Post by Lannie on Jun 16, 2010 16:13:14 GMT -5
I've been over and through everything, and I think I have it narrowed down to hackberry leaves. I just read something on here a few days ago about hackberry leaves, but I don't remember if it was regarding a cow or a goat. Anyway, the girls LOVE them, and right now that's the only difference in their diets. Cricket is in the cow pen with grass (and weeds), and Bandit is out in the pasture with the same grass (and weeds) and also a bunch of hackberry trees. Last year at this time, that part of the pasture wasn't available to them, but during the summer Rich moved the fences to give them another acre or so of grass and trees, including said hackberry trees. I had already dried Bandit off last summer when that happened, so I didn't experience the off-tasting milk, but it's really strong. Now I'm afraid to let Cricket out of the pen for fear her milk will start tasting like Bandit's! It's not horrible bad, just really kind of a sharp strong flavor. It smells fine. I checked my fridges' temperatures and the milk fridge is at 35 degrees and the regular household fridge is at 40, so I don't think it's a refrigeration problem, and besides, it's not "going bad." I tasted some this morning right after I milked Bandit, and it about knocked me off my feet.
Rich is going to go out and try pruning off all the branches as high as he can reach, so maybe Bandit won't be able to eat as many, and maybe that will help, but even my one lonely milk customer has made remarks about how strong her milk tastes. At first I thought it was just the difference between hay and grass, but no, this is much more. Last summer, Bandit and Cricket cleaned every leaf off every hackberry branch as high as they could reach. The trees were NAKED up to a point, then they had all their leaves at the tops. I never thought that it would make the milk taste bad, but then again, I've never eaten a hackberry leaf. Hmmm... maybe I should, then I could tell if it tastes kind of like how the milk tastes now.
Has anyone else had their cows eat hackberry leaves and had this problem? Because right now that's all I can think it might be, but I don't know until we remove the offending leaves and wait and see what happens to the milk.
~Lannie
Rich is going to go out and try pruning off all the branches as high as he can reach, so maybe Bandit won't be able to eat as many, and maybe that will help, but even my one lonely milk customer has made remarks about how strong her milk tastes. At first I thought it was just the difference between hay and grass, but no, this is much more. Last summer, Bandit and Cricket cleaned every leaf off every hackberry branch as high as they could reach. The trees were NAKED up to a point, then they had all their leaves at the tops. I never thought that it would make the milk taste bad, but then again, I've never eaten a hackberry leaf. Hmmm... maybe I should, then I could tell if it tastes kind of like how the milk tastes now.
Has anyone else had their cows eat hackberry leaves and had this problem? Because right now that's all I can think it might be, but I don't know until we remove the offending leaves and wait and see what happens to the milk.
~Lannie