Post by lew92 on Aug 30, 2017 9:13:45 GMT -5
She's eleven years old today! This is my favorite picture of her and is a couple of years old:
430413_451638408255680_852405174_n[1] by Karen King, on Flickr
Old girl is still going strong. I dried her off about a week ago and am still giving her a fair ration of grain, but she's having to share it with Schwartz and Suzie, so she isn't getting as much as she was when she was in milk. She's due with her 8th calf in mid November.
We've had an awful lot of rain over the past couple of weeks, so the barnyard is a muddy mess or I'd take pictures of her today. She was in milk for just short of 16 months for this lactation and started 7 calves for us, six of them to weaning. Betty Boop, the last one, got a month of real milk from her and has converted over to milk replacer until we have real milk available for her again.
I've had my ups and downs with Buttercup. She's not a pocket cow but she does her job, willingly most days. Training her to milk was a horrible experience because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But I had the support of the forum to get me through it, plus the persistence of a bulldog and we made it to the other side.
Buttercup is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein and she came to us from a local farm when she was six weeks old. She got her name because she was this lovely light caramel color and I thought she'd be the typical fawn colored cow. Ha! Obviously, I couldn't have been more wrong about that, but I love her coloration and how it changes through the seasons.
I've been conservative with her management (as with all of the animals we raise) and don't push her for production. Knock on wood, but we've never had any metabolic issues. I do start with CMPK in small amounts about a week prior to her calving and always offer her a gallon of the first colostrum I milk from her, which she doesn't refuse. I offer her more at the 2nd milking, but by then she's never been interested. I don't feed for high production and I suspect that she peaked out at about 8 gallons a day at her best. On a commercial farm, I wouldn't doubt that she'd produce closer to 10.
Her calves have all been born healthy except for the twin that was born deformed and probably died in utero. She's given us tiny Jersey-sired calves and big, lusty Angus-sired calves. This time around, her 1/2 Milking Shorthorn son got her bred (oops!) and it will be interesting to see what we get. I'm hoping for a heifer so that I can keep her bloodlines around. She's produced 3 heifers, two of which have died and one is at a commercial dairy.
Happy Birthday, Buttercup! Here's to many more years together!
Her most recent picture, taken just about a week ago:
20170825_133504 by Karen King, on Flickr
430413_451638408255680_852405174_n[1] by Karen King, on Flickr
Old girl is still going strong. I dried her off about a week ago and am still giving her a fair ration of grain, but she's having to share it with Schwartz and Suzie, so she isn't getting as much as she was when she was in milk. She's due with her 8th calf in mid November.
We've had an awful lot of rain over the past couple of weeks, so the barnyard is a muddy mess or I'd take pictures of her today. She was in milk for just short of 16 months for this lactation and started 7 calves for us, six of them to weaning. Betty Boop, the last one, got a month of real milk from her and has converted over to milk replacer until we have real milk available for her again.
I've had my ups and downs with Buttercup. She's not a pocket cow but she does her job, willingly most days. Training her to milk was a horrible experience because I didn't have a clue what I was doing. But I had the support of the forum to get me through it, plus the persistence of a bulldog and we made it to the other side.
Buttercup is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein and she came to us from a local farm when she was six weeks old. She got her name because she was this lovely light caramel color and I thought she'd be the typical fawn colored cow. Ha! Obviously, I couldn't have been more wrong about that, but I love her coloration and how it changes through the seasons.
I've been conservative with her management (as with all of the animals we raise) and don't push her for production. Knock on wood, but we've never had any metabolic issues. I do start with CMPK in small amounts about a week prior to her calving and always offer her a gallon of the first colostrum I milk from her, which she doesn't refuse. I offer her more at the 2nd milking, but by then she's never been interested. I don't feed for high production and I suspect that she peaked out at about 8 gallons a day at her best. On a commercial farm, I wouldn't doubt that she'd produce closer to 10.
Her calves have all been born healthy except for the twin that was born deformed and probably died in utero. She's given us tiny Jersey-sired calves and big, lusty Angus-sired calves. This time around, her 1/2 Milking Shorthorn son got her bred (oops!) and it will be interesting to see what we get. I'm hoping for a heifer so that I can keep her bloodlines around. She's produced 3 heifers, two of which have died and one is at a commercial dairy.
Happy Birthday, Buttercup! Here's to many more years together!
Her most recent picture, taken just about a week ago:
20170825_133504 by Karen King, on Flickr