Post by Annie on Sept 9, 2010 9:37:52 GMT -5
Ok, we have a hard time being consistent about the time we milk the cow, so I do grant that that could be a contributing factor, but I always check the milk before I milk her--taking a couple of squirts from each teat--and it always has looked good, and it did today.
But when I went to strain the milk after milking, I noticed about 3 little clumps floating around in the milk. I squoze one to see if it was just some udder cream that got in there, but it was more like.... you know when you are making mozzarrella? And you might get a bit which you can pull a bit? it was like that.
Each of these clumps was very small and there were about 3 or 4.
Today I milked her out really well, but I can't guarantee the past two days because my daughter milked her day before yesterday (she said she milked her out), and yesterday we had these flies that totally ignored our bug spray and a terrible time milking her. She kicked a lot and got her foot in the pail so I gave her a punch and yelled at her and threw the pail. Then I took the pail in to wash it, took a break for a few minutes, then finished up but she kept moving around so much that it was hard to tell if I had gotten the back teat as she was standing in a very unhelpful way (she only has one back teat, so it's hard to get to when she holds her feet together).
Naturally I will keep an eye on the situation, but I was wondering if I should be really worried, concerned, attentive, or what? And is the milk ok?
Also, we weaned the calves last week.
Also, I don't know if this is normal but we are low on bottles so it's been taking a little longer when we do the skimming, but I did notice that after I skim, if I let it stand for a few minutes, there are sort of islands on top of the milk which are somewhat different from cream--well, they're not creamy, more perhaps like oil, but not exactly. I hadn't noticed that before, but as I said, the lack of bottles has slowed up the process a bit.
Thanks very much!
And I can't do pics
But when I went to strain the milk after milking, I noticed about 3 little clumps floating around in the milk. I squoze one to see if it was just some udder cream that got in there, but it was more like.... you know when you are making mozzarrella? And you might get a bit which you can pull a bit? it was like that.
Each of these clumps was very small and there were about 3 or 4.
Today I milked her out really well, but I can't guarantee the past two days because my daughter milked her day before yesterday (she said she milked her out), and yesterday we had these flies that totally ignored our bug spray and a terrible time milking her. She kicked a lot and got her foot in the pail so I gave her a punch and yelled at her and threw the pail. Then I took the pail in to wash it, took a break for a few minutes, then finished up but she kept moving around so much that it was hard to tell if I had gotten the back teat as she was standing in a very unhelpful way (she only has one back teat, so it's hard to get to when she holds her feet together).
Naturally I will keep an eye on the situation, but I was wondering if I should be really worried, concerned, attentive, or what? And is the milk ok?
Also, we weaned the calves last week.
Also, I don't know if this is normal but we are low on bottles so it's been taking a little longer when we do the skimming, but I did notice that after I skim, if I let it stand for a few minutes, there are sort of islands on top of the milk which are somewhat different from cream--well, they're not creamy, more perhaps like oil, but not exactly. I hadn't noticed that before, but as I said, the lack of bottles has slowed up the process a bit.
Thanks very much!
And I can't do pics