I decided to call this part 1 since I am all too sure that there will be MORE adventures.
This last September we got a dairy cow. Pip is an A2A2 casein protein Jersey. She came from my friend Erin that owned a local Organic raw dairy. Erin made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse, and we decided to sell half our miniature dairy goats for a dairy cow. She had been bred to a beef bull 6 moths prior to moving to our house so we were expecting to milk her for about a month and then give her a “dry time” for 2 months before her calf was born. This dry time is needed to produce mammary tissue and be a good dairy cow.
Well…. As per the usual in the land of Nielson, things were not as they were supposed to be.
Pip’s milk was about half as much as she normally gave, had no cream and went sour within hours of being milked. It was weird. About a week into milking her, despite trouble shooting for mastitis, acidosis and other problems that could lead to decreased milk production, her milk turned pink! This meant that there was blood in her milk. We got some herbs for mastitis, treated her and hoped that was the issue. NOPE. Colt’s mom and step-dad came out for a visit and made a comment about how our cow looked like she was going to “drop a calf any day”. He assured them that she was over 2 months from her due date.
Erin messaged me about all the cows she had that were having calves WAY before their determined due dates…. She said that she had a young bull running with her cows (9months ago) for about a week that was apparently getting busy. I asked her if there was any way that Pip was exposed to him and farther along than previously thought …. Causing the funky milk. She asked me some questions about Pip’s lady parts, and we determined that… yikes! We were about to have a calf. That day was the last day Pip was milked.
I had a nice stretch of 5 days off. I went out and spent time with Pip every day, we prepared for her to have her calf. I told her to go ahead and have her baby while I was home. Like she had a choice, ha! Monday, October 7th around 11am Colt text me while I was a work to let me know that Pip was acting very funny and he thinks she might be in labor. FRICK! About an hour later, little Mooana (named by Benson) was on the ground. She was a perfectly healthy, full term JERSEY heifer. I missed the whole thing. Colt was in absolute AWE that on our property, OUR cow had a baby! Pip never filled up with milk like dairy cows do because of the lack of dry time. We got no extra milk for that first week.
Once Mooana was two weeks old, we built a separate stall for her to sleep in next to Pip so that we could start milking mama in the early mornings and then reuniting them. ITS BEEN SUPER FUN MILKING A COW AT 0600 EVERY MORNING FOR THE LAST MONTH. I have gotten anywhere from 1 quart- 1 gallon of milk from Pip with a half inch cream line…. No butter for us. Mooana gets all the cream. For the last week, I have tried to bring mama and baby out to the milking parlor together and Pip has given more milk but not more cream…. Tricksy cow. BTW…. This means that we (I) am dragging DRAGGING Mooana out of the cow pen, across the yard to the parlor area and hooking her halter up to a lead that is tied to a tree right next to mama. This occurs between 0500 & 0600 every day. Mooana thinks that it’s fun to be dragged by a human that only outweighs her by about 50 pounds. Maybe I will have one of the boys record this process for your entertainment. Maybe later in my life I will find it entertaining as well.
I am silly determined to calf-share. This means, that Pip and Mooana don’t feel the pain of us humans drinking Pip’s excess milk. After I milk in the morning, they spend the day together, Mooana gets plenty of milk (CREAM) and sleeps in a stall right next to Mama but can’t sneak any late-night snacks. I only have to milk once a day and get enough milk (but not cream) for our family. We also milk two of our mini dairy goats once a day and get about half a gallon of milk between the two of them. Basically, I am sacrificing butter for cow-harmony. The downfall is that Mooana will need some extra attention (dragging around) before she trust us humans are her friends.
Today I milked all the milk I could and then released Mooana to nurse on half of Pip’s udder while I held on to two teats for myself. After several seconds, I started milking and whoosh! Cream! Can’t wait to get home to inspect that cream line!
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