Post by Leah Mack on Mar 28, 2007 14:13:01 GMT -5
Hi Everyone,
I just want to thank all of you that helped keep my spirits up during my recent loss of Yoda Mae. I appreciate your kind words SO much.
I am starting to look for a new cow. I'm hoping the 3rd time will be the charm, and I'm going to make full use of all I've learned. Yesterday I drove 2.5 hours each way to see a brown swiss. They are BIG. I had never been up close to a full sized dairy cow before. Not for me. But this is the first time I actually looked at a cow myself before buying, which is one of the things I learned from my previous experiences. With a toddler around, getting away for these long drives isn't easy. I left at 5 am.
Anyway, I just spoke to a fellow about a milking shorthorn. Do any of you have experience with them?
Roz is 2 and freshened for first time in Oct. Her calf was backward and had to be pulled. She gave 58 lbs of milk at test. She was showed when younger and is easy to catch and lead according to her owner (I haven't been to visit her yet). She is nearby which is fabulous and of course I'll go see her and look into the Johne's status of the herd and have a vet do a complete workup. They want $1650 which isn't too bad. She has only been machine milked. Both my other cows had been hand milked. Has anyone had experience teaching a machine cow to hand milk? Is this usually a problem? Should I be worried that her first calf was backward? The owner said she is about the same size as a jersey. Is that typical does anyone know?
I looked up breed info and they are supposed to generally be hardy cows that were often used as dual purpose back in the day. I figure I could breed her to a meat type shorthorn and get an even more dual-purpose type animal. Anyone know anything about this? Any idea how many gallons 58 lbs of milk is? I figure a little over six?
I am so ready to have cow love back in my life and also a plentitude of delicious fresh milk, cream, butter, cheese, yumm yumm!
Happy Spring to all you fabulous cow lovers!
I just want to thank all of you that helped keep my spirits up during my recent loss of Yoda Mae. I appreciate your kind words SO much.
I am starting to look for a new cow. I'm hoping the 3rd time will be the charm, and I'm going to make full use of all I've learned. Yesterday I drove 2.5 hours each way to see a brown swiss. They are BIG. I had never been up close to a full sized dairy cow before. Not for me. But this is the first time I actually looked at a cow myself before buying, which is one of the things I learned from my previous experiences. With a toddler around, getting away for these long drives isn't easy. I left at 5 am.
Anyway, I just spoke to a fellow about a milking shorthorn. Do any of you have experience with them?
Roz is 2 and freshened for first time in Oct. Her calf was backward and had to be pulled. She gave 58 lbs of milk at test. She was showed when younger and is easy to catch and lead according to her owner (I haven't been to visit her yet). She is nearby which is fabulous and of course I'll go see her and look into the Johne's status of the herd and have a vet do a complete workup. They want $1650 which isn't too bad. She has only been machine milked. Both my other cows had been hand milked. Has anyone had experience teaching a machine cow to hand milk? Is this usually a problem? Should I be worried that her first calf was backward? The owner said she is about the same size as a jersey. Is that typical does anyone know?
I looked up breed info and they are supposed to generally be hardy cows that were often used as dual purpose back in the day. I figure I could breed her to a meat type shorthorn and get an even more dual-purpose type animal. Anyone know anything about this? Any idea how many gallons 58 lbs of milk is? I figure a little over six?
I am so ready to have cow love back in my life and also a plentitude of delicious fresh milk, cream, butter, cheese, yumm yumm!
Happy Spring to all you fabulous cow lovers!