Post by simplynaturalfarm on Jan 11, 2019 11:43:29 GMT -5
Kelsey and simplynaturalfarm this is so helpful. Thank you so much. I’m giving a 14% Dairy mix of grain from New Country Organics, and I’ll keep upping the amount as you said in addition to feeding more hay! I definitely was thinking these girls would be closer to the family cow jerseys some of my favorite bloggers and Youtubers kept - that did will on mostly grass and gave closer to a couple gallons a day with calf sharing. Maudie and Lucy were kept as family cows their whole lives, and their previous owner said she never drowned in milk - ha! I’m up to my ears in it! I did get to meet Maudie’s original owner though and she said she was getting 5 gallons a day with calf sharing.
I’ve has trouble milking Lucy all the way out. She stands fairly well now with her back foot tied, but the real trouble is that her udder is disproportionate between some swelling, the quarters the calf doesn’t like, and I think just the way her udder is. The machine can’t get all quarters at once! Either it reaches the back teats perfectly and then the tubing is bent wrong so that it can’t properly suck the front teats, or it gets the front ones great but can’t reach the back. I’ve played with it lots, but I think her swelling needs to go down first, as that’s exactly what happened with Maudie and now I can milk her out really well. I’m stuck having to do two teats at a time with Lucy and the poor girl gets really antsy after a while and then shifts and kicks until the machine comes off. I decided the keep the calf with her 24/7 until I can be confident I’ve milked her out fully. She hates hand milking more than the machine, and even tied she clobbered my hand yesterday when she was antsy from standing too long.
you actually would probably get better empting from the calf if you separated them and let him nurse with you monitoring. That way if you have one teet that isn't emptying nicely or the calf is ignoring, you can cover the other three teets and make the calf nurse on it. On high producing cow, Calves almost always have one favorite teat and sometimes he'll never touch the other three the entire lactation. So actually keeping him off and forcing him to nurse the Teat you need him to gets them to be a little bit more helpful. It also helps you milk her out completely twice a day instead of having the calf do whatever they want anyway. You will also find that she is much more patient and stands like a rock when the calf is there. I have seen my calves stand and nurse and nurse for 15 to 30 minutes and the cow stands like a rock. Every time my one girl gets antsy I give her my little lecture about how she will stand and let a calf bite, jerk, bunt etc for as long as he wants so she had better stand nice for me who is so gentle!