Post by lonecone on Jul 29, 2023 16:41:48 GMT -5
Hey I just found somewhere to ask cow questions that has people who have had experience with cows!!!!! Yeaaahh!
We have a Jersey girl that we have been milking for a year and recently dried her up (at least mostly dried her up) because she was supposedly going to calve. She didn’t seem to get the message that she needed to lower her milk production for several days but she finally did slow down and we saw a small discharge from her and she seemed to be opening up a bit so we thought it would be any day………we were a little concerned because she wasn’t completely dried off. We carried on and decided to take it one day at a time as we were doing everything we knew to be the right thing to dry her up and supposedly we had about 2 months before she was due.
Well after the few days of her looking like she was soo close then she closed back up and we weren’t milking her at all but her bag hadn’t begun to shrink. Well another week went by and then another and still no calf but sometime soon after then she acted like she was in heat and the steers were attracted to her but we had no bulls around so we didn’t think too much of it. Well sometime during all of this then her dear yearling 😁 was seen nursing her and she was entirely having every minute of it (we were a bit unimpressed to say the least). The yearling (hear after referred to as Dannie) has become an escape artist and the mama (hear after referred to as Francie) is encouraging every bit of it and doesn’t have the mentality to kick this big baby of or to even help in any degree with the weaning process so we completely separated them, always keeping one or the other in the corral rather than just in different pastures.
We also got a vet to do a recent pregnancy check on Francie to find out she looks nice and healthy and open—not at all expecting now so we then figured ok well she clearly has a bag that isn’t shrinking yet thanks to Dancie) so we thought to actually put the milker on her again to see if we could in the least keep her in milk until we could get her bred and at best maybe have some milk for a few more months since she clearly wasn’t having a calf anytime soon. What we got was two gallons of something weird—it smelled much like milk but looked to have globular parts of grease that kept separating and then we bottled it up and refrigerated it overnight. The next day it had separated into about half on top looking somewhat like cream but the bottom was kinda watery but ivory-tannish in color.
We are just wondering now what to do? Is she being ruined because of what the yearling has done? Are we adding to the problem milking her? Or is this a temporary issue that will resolve with some consistent milking and bringing her grain back up to where it was when we were milking her?
If anyone here has any suggestions or information we would appreciate it very much.
We have a Jersey girl that we have been milking for a year and recently dried her up (at least mostly dried her up) because she was supposedly going to calve. She didn’t seem to get the message that she needed to lower her milk production for several days but she finally did slow down and we saw a small discharge from her and she seemed to be opening up a bit so we thought it would be any day………we were a little concerned because she wasn’t completely dried off. We carried on and decided to take it one day at a time as we were doing everything we knew to be the right thing to dry her up and supposedly we had about 2 months before she was due.
Well after the few days of her looking like she was soo close then she closed back up and we weren’t milking her at all but her bag hadn’t begun to shrink. Well another week went by and then another and still no calf but sometime soon after then she acted like she was in heat and the steers were attracted to her but we had no bulls around so we didn’t think too much of it. Well sometime during all of this then her dear yearling 😁 was seen nursing her and she was entirely having every minute of it (we were a bit unimpressed to say the least). The yearling (hear after referred to as Dannie) has become an escape artist and the mama (hear after referred to as Francie) is encouraging every bit of it and doesn’t have the mentality to kick this big baby of or to even help in any degree with the weaning process so we completely separated them, always keeping one or the other in the corral rather than just in different pastures.
We also got a vet to do a recent pregnancy check on Francie to find out she looks nice and healthy and open—not at all expecting now so we then figured ok well she clearly has a bag that isn’t shrinking yet thanks to Dancie) so we thought to actually put the milker on her again to see if we could in the least keep her in milk until we could get her bred and at best maybe have some milk for a few more months since she clearly wasn’t having a calf anytime soon. What we got was two gallons of something weird—it smelled much like milk but looked to have globular parts of grease that kept separating and then we bottled it up and refrigerated it overnight. The next day it had separated into about half on top looking somewhat like cream but the bottom was kinda watery but ivory-tannish in color.
We are just wondering now what to do? Is she being ruined because of what the yearling has done? Are we adding to the problem milking her? Or is this a temporary issue that will resolve with some consistent milking and bringing her grain back up to where it was when we were milking her?
If anyone here has any suggestions or information we would appreciate it very much.