Post by Lannie on Jun 5, 2011 12:57:03 GMT -5
You'd think after all this time, I'd have figured her out by now, wouldn't you?
In an attempt to get Bandit to come into heat, I gave her an Estrumate shot this morning. That makes her let down her milk, like Oxytocin does. I figured it would be a good time to see how much she was holding back for her fat calf.
When I was handmilking her, she'd give me about half a gallon right away, then the milk would stop and I'd have to bring her calf out to get her to let down fully. Then I'd milk again and get *almost* all the rest. She still held some cream, so if I wanted that, I'd bring the calf out a second time and then get whatever cream she let me have, which I'll be the first to admit, wasn't ALL of it, but it was enough to keep me in butter.
Since she calved this time, and I've been using the machine on her, she's been giving me a LOT more milk, without having to use the calf. The creamline is still skinny, but again, not that bad. I've been bringing her in and milking both back quarters and one front quarter, leaving one front for little Taz, and she gives me on average 1-3/4 gallons a day that way. If you remember, I went to once a day with her a week after calving in an attempt to reduce her production because I was afraid she was going to be giving about 8 gallons a day this time, and I can NOT use that much milk.
So, back to this morning... I gave her the shot, which took four sticks for some reason. The first stick made her jump and lunge backward and then when I tried to depress the plunger she freaked out and the needle almost came out, so I had to remove it. I HATE giving shots, so this was bad news for me. I had to try again, and the next time I didn't jab hard enough and it didn't penetrate the skin, but she still jumped and tried to rear back, and even started pawing the stanchion floor! So I left the "sore" side and went around to the other side to try again. I scratched and rubbed and slapped and jabbed, again, not hitting hard enough. OMG, what IS it with me and needles?? Back she went, this time so hard I could hear the 2x6s of the headlock CREAKING. OK, deep breath, one more time... scratch, rub, "GOOD girl," slap, slap, slap, JAB! This time it went in all the way to the hilt. She was trying her best to buck, but couldn't quite manage to heave her huge bulk enough with her head caught in the headlock. Finally, she stopped thrashing, and I managed to get the rest of the shot administered.
I had the shakes so bad by that point I didn't know if I'd be able to get the milker on her, but I did. Whew. I have to milk her backs first by themselves because of the size of her udder, so I got them on and sat there and cooed to her and tried to calm myself a bit. She was fine by then, though, and just continued eating. I had honestly expected her to shoot a stream of liquid poop out during the shot-giving debacle, but amazingly, she didn't. She just stood there quietly after that, but it took forever to finish milking the back quarters.
After they were done, I took the milker off, and then did the one front quarter, which by that time was HUGE. It also took way longer than normal to milk, and while it was, the backs started filling up again! LOL! She hadn't finished letting down by the time I took the inflations off, either that or there just wasn't enough ROOM in there for all that milk so she had to wait until they were empty to refill them. I don't know, but anyway, I had to shut it off, take the front one off, restart and put the back ones on again, and they ran for another several minutes before they were empty, and then the FRONT one had more milk, so I had to go through the whole thing again! Bandit had long since finished her treats and had been standing there heaving deep sighs every time I restarted the pump. "Goodness, woman, are you not done YET?" LOL!
Finally I decided I WAS done, and I took the milker off. I could hardly lift it! I decided to keep her milk separate from Cricket's today, not only to see exactly how much she gave, but I was afraid Cricket's gallon wouldn't FIT in the bucket! LOL! So I hauled everything back to the house and found Bandit had given me 3 gallons. And that was only milking 3 quarters. So maybe I wasn't so far off thinking she might get up to 8 gallons this time.
At least now I know why I have such fat calves. If that one front quarter had 3 quarts to a gallon in it, and she holds up 1-1/4 gallons or so on the rest of them, that means he's getting more than 2 gallons in the morning, plus another 3 or 4 (?) during the day. She's been pretty empty in the evenings when we lock Taz up for the night.
So my wonderful, precious, GOOD girl has been tricking me AGAIN, making me think I was getting most of the milk from those 3 quarters every morning, and now I find out she has fooled me again!
Before I die, I would like to be smarter than my cow at least once. Just once, that's all I ask.
~Lannie
In an attempt to get Bandit to come into heat, I gave her an Estrumate shot this morning. That makes her let down her milk, like Oxytocin does. I figured it would be a good time to see how much she was holding back for her fat calf.
When I was handmilking her, she'd give me about half a gallon right away, then the milk would stop and I'd have to bring her calf out to get her to let down fully. Then I'd milk again and get *almost* all the rest. She still held some cream, so if I wanted that, I'd bring the calf out a second time and then get whatever cream she let me have, which I'll be the first to admit, wasn't ALL of it, but it was enough to keep me in butter.
Since she calved this time, and I've been using the machine on her, she's been giving me a LOT more milk, without having to use the calf. The creamline is still skinny, but again, not that bad. I've been bringing her in and milking both back quarters and one front quarter, leaving one front for little Taz, and she gives me on average 1-3/4 gallons a day that way. If you remember, I went to once a day with her a week after calving in an attempt to reduce her production because I was afraid she was going to be giving about 8 gallons a day this time, and I can NOT use that much milk.
So, back to this morning... I gave her the shot, which took four sticks for some reason. The first stick made her jump and lunge backward and then when I tried to depress the plunger she freaked out and the needle almost came out, so I had to remove it. I HATE giving shots, so this was bad news for me. I had to try again, and the next time I didn't jab hard enough and it didn't penetrate the skin, but she still jumped and tried to rear back, and even started pawing the stanchion floor! So I left the "sore" side and went around to the other side to try again. I scratched and rubbed and slapped and jabbed, again, not hitting hard enough. OMG, what IS it with me and needles?? Back she went, this time so hard I could hear the 2x6s of the headlock CREAKING. OK, deep breath, one more time... scratch, rub, "GOOD girl," slap, slap, slap, JAB! This time it went in all the way to the hilt. She was trying her best to buck, but couldn't quite manage to heave her huge bulk enough with her head caught in the headlock. Finally, she stopped thrashing, and I managed to get the rest of the shot administered.
I had the shakes so bad by that point I didn't know if I'd be able to get the milker on her, but I did. Whew. I have to milk her backs first by themselves because of the size of her udder, so I got them on and sat there and cooed to her and tried to calm myself a bit. She was fine by then, though, and just continued eating. I had honestly expected her to shoot a stream of liquid poop out during the shot-giving debacle, but amazingly, she didn't. She just stood there quietly after that, but it took forever to finish milking the back quarters.
After they were done, I took the milker off, and then did the one front quarter, which by that time was HUGE. It also took way longer than normal to milk, and while it was, the backs started filling up again! LOL! She hadn't finished letting down by the time I took the inflations off, either that or there just wasn't enough ROOM in there for all that milk so she had to wait until they were empty to refill them. I don't know, but anyway, I had to shut it off, take the front one off, restart and put the back ones on again, and they ran for another several minutes before they were empty, and then the FRONT one had more milk, so I had to go through the whole thing again! Bandit had long since finished her treats and had been standing there heaving deep sighs every time I restarted the pump. "Goodness, woman, are you not done YET?" LOL!
Finally I decided I WAS done, and I took the milker off. I could hardly lift it! I decided to keep her milk separate from Cricket's today, not only to see exactly how much she gave, but I was afraid Cricket's gallon wouldn't FIT in the bucket! LOL! So I hauled everything back to the house and found Bandit had given me 3 gallons. And that was only milking 3 quarters. So maybe I wasn't so far off thinking she might get up to 8 gallons this time.
At least now I know why I have such fat calves. If that one front quarter had 3 quarts to a gallon in it, and she holds up 1-1/4 gallons or so on the rest of them, that means he's getting more than 2 gallons in the morning, plus another 3 or 4 (?) during the day. She's been pretty empty in the evenings when we lock Taz up for the night.
So my wonderful, precious, GOOD girl has been tricking me AGAIN, making me think I was getting most of the milk from those 3 quarters every morning, and now I find out she has fooled me again!
Before I die, I would like to be smarter than my cow at least once. Just once, that's all I ask.
~Lannie