Post by sora on Sept 12, 2006 10:42:13 GMT -5
We've settled into a pretty comfortable routine since bringing the cow home at the beginning of August. Both dh and my oldest (11 yo) daughter are able to milk now though they aren't quite as fast or thorough and I still do probably 90% of the milking.
We have been unable to irrigate our pasture because of problems with the well, which is frustrating: there is plenty of water available on this property, but getting the second well dug and hooked up to the house (which was supposed to be done months ago!) so the first well can be exclusively for garden and pasture took much longer than expected. So our green grass is pretty much nonexistent now, and we've been giving her free-choice hay all day. Then she also gets grain during milking: we'd been giving her half corn-oats-barley with molasses, and half of an organic dairy mix, but the feed store has been out of the dairy mix so this past week it has just been the C.O.B.
She was a skinny-looking cow when we got her, but we're trying to figure out whether she's skinnier than she was and if we're feeding her enough (and if not, what else we should get for her. More grain? Different grain? Alfalfa?) I looked at the dairy cow condition web page but honestly, I just found it confusing. We haven't ever been around many cows before this one so we don't have much basis for comparison for what is normal and what is too thin. I did just look at side-by-side photos of the cow from the same angle, one taken the night we brought her home, and the other taken a few days ago, and she doesn't really look thinner in the pictures. But it would be nice to have more confidence in knowing she's getting enough to stay healthy.
She's due to calve Dec. 17, so we're looking at drying her off in 6 weeks or so. It would be very convenient at this point to just have the milking and clean-up once. She's giving between 2 and 2.5 gallons a day, getting about 7 lbs of grain at each milking. So today we're going to start just giving her the grain in the morning but not taking her to the stanchion, and I'll make sure I'm the one to milk in the evening for the next several days since she lets down best for me and make sure I'm milking her out very thoroughly. I wanted to start yesterday but dh was worried about mastitis and got up, went out and milked her. We shouldn't have to worry about mastitis switching to OAD at this production level, right?
Then when we do stop milking in October, we need to cut out the grain until her bag is soft, and then start giving her grain again?
I guess what I really need is a how-to-evaluate-your-cows-condition-assuming-no-prior-knowledge tutorial.
We have been unable to irrigate our pasture because of problems with the well, which is frustrating: there is plenty of water available on this property, but getting the second well dug and hooked up to the house (which was supposed to be done months ago!) so the first well can be exclusively for garden and pasture took much longer than expected. So our green grass is pretty much nonexistent now, and we've been giving her free-choice hay all day. Then she also gets grain during milking: we'd been giving her half corn-oats-barley with molasses, and half of an organic dairy mix, but the feed store has been out of the dairy mix so this past week it has just been the C.O.B.
She was a skinny-looking cow when we got her, but we're trying to figure out whether she's skinnier than she was and if we're feeding her enough (and if not, what else we should get for her. More grain? Different grain? Alfalfa?) I looked at the dairy cow condition web page but honestly, I just found it confusing. We haven't ever been around many cows before this one so we don't have much basis for comparison for what is normal and what is too thin. I did just look at side-by-side photos of the cow from the same angle, one taken the night we brought her home, and the other taken a few days ago, and she doesn't really look thinner in the pictures. But it would be nice to have more confidence in knowing she's getting enough to stay healthy.
She's due to calve Dec. 17, so we're looking at drying her off in 6 weeks or so. It would be very convenient at this point to just have the milking and clean-up once. She's giving between 2 and 2.5 gallons a day, getting about 7 lbs of grain at each milking. So today we're going to start just giving her the grain in the morning but not taking her to the stanchion, and I'll make sure I'm the one to milk in the evening for the next several days since she lets down best for me and make sure I'm milking her out very thoroughly. I wanted to start yesterday but dh was worried about mastitis and got up, went out and milked her. We shouldn't have to worry about mastitis switching to OAD at this production level, right?
Then when we do stop milking in October, we need to cut out the grain until her bag is soft, and then start giving her grain again?
I guess what I really need is a how-to-evaluate-your-cows-condition-assuming-no-prior-knowledge tutorial.