Jump to content

Menu

Sweetheart (our borrowed milk cow) is here! (pics)


Recommended Posts

God has been very gracious. The day went smoothly--from loading her at the Dairy, to unloading at the vet for a pregnancy check, to reloading, to unloading here, and her first milking here. She did great.

 

She is 5-6 months pregnant, so we will milk her until the end of December and then take her back home to calve. I need to buy another deep freezer because I plan on freezing LOADS of milk. ha ha. Hopefully by the time we run out of milk in the spring, we will be able to buy Sweetheart or another one--God willing.

 

Here she is. The pictures aren't great, but I thought I would post them. She is part Jersey and part Guernsey. She is a Jernsey! ha ha

 

Sweetheart001.jpg

 

 

 

This picture is awful, but you can see her udder. Notice the front two blind quarters. She's still giving almost 4 gallons daily from those two quarters. Amazing.

 

Sweetheart002.jpg

 

 

 

Isabelle wants to know, "Are you my mother?"

 

Sweetheart004.jpg

 

 

 

She is obviously not happy--check out those ears. And the chickens! She isn't used to chickens running around. Poor thing...

 

Sweetheart003.jpg

 

She isn't as friendly as Daisy was--not agressive, just not as curious and people oriented. That is fine. It'll take her a few days to settle in and feel at home. She and Isabelle seem to like each other.:)

 

Blessings,

Tracy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just curious, because my husband would like us to get a milk cow when we move.

 

Do you milk her by hand or do you have a machine. Do you have acreage for grazing or do you just feed her? So if you can't use all the milk what do you do with it? Other than freeze it. .....I guess I could make cheese...

sheryl

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just curious, because my husband would like us to get a milk cow when we move.

 

Do you milk her by hand or do you have a machine. Do you have acreage for grazing or do you just feed her? So if you can't use all the milk what do you do with it? Other than freeze it. .....I guess I could make cheese...

sheryl

 

We milk by hand. I'd love to have a machine, but they are pretty expensive. Milking by hand doesn't take that long, once you learn how. Maybe 20 minutes or so. Dd8 milked a little this morning, and ds14 milked quite a bit this evening. They enjoy milking.

 

We have acreage for grazing, but of course in the winter she'll just eat hay and feed. As far as the milk, I make it into butter and cheese and ice cream. I'm going to make yogurt also--hopefully I can get to that Monday.

 

It really helps with the food bill, because there are so many items that I don't have to buy. I'm excited that you are thinking of getting a milk cow. I just love having one. It is a lot of work, but if you love your cow and what she gives you, you can push through the difficulty (like getting out of bed before 6 A.M. and going to a cold barn:eek:).

 

 

Just for fun, here is a picture of this morning's milk pail once I got it to the kitchen. This is before filtering/straining it.

 

Sweetheart.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...