Post by campbells7 on Jun 28, 2013 10:36:32 GMT -5
First of all this cow has NEVER been easy to milk. She is a Dexter and honestly my husband hates them now because of this cow. I started out trying to milk her when we got her and she would not have anything to do with me. So my husband took over trying to milk her and he could tolerate her but he has to hold the bucket and move REALLY slow around her. That was her first lactation. After she dried up spontaneously no matter what we did at about 9 months post-partum we were not real fast at breeding her back so she sat in the pasture for about 6 months before we got her bred back. We had to go out and buy another cow when she suddenly went dry on us because we can't do anything but raw milk in our family due to some digestion issues. We did still handle her and she was right there in the barn yard area even while she was just sitting there. So she finally calved again back in mid Feb. and we had been calf sharing from the start. For a while we were doing once a day milking but then we went to twice a day and started just giving the calf a few hours with her each day (that was about a month ago). From the start of this lactation she has been being a total rear end! She was kicking at my husband from the beginning but we passed it off that she just needed to get back in the habit of being milked. Finally last week while she was getting worse and worse each day my husband decided that he thought that those few hours were just serving as a tease and causing more issues than anything else. We were doing it because we wanted the calf to be getting some of her milk and she will NOT take a bottle even though we tried to get her used to it at only a few days old just in case we ever needed her to use it. The whole time we have been calf sharing she would spend every hour apart pacing the pasture and freaking out. Finally when my husband separated her last week she just went nuts. She is breaking out of every pasture or corral we have tried to put her in. We had her in one of those big metal corrals and she would get down on the ground and get her head under it and pick the whole dang thing up, get out and then go run through the electric fence to get to her calf even though we had her calf on the other side of the farm where she could not even see her. So my husband tried using big auger anchors that he screwed into the ground to keep the corral down but she ripped those out too. Finally we had to drag a big chain link dog kennel into her pasture and put the calf in there so she could see the calf and be close to it but not get to it. We thought maybe if she knew the calf was ok she would chill a little. All through this whole time my husband has been coming in with 2-3 more huge bruises and welts every day from her kicking him while he has been milking her. His legs are purple and blue and so are parts of his arms. He is only bringing in about half the milk each day and wearing the rest because he can't get the milk away fast enough even though he holds the bucket while he milks. She kicks from start to finish! Nothing makes it better at all. This morning after he had already been kicked twice as well as dodged two other kicks he finally finished and then turned her out. A few minutes later he went to the pasture gate to let a few chickens back in that had gotten out and she busted through the gate he was holding breaking the corner post. Her baby was right there with her in that pasture but she went running around the farm and finally ran into another pasture that was empty so he just shut her in there. Now she is sitting in the corner of the other pasture way far away from her baby and acting like she does not have a care in the world. What the CRAP? My husband has just had it with her. It has been four and a half months of being kicked and we just don't know what to do. I would try milking her again to see if it would work but I am pregnant and don't want to get kicked in the belly. We don't have the money to go out and buy a milking machine but he can't keep going like this. She kicks really hard and it is only a matter of time before she hits his hand or something and lands him with broken bones. Not to mention he looks like he was in some kind of accident. She will not tolerate ankle hobbles because she just gets mad and will lay down in the stanchion. She is the only one lactating and our Jersey should not be calving till about January. If we had another one about to calf we would just save some milk, freeze it, and dry her up but it is a long way off. We have been making all our dairy products and I don't even know where to start with trying to get everything somewhere else nor can we really afford to buy in because the only place we know that sells even just the raw milk is in SC and it is hours away and really expensive. We only got into having cows in the first place several years ago because we did not have any other options due to the price of trying to buy raw milk and how hard it is to get. We are just desperate right now and don't know what to do. If we had the money we would go out and buy another cow but we don't. Do any of you all have ANY ideas of anything we could try??