Post by lstein on May 25, 2023 9:38:28 GMT -5
I have a not ideal situation with our Jersey and I'm looking for some advice.
A bunch of background info in no particular order:
Due to a lot of things happening, we weren't able to get her bred when we should of. (learning to Ai, running out of straws, missing heat cycles due to blizzards, cow deciding to escape and walk a mile home instead of staying with the bull she was on a date with...twice, etc.) So she is currently in her 14th month of lactation and still giving about 3 gal. a day. I think she's a little on the thin side, which is another part of this not ideal situation.
Not to jinx myself but I believe I finally was able to get her bred this last cycle with Ai'ing her myself on 4/30. I will be able to find out for sure next week, when I can send in a milk sample but she hasn't shown signs of coming back into heat yet. Fingers Crossed.....
She gets 4# sweet feed, 1 # cracked corn, 1 cup Boss and 1 cup of soaked Beet Pellets - morning and night. She has access to a bale and pasture all day but gets locked up with the bale at night. Also always has access to loose mineral and a cobalt block.
We recently sold the two older calves that she had been feeding, and she now has a week and a half old foster calf with her. As of now I'm still getting about 1-1/2 to 2ish gal a day when I milk. (Or if I don't need the milk I bring in one of our older steers just to empty her out, this is his only access to her.)
I made the decision to just keep her in milk longer instead of having a long dry period. I hope this was the right call?
Other than the not ideal timeline. Is there anything glaringly obvious or anything I should adjust to help put more weight on her? I know it's hard to help with no pictures, I'll get them asap. The ones I took this morning didn't work for some reason.
I've been thinking of maybe starting to separate our calves from the cows and do supervised feedings instead...but our cows love their calves and it's honestly just nice to see them all together happy.
Thank you for making it through that jumbled mess!
A bunch of background info in no particular order:
Due to a lot of things happening, we weren't able to get her bred when we should of. (learning to Ai, running out of straws, missing heat cycles due to blizzards, cow deciding to escape and walk a mile home instead of staying with the bull she was on a date with...twice, etc.) So she is currently in her 14th month of lactation and still giving about 3 gal. a day. I think she's a little on the thin side, which is another part of this not ideal situation.
Not to jinx myself but I believe I finally was able to get her bred this last cycle with Ai'ing her myself on 4/30. I will be able to find out for sure next week, when I can send in a milk sample but she hasn't shown signs of coming back into heat yet. Fingers Crossed.....
She gets 4# sweet feed, 1 # cracked corn, 1 cup Boss and 1 cup of soaked Beet Pellets - morning and night. She has access to a bale and pasture all day but gets locked up with the bale at night. Also always has access to loose mineral and a cobalt block.
We recently sold the two older calves that she had been feeding, and she now has a week and a half old foster calf with her. As of now I'm still getting about 1-1/2 to 2ish gal a day when I milk. (Or if I don't need the milk I bring in one of our older steers just to empty her out, this is his only access to her.)
I made the decision to just keep her in milk longer instead of having a long dry period. I hope this was the right call?
Other than the not ideal timeline. Is there anything glaringly obvious or anything I should adjust to help put more weight on her? I know it's hard to help with no pictures, I'll get them asap. The ones I took this morning didn't work for some reason.
I've been thinking of maybe starting to separate our calves from the cows and do supervised feedings instead...but our cows love their calves and it's honestly just nice to see them all together happy.
Thank you for making it through that jumbled mess!