little bull calf a couple weeks ago with no problem. Since I was off, I started milking today. Claire did NOT want to leave her calf Winston, yes he has big shoes to step into with that kind of name, so we brought him along. Sorry, but after I tried to coax with basically every step I went, it was just not happening. Once we got her to the milking parlor she loaded right on up and started to eat her feed. After Hunny started up the milk machine, she got startled and pooped. Hunny turned on the water full blasted which freaked her out even more and she basically tried to climb out, breaking her feed bucket. I calmed her down and then untied her. I think it was just too many changes for her at once. I took her back out to her pasture with little Winston following behind. Later Hunny and I went back out. I wasn't even sure Claire would let me halter her, but she did very good. I asked Hunny to just hold her so I could hand milk. She did AWESOME!! I did not strip her out since Winston is nursing but I did get about a gallon today. Her front teats are really well formed. Her back ones, not so much but hopefully it it gets better? I just don't know yet. My first girl Betsey, retired dairy cow, had all 4 really easy to handle teats.
 
We have tried starting the milk machine once Claire is in the milking staunch but she freaks out when the motor starts up and then wants to jump the gate, knocking over her feed which is supposed to keep her occupied. Hunny came up with the idea of putting the pump in the red barn and just running a hose thru the wall that separates the red barn and the milking parlor. She did MUCH better! In the past, Hunny would "talk" to her while I hand milked after finding out she was not going to be good with the loud noises of the pump. This evening we basically changed post. I was the one in front of her trying to talk to her and sing to calm her down. She did so very GOOD!! She still gets "freaked" when she hears the suction, but not so bad that she was ready to jump a gate. We didn't even put all 4 on, since the front teats are the ones her calf, Winston normally sucks on, so just did the back 2. Still got 1 1/4 gallons at this evenings milking. My Honduras friend is wanting to make cheese so I gave her a gallon. I had to explain to her the skimming off of cream since I left all of it on for her. Skim it off to make butter and since she is an awesome baker told her to make her sweet Hunny a buttermilk pie. . . He was all for that with the leftover buttermilk. I explained and she understood, but then she tells me she wants to understand good so after she calls her husband in, she tells me to reexplain just so she knows
 
We had four milk cows in 1960's & 1970's.
The biggest thing was the pasture, five acre paddock, a ten acre paddock & a fourteen acre paddock, but we had horses on the pasture too.
We feed in the morning & in the evening when we milked, no brace, the milk person had to keep the cow hoof out of the milk pail.
When I was in school, I milk evenings only, out of school I milked morning & evenings.
Our biggest problem was wild garlic taste in the milk, I now know if you lock the cow away from the garlic for two hours or more the garlic taste will not be in the milk. Wish I had known that when I was eight years old.
Mother made butter/butter milk, ice cream, her biscuits were to die for, never had store bought bread until I was in High school.
 
I have an under utilized back 10A. Not enough for a beef cow, not enough for a Dairy cow. With my wife’s love of milk, I have often wondered if the diminished output would be worth it. I don’t drink milk. She only drinks skim.
Goats on this property have become Mt Lion Bait In the past.
 
I have an under utilized back 10A. Not enough for a beef cow, not enough for a Dairy cow. With my wife’s love of milk, I have often wondered if the diminished output would be worth it. I don’t drink milk. She only drinks skim.
Goats on this property have become Mt Lion Bait In the past.

If I were in your shoes I’d definitely get a goat. You can make cheeses and have milk for recipes.
 
If I were in your shoes I’d definitely get a goat. You can make cheeses and have milk for recipes.
Out of the 20 people that live up here, we are getting about 1 sighting a week. Everytime one is captured in town, they release next door to me.

Last week one basically posed for a picture.
6AD49805-C526-4827-8CA8-9947D32BA418.jpeg
 
I noticed yesterday that my girl was starting to get a hard spot on her back right quadrant so thinking the start of mastitis. . . Our weather is just not cooperating at all and she has been laying in the mud. We have had evening rains most everyday for the last few weeks. So after work I went to TS to get an antibiotic that needs to get administered once tonight and again 12 hours later, in the morning. I am off tomorrow so it really works out well for us, since Claire does not budge with only Hunny. Have to say, that WILL BE A PROBLEM when it will only be him at morning milking's when she no longer has her calf on her and I am at work. On the bright side, I have plenty of milk that should get us thru until Thursday when I can collect to store again.
 
Update on Claire. Vet was not able to come out until today, even though he was scheduled to come the last few, but yet cancelled on us every time. Each time we had her loaded on up in the milking staunch and pumped out ready to go. . . This vet just honestly makes me frustrated. Honestly do not like him at all now when we tried to AI Big Momma and he did nothing to get her off my Hunny when she had him pinned on the skidster with her head and it was all me. Anyway he changed times on us today from 11:30 to 9:30. I did have a chance to leave work early today, but there was no way I could be home at the 9:30 time so it was up to my Hunny. Doc said her infection was not bad at all. . . Yeah, because we caught it quick and gave her TODAY antibiotics the day after I found the problem. . . He did give her some LA300 along with another med that Hunny does not remember the name of. Also said give her the TODAY treatments for the next 2 days. He gave her an injectible kind today. Should knock it completely out. Hunny did say that she did not like her shots at all today so I understood her hesitation on loading up into the milking parlor tonight. While I was cleaning her udders, she kept looking back to what I was doing and taking to turn around. My poor baby girl is just stressed right now. Two shots this morning and she is now in heat being chased around the back pasture. I feel bad for her. She had so much mud on her today.
 
Have to admit, it's been a few months, but I went out to walk my girl. When I called, she came up to get haltered with no probs. Jersey's are very smart cows and she just stepped inline like there was no pause at all.
Cows have very long memories. They will remember when someone has been nice to them, or if someone has mistreated them. Treat them nice and cattle are very easy to handle. We had some wild range cows up here who would usually run when anyone came around. But they would let our granddaughter walk up and pet them.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top