The story of our house cows - part 4

I haven't updated the story of our house cows lately, but its necessary now because Molly, our younger house cow, died a couple of weeks ago.  It was strange because I really thought that we were going to lose Bella first, but she is a resilient old thing, and seems in good health at the moment.  We are not sure what happened to Molly, it was not a long illness, she seemed fine one day and was found dead the next morning.  Anyway, I better start where I finished Part 3.

I wish our pasture looked like THIS all the time!

If you need to catch up, you can find Part 1 and Part 2 here.

Back in November 2015, we were still milking Molly and not sure what to do with Bella after she lost another calf and had severe mastitis.  We continued to milk Molly once a week, while Charlotte milked her foster mother Bella and Rosey had some of Molly's milk.

Bella and Molly

Around July 2016 we started to run out of grass at Eight Acres and decided, rather than keep buying hay, we should move all our cattle to Cheslyn Rise, where we had plenty of grass and they needed to move eventually anyway.  In the first load, we took Nancy, Ruby and Fatty (all animals that were destined for the freezer), we put them in our cultivation/pasture paddock, separated from the bull.

When we returned the next week with Bella and Molly, we found that the little shit bull had got under the fence and was in the paddock with our future eaters.  We pushed him out of the paddock, unloaded Bella and Molly, drove into town to buy fencing gear, spent the weekend building a new electric fence along the entire fence line (nearly 1km) and went home pleased in the knowledge that there was no way he could get back in.

Beautiful Molly

The next weekend we arrived to find that he had opened the gate and let himself into the paddock with the cows.  So that gave us a deadline!  We worked out that we would have to be moving to the property ourselves by April 2117 (and we did!).  The intervening months were pretty uneventful for the cows, we just checked on them once a week and fed hay as required.

Molly with her calf (that she hid from me for two days!)

Molly had her little calf a few weeks after we moved.  We were not quite set up ready to milk, so we decided to monitor her and not milk unless we needed to.  She was not in a particularly good paddock, so her udder was not very full and the little calf was soon taking all her milk.  This seemed to work well, as we were busy with the house and didn't have time to deal with 20L of milk anyway.  The problem is even if you don't want that much milk, you have to feed the cow grain to get her into the bales and then she makes more milk.  Nancy has also had a calf and we're not sure if Ruby and Fatty will be having calves too, not sure about Bella either.

Anyway, that seemed to be going really well with Molly until we found her dead three months later (just to be clear, we were checking her regularly and she seemed fine, so I would try this again, for a more flexible milking routine, possibly keeping her in a closer paddock separated from other cows so she could be fed more if required.).  We don't know if it was an issue with not milking her, not getting enough to eat, or even if she ate something poisonous, or was bitten by a snake or had an infection or disease, it is a total mystery and not worth paying for an autopsy as its likely to be inconclusive.

The baby house cows, Charlotte and Rosey, stayed at Eight Acres until we were ready to move, as our neighbour let us use their property as well and because we couldn't trust the bull with our little girls!  We moved them in April 2017, and they are with the bull now.  Bella is also with the bull, but doesn't seem to be in calf, which is probably a good thing, she is a useful tame cow to have around at the moment, at least she knows her name and mostly does what she is told!  I can't face a decision about Bella's future now that we have lost Molly.

Rosey 

Charlotte

Pete asked if I still wanted to have cows at all, after this saga and as we didn't milk Molly.  The truth is that I really wanted to milk Molly, but we weren't set up and didn't need the extra stress at the time.  However, when things are organised, a house cow isn't much more work and the milk is amazing.  So by the time Rosey and Charlotte are ready to calve, we should have our milking bales organised and be able to milk again.  And eventually we want to raise pigs on the extra milk....

So this is not the end of the story at all.  Do you have a house cow?  How is she going?  



Getting started with homestead dairy

Interview with myself
Interview with Mark and Kate from Purple Pear Permaculture
Interview with Kim from the Little Black Cow
Interview with Rose Petal
Interview with Marie from Go Milk the Cow
Interview with Ohio Farmgirl

If you want to know more about house cows, my eBook is now available, for details see my house cow eBook blog.

My favourite house cow blogs

I don't know many people in real life who have house cows.  A few acquaintances, but no good friends with whom I can talk regularly about cows.  Like many of my interests, I turn to blogs to find like-minded people who are happy to talk non-stop about cows, manure, hay, minerals, pasture, milking schedule and bottle-feeding calves!  As well as enjoying the topic of conversation, I also learn so much from these blogs, even though they are in different locations.  It seems like you can always learn more about house cows (aka family cows, dairy cows or milk cows).  I want to share my favourite house cow blogs with you today and I hope you can tell me about other sources of house cow information.

Jembella Farm
Sally writes from 16 A in South Australia's Barossa Valley, where she has " 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives".  Among the cows are three special house cows, Daisy, Bella and Lavender.  Sally raises foster calves with her house cows and her blog contains plenty of advice about house cows and calves - here's one of my favourites.

Source: Jembella Farm

Throwback at Trapper Creek
Matronofhusbandry writes from her 180 A farm and homestead in Oregon, USA.  Sharing gems of wisdom about growing and eating real food, including an extensive vegetable garden, beef cattle, chickens and of course, her gorgeous cow. Jane.  Although the climate there is very different, observations about grass growth, paddock divisions, milking schedules are all relevant and useful.  I have learnt to much from this blog, and the photos are amazing. Here's all the cow posts, and a couple of my favourites:

Share Milking

Is my cow getting enough to eat?

Source: Throwback at Trapper Creek

The Prairie Homestead
Based in Wyoming, Jill has shared her homesteading journey on her blog.  She has goats, chickens, and a lovely family cow called Oakley.  You will find plenty of basic information about house cows, most of it is summarised in this post - Owning a family cow: your questions answered
.

Source: The Prairie Homestead

Homestead Honey
Teri homesteads in Missouri on 10 A.  She blogs about topics such as gardening, building a tiny house, living off-grid and homeschooling.  Most importantly, she also has a sweet cow called Creme Brulee, and many posts about family cow ownership.

Source: Homestead Honey

The Elliot Homestead
Shaye lives on a few acres in North Central Washington, a giant flock of laying hens, meat chickens, hogs, sheep, turkeys, and a variety of produce in large, organic gardens.  She has recently welcomed a new dairy cow, Cecelia, after tragically losing a previous cow.  Lots of great info about cows as well as dairy products.

Source: The Elliot Homestead

One Ash Homestead
Lee Ann and Alexandrea write a blog about their farm and dairy supply business i South Carolina.  Of course their blog is full of information about dairy cows and dairy products, their full story is in this post.

Which blogs featuring house cows do you love?

You can find more house cow information in my eBook here.

Raising a baby house cow

Our first house cow Bella came to us from a dairy farm and had already had two calves.  She came with her second calf, Molly, who is also a full Jersey cow.  We raised Molly to be our second house cow.  With Bella now having an uncertain future after having difficulty with her last calf, we decided to raise some future house cows.

I think they two most important inputs are human interaction (to ensure the cow is tame enough to be milked) and good nutrition (to raise a healthy robust cow).  While Bella is extremely tame, from what I know of her early life I don't think she had good nutrition and she now has health problems that prevent us using her as a house cow.  Molly is extremely robust AND tame.  Can we produce another good house cow?

(Catch up on our house cows here Part 1, Part 2, Part 3)

Charlotte and Rosey at 4-6 weeks old

As Bella's calf had died, and she had previously taken a foster calf, we got her Jersey heifer calves to raise.  I don't know why we thought two calves would work, but I guess it was worth a try.  We had a series of problems with Bella (oedema and mastitis) and the calves (scours and paralysis tick), which didn't help.  Eventually Bella accepted Charlotte as her foster calf and we've had to bottle feed Rosey.

It has been interesting to compare the progress of the two calves.  At first Charlotte was very tame.  The dairy farmer had separated her from the other poddy calves because she was too tame and kept tipping over the milk buckets.  She actually walked right up to him when we went to collect her.  Rosey was not tame at all.  We chose her because she looked pretty (bad farmers!) as she is a Jersey/Aussie Red cross, but she was the calf that kept running away and was very difficult to catch.

Charlotte stayed tame for weeks, especially at first when we were bottle feeding both calves.  Since Charlotte has secured her own milk supply and doesn't need humans anymore, she doesn't come for a scratch.  We really need to work on getting her tame again, I think when she is weaned we will feed her a little grain so she associates us with food again.

Charlotte with foster mother Bella

Rosey, on the other hand, knows her name and will run over to us, because we are her milk supply.  At first we milked Molly everyday and Rosey had a few litres until she was about 3 months old.  Most dairy farmers will wean replacement heifers at this age, but there's no reason to stop given them milk.  Since we are now only milking Molly once a week, Rosey gets the excess milk in the weekend.

Charlotte has grown a little faster, probably due to her more regular access to milk, but she also had a less severe reaction to the paralysis tick when they first came here.  Rosey seems to be doing well enough and we will keep giving her milk while we have it to spare.  I worry more about Rosey not having a mother to lick her and love her, in fact Bella is quite awful to her and will head butt her out of the way at any opportunity.  I make sure she gets plenty of human love instead, and I hope she will be accepted when she's bigger.  Bella still gives Molly a good lick bath. they have a whole herd hierarchy going on.

Orphan Rosey

It is a myth that calves stop drinking milk voluntarily (I see this perpetuated by vegans that have probably never met a cow).  Calves will drink until their mother literally kicks them off the udder to feed her next calf.  Full grown cows, and even bulls, will drink milk from another cow if they get the chance, and calves will happily drink for as long as they are allowed to (which is extremely detrimental to the poor cow providing the milk).  Weaning is a VERY noisy time as mother and calf bawl to each other for several days.  When reunited the calf will try to drink again even after months of separation.

The two babies are 6 months old now, so it will be another 18 months until we find out if either of them are good house cows.  I think Charlotte has had the best nutrition, but Rosey has had a pretty good start and the best we could do for her (a shame Bella wasn't more helpful!).  Rosey is currently the more tame of the two, but I'm sure we can work on Charlotte again as she started off so tame.

What do you think?  Have you ever raised a house cow?

You can find more house cow information in my eBook here.

Cows with horns?

I know there is a bit of confusion around cattle and horns.  I've heard a few people say that they thought only bulls had horns.  I suppose that makes sense... but its wrong!

Most cattle are born with horns.  Both male and female.  You might not see many cattle with horns because they are usually removed at a young age.  There are two reasons for this, firstly the horns can grow back into the animal's skull, and cause problems.  Bella had horns like this and we had to remove them when she was an adult, causing her considerable distress.  The other reason is that cattle with horns can injure other cattle when they are loaded onto trucks, so any cattle that are destined for feedlots and/or abattoirs are generally dehorned, as are dairy cows who have to stand next to each other to be milked.  They also have the potential to harm humans.

You might have noticed that our beautiful Molly cow does have horns.  We chose not to remove her horns because I think its a painful procedure for young cattle and not necessary if they are living on a small farm.  Yes Molly does toss her head around sometimes when she's frustrated and she could unintentionally hurt us (I like to think she wouldn't mean it), however she is very tame and we just have to manage her appropriately.  I believe that Molly has lovely straight horns because we fed her well, with lots of minerals and her mother's milk until she was 14 months old.  We don't have all the details of Bella's early life, but I gather that she only had milk for 3-4 months and probably wasn't fed well.  Prior to mass production of milk, dairy cows always kept their horns and their correct conformation was one way to judge the health of the cow (we have a few old dairy books with images of beautiful horned dairy cows!).

Polled cattle
Some cattle have been bred very carefully to have no horns.  There are called "polled" cattle.  The angus steers and cows that we have at the moment are all polled.  Generally their progeny should also be polled.  I think this is the best option, as you don't have to hurt the animal to remove horns and you don't have management issues.  However, cattle without horns cannot defend themselves or their calves against wild dogs.  If you know you have a problem with dogs, it might be good to have a few cows with horns.

If you breed a polled animal with a horned animal, you may get offspring with horns, polled, or with "scurs" (not to be confused with scours!).  These are wobbly horns that are not attached to the skull.  They don't need to be removed for transport as they don't pose a danger to other animals, but they can easily break off too.

When we had the braford cattle I learnt that its very difficult to breed a polled brahman (bos indicus) crossed with a bos taurus (such as a braford, which is a brahman hereford cross) because the genes for horns are different in the two species, so its difficult to line up the recessive traits and breed a true polled animal.  Unfortunately brahman cross animals do well on our property, so it might be difficult to find the right polled animal for our place.

Dehorning
True horns are actually attached to the skull of the animal.  If you remove them when the animal is very young, they are not quite attached completely.  There are various "dehorning" tools, most of them involve scooping the horn out of the animal's head.  There is a lot of bleeding.  It looks painful and I don't want anything to do with it unless its absolutely necessary.  We removed Bella's horns because they were growing into her head, but apart from that we haven't removed any horns and as a result we sometimes don't get as good prices at the sale yard when we send horned cattle.  They can actually devalue the entire truck load as they could have bruised the other cattle.

We have only ever had polled or dehorned bulls and I would prefer not to have a bull with horns.  There is just an extra unpredictability with bulls and I don't want to give them any extra power to hurt me!

So if you see cattle with horns, don't assume that its a bull!  But don't get into the paddock to find out either!  What do you think?  Do you dehorn?  Buy polled?  Or manage horns?

Our mini-bull doesn't have horns

Polled Angus steers - no horns

Baby house cows - starting to grow horns

Miss Molly cow - definitely has horns,
but her calf Chubby had a polled sire, and she doesn't have horns

The story of our house cows - part 3

Another year has past and things have changed again for our two house cows Bella and Molly.  Catch up with part 1 and part 2, I have been waiting for the right time to write part 3, so much has happened in a year!

If you need to catch up, you can read part 1 and part 2. In summary, about five years ago we bought our first house cow, Bella and she came with a young heifer calf, Molly. Since then, Bella has had three more calves: one that died and was replaced by foster calf Romeo, then Nancy, and then another this year that died and has been replaced by foster calf Charlotte. Molly has also had three calves: Monty, Ruby and Chubby. They both had a long break between their last calves because our little bull Donald got sick and we didn’t know if they were in calf. We replaced Donald with Donald the second, which resulted in these last two calves. Confused?

Charlotte, Rosey and Chubby

When I wrote last year, the first Donald had just died, but we thought that both cows were in calf. We had dried off both cows and were waiting. After a few months we accepted that we weren’t going to have any calves, and even worse, that we wouldn’t have any raw milk for several months. This was disappointed, and in some ways I felt that we had failed as cow owners, but it was nice to have a break from milking and really didn’t have to do much to look after the cows in that time, they were just off in a neighbour’s paddock with Donald the second.

When it came close to calving time, I brought Bella back home as her udder was swollen and we thought she would calve soon. We actually had another 6 weeks to wait and poor Bella just kept swelling. I’m finding it difficult to get a lot of information about her condition, she seems to have had oedema, which can be caused by an allergic reaction to the growing baby, and mineral deficiencies. Both of the calves that died were from Lowline breed bulls, so we wonder if that is the cause. But it could be anything. I get the impression that dairy cows with this type of problem are culled, rather than doing any research to figure out why they are sick, which makes sense when you’re running a dairy farm, but I’d love to know how to help our house cow!

Molly with her calf Chubby

When Bella went into labour on a Sunday morning, we were both home and I went into the paddock with her. I saw the calf being born and I tried to revive him, but he was dead. Poor Bella, she licked him clean and mooed at him. We immediately got her two foster calves, as she had fostered Romeo so well last time this happened (I don’t know why we thought two was a good idea though). We got a Jersey heifer and a Jersey cross Australian Red heifer (Charlotte and Rosey), thinking we should take the opportunity to raise some replacement house cows rather than steers.

Unfortunately Bella was really sick this time. She took about a week to recover from the oedema and got mastitis again. Pete had to keep her in a small yard so that she didn’t walk too far away from the milk bales, because she could barely walk and waiting for her to hobble back to the bales was awful. It was not sensible to leave the foster calves with her for a couple of weeks while she was recovering.

And in that time the calves got paralysis tick poisoning! In a week they went from boisterous, active little calves to listless and unable to drink from a bottle. Pete thought they had scours, but when I tried to give one of them an electrolyte mix from a bottle, I found one tick and then another (to be fair, Pete had been feeding them from a bucket with a teat and hadn’t needed to handle them, so hadn’t noticed the ticks). At least now we know what to do for them when we find ticks.... we rolled them over and removed every tick we could find (15 on one calf!), we dosed them with nasty insecticide and put ear tags in both ears. Then bottle fed them electrolyte and Bella’s milk until they were well enough to use the bucket again. This set us back several weeks, so that even when Bella was well, the calves were not strong enough to take milk from her.

Cantankerous Bella

The calf fostering didn’t go as well as last time, maybe it was the time delay or just how ill Bella was at first. Eventually she has accepted Charlotte the more confident of the two calves, but not as forthrightly as she did with Romeo. Rosey has tried, but hasn’t been allowed to drink from either cow, so we have been milking and feeding Rosey.

Molly had her calf not long after all of that, and everything went well, in fact she was hardly “bagged up” at all, with far less swelling than her previous calves. Pete was home for the birth, which was nice and quick. Her tiny calf is part mini Hereford and Low line, so she has a different shape to the dairy animals. We started calling her Chubby and it stuck. Molly is doing a wonderful job looking after her calf and we have been making sure that Molly has plenty to eat and doesn’t lose condition as she did with her last calf.

Pete was milking both cows for a while, but then Bella got mastitis again and kicked him in the head during milking. We have since read that cows imprint very strongly when they first meet someone and keep grudges. Pete had originally tried to “discipline” Bella when we first got her, and I think maybe she is holding some resentment towards him. Sometimes she will only come into the milking bales if I’m there. Anyway, from that day Pete stopping milking her and stopped giving her grain to eat (to reduce her milk production), and stopped feeding any milk to Charlotte, so now Charlotte is milking Bella for us, and sometimes she gets kicked too.

Fresh Raw Milk is flowing again!

Its been a crazy few months and that’s why I’ve been waiting for the right time to write this update. Molly has grown into a wonderful cow, she has easy births (so far) and stands quietly in the milking bales. We’ve never had to give her antibiotics. Her only problem is a sensitivity to buffalo fly that leaves her itchy all over, and I really feel for her because I have the same problem with mosquito bites.

On the other hand, we have Bella, with two dead calves, a bad temper (possibly because she is often in pain from underlying mastitis infections, and doesn’t like Pete) and a very uncertain future. It seems unfair to breed her again and potentially put her through oedema again. But a dairy cow that can’t breed is not much use to us. While it would be nice to think she could just stay on our property as a pet, even if feed cost wasn’t an issue we would also have make sure the bull never got to her. We are left with few options, sell her (for meat, not to be breed again), shoot and bury her or eat her ourselves. None of these appeal to me at the moment.

Right now we have some time, Bella is still useful to us as a foster mother to Charlotte, but after that, we will have to make a decision. I know some people don’t bat an eyelid at sending their cow to the meat works and getting a new one. I understand that, I’m like that with nearly every other animal on the farm. With the house cows I was not prepared for this eventuality, I thought they would live here until they died. It makes me realise that we need to have plans for unhappy endings, so that we don’t come to unexpected difficult decisions.

How to clean a milking machine

People often assume that using a milking machine would be more work that milking by hand because of the time to clean the machine.  Actually its surprisingly quick to clean after milking.  And it only occasionally needs a more thorough clean.  Much of the information you find online about cleaning milking machines refers to large scale dairies that are milking a hundred or more cows a day.  If you are only milking one or two cows you can use a simpler and quicker process, and gentler chemicals, to keep your machine clean.

The only extra-large gloves at the supermarket were pink...

After every milking, as soon as possible, we tip out the milk (either for calves or for our consumption) and clean the milking machine.  The first step is a bucket of warm soapy water (not too hot, as steam can damage the vacuum pump, and hot water can actually make the milk solids more difficult to remove), which gets sucked through the milking cups and through the machine.  We use a few drops of dishwashing detergent in the water.  We then slosh this around inside the milk can and wipe off all the hoses before tipping out the soapy water.  The next step is a rinse with a bucket of warm water (also sucked through the milking cups).  Finally we leave the milk can upside-down to drain.  This is all that is necessary after twice daily milking and takes only about 10 minutes.  If the milking machine is cleaned immediately after the milk is tipped out, this amount of cleaning is sufficient.  When the milking machine is left unwashed for longer periods (even an hour or so, if other farm chores demand attention), minerals, fat and protein from the milk will gradually form deposits called "milk stone" inside the milking machine .

About once a week, or if we haven't used the machine for a while, we give it a more thorough clean with additional chemicals to remove milk stone deposits.  It is generally recommended to use a caustic or a caustic/chlorine detergent.  You can buy specialty chemicals from a dairy supplier, but you can usually also find something suitable in the supermarket cleaning isle.  Look for a cleaner that contains Sodium Hypochlorite and Sodium Hydroxide (with minimum fragrance as you don't want your milk to taste lemon-fresh).  Both of these are strong chemicals that can damage your skin and eyes, so make sure you wear gloves and glasses while cleaning your milking machine with these chemicals.

Acid milk stone remover (based on phosphoric or nitric acid) can also be used (for example).  This would need to be purchased from a dairy supplier.  Acid cleaners are better for hard water, which tends to react with caustic cleaners and reduce their effectiveness.  Again, this is a strong chemical and care should be taken to avoid contact with skin and eyes.  You can read all about the chemistry of different cleaners here.  Never combine ammonia with acid or chlorine cleaners, as you will cause a chemical reaction, if in doubt, its best to just use one cleaner at a time.

When we do the big clean, we usually also take the opportunity to pull off all the hoses and give them a clean with a bottle brush.  We have bought a range of sizes of bottle brush, and one small one is particularly useful for cleaning the long tube between the milking machine claw and the milk can, we tie it on a piece of bailing twine and pull it through the tube a few times (hot tip from Pete, the best way to get the twine all the way down the tube is running water or compressed air).  When you first get your milking machine, its a good idea to take it apart to find out which bits you can get into the clean properly.

The queue at milking time

Do you use a milking machine?  How do you clean it?

The story of our house cows - Part 2

In part 1 of the story of our house cows I explained how I didn't really want a house cow at first, but after meeting our lovely Bella, I was persuaded that it would be worth the effort. We brought home Bella and her little calf Molly and spent several months learning how to milk and how to make cheese.  I've included lots of links back to posts that get into more detail, so if you want to know more, follow the links.

Molly with baby Monty

Bella with her adopted baby Romeo

We didn’t tackle the problem of getting Bella in calf again until about six months after we brought her home, and we used the vet to do artificial insemination. This resulted in a successful pregnancy, but the much-anticipated calf died, we weren’t home, so we’ll never know what really happened. Fortunately Bella accepted a large Friesian foster calf after a week of him following her around the paddock and we were able to continue our milking routine.

Meanwhile we had weaned Molly at about 12 months old and by then we had also bought a small Dexter bull, because it can be difficult to AI a heifer. Donald took care of that, and Molly was in calf too. Molly had a quick and successful birth of a tiny bull calf, and was no trouble to milk except that she couldn’t always remember how to come into the milking bales (Molly is not as smart as her mother and often gets “stuck” on the wrong side of a fence when she forgets where the gate is).

Bella’s next calf was a lovely healthy girl, but Bella developed a serious case of mastitis, and had to have antibiotics this time, as the natural methods didn’t work quickly enough. The vet also suspected metritis, although this was never confirmed. 

 

Bella with baby Nancy

Molly with baby Ruby

Molly has turned out to be a huge milk producer and got very thin with her first calf, so we had to wean her calf early. This is when we learnt the challenges of drying off a high-producing cow. Bella was much easier to dry off as she never makes much milk towards the end of her lactation, but Molly was still making 10 L a day! No wonder she was skinny and the calf was very fat. Donald the bull did his job again and Molly’s second calf was a little girl.

Bella got mastitis again when we dried her off before her next calf, and had to have antibiotics again. This is really not how we hoped to manage our cows, but I think Bella had a rough start to life and doesn’t have the natural health that Molly enjoys. And then Bella’s next calf never appeared. We gave up waiting after a few months, realising that she had either miss-carried or had never been in calf. Around this time Donald died, we think from eating lantana, which can be very poisonous for cattle. Without our bull, we were back to AI to get the cows in calf, and we were having a tough time working out when they were on heat. Cows are very vocal when they are younger, we certainly know when the two heifer calves are on heat, but not their mothers.

Our little bull Donald

Molly was getting thin again, so we had to wean her calf and dry her off too, and then we had no milk! Two house cows and no milk is not a good management situation, but we are still learning.

Then we heard about another small bull for sale in the area, even though bulls can be very very annoying at times, we decided he would probably do a better job. When bully arrived he was very interested in Molly. Dammit. Looks like Donald didn’t get a chance to mate her before he died. It could be a while before we have a calf again! 

Bella is a special cow

Bella is looking very fat and healthy. We don’t know if she is in calf, or if the metritis has affected her fertility. Tough choices lie ahead, but honestly I can’t see us selling her or eating her. I know some small farmers keep their cows for a few years, then send her off the meat works and get a new one, but Bella is special. She is our first cow and we really have a bond with her. (I told you she was crafty!).  When a cow gives you her milk, its like you're one of her calves, and it really feels wrong to me not to look after that cow, even if you can't give you another calf.

In a few weeks we will get the vet to come and pregnancy test the cows so we know what to expect. Its kind of nice to have a break from all the milking and cheese-making, but I’m missing the raw milk. To be continued.... read Part 3 here.

Here's Molly again

I'd love to hear your house cow stories! Tell me all about your lovely cows :)

The story of our house cows - Part 1

You’ll probably be surprised to know that it was Pete who really wanted to get a cow, and at first I didn’t think it was such a good idea. I thought it seemed so expensive, I thought we didn’t have enough land and I didn’t know what we would do with all the milk. Eventually we negotiated a solution. He agreed to sell his boat (which had been sitting in the car port unused for three years) so that we could pay for the cow and the milking machine. And somehow he persuaded me that we needed a cow. Or maybe it was when I first met Bella that I was persuaded, I can’t remember now.

Bella and Molly when they first arrived

Pete told our dairy-farmer friends that we were looking for a cow. I didn’t expect them to find us a cow for months, or maybe even a year, but only a few weeks later, they told us about Bella. She had been born at the dairy farm, but bottle-fed by a neighbour and raised as a tame cow, then returned to the farm when the neighbour moved. She was about to have her second calf. She didn’t fit in with other cows because she was so tame. When we first met her in the paddock, she stood still while we patted her, as all the other cows moved away from us. I felt sorry for her! Also one horn was growing in towards her head, poor thing. We couldn’t leave her at the dairy farm!

We went home to get organised. We converted a crush that we were making into a milking bale and chose a milking machine. We ordered stainless steel buckets and a cow brush. We bought milk jugs and cheese making supplies. Finally we were ready to collect Bella about six weeks after she had her calf, Molly. 

 

Bella with Molly

And so began our inauguration to the world of dairy cow drama. It seems that nothing is simple with house cows! Its not their fault really, they have been bred by humans to make so much milk, they are susceptible to problems with mastitis, milk fever, and they have to be fed properly with plenty of minerals. They do really required more care than beef cattle.

First Bella did not like where we set up the milking bales, so early on the first morning we had to pick them up and move them further from the house and closer to the paddock so we could guide her in there through the gate. We were lucky that she was so tame and would follow a bucket of grain. With two extension cords, we were still able to use the milking machine in that location. Bella has never been easy to milk, we call her “Mrs Kicky” (also “Mrs Picky” when she won’t eat her hay), and was certainly not an easy cow to learn to milk. She also got mastitis early on, which we managed to treat with natural methods. Meanwhile we tried to tame Molly, first by bottle feeding her (that idea lasted a week), and then just by spending time with her while she was eating a small amount of grain.

Molly getting tame (they always lick my boots!)

We didn’t know at first that we didn’t HAVE to separate Molly from Bella. For months we led Molly into a calf yard, and then we realised that they could stay together, which was better for both of them. The only advantage was that Molly did become very tame and also learnt to follow a bucket of grain into her yard.  We actually waited 12 months before we weaned Molly, because we took a while to get organised with getting Bella in calf.  But that is a story for next time... Read Part 2 here and Part 3 here.

I'd love to hear your house cow stories!  Tell me all about your lovely cows :)

Keeping a Family Cow - book review

Before getting a house cow, I recommend that you read every book you can find on the subject.  You should also visit people with house cows if you can, and spend some time with cows, so you know what to expect.  I am still reading books about house cows, and I was very excited to find Keeping a Family Cow: The Complete Guide for Home-Scale, Holistic Dairy Producers, by Joann S. Grohman in the Brisbane City Library.  You really never know what you're going to find there!  Joann has 60 years experience with dairy cows, so who better to get you started on your house cow journey?  Joann also has a website about Real-Food and started the popular Keeping a Family Cow forum, which I have found useful for cow advice from time to time.

This book includes the best ever explanation of house cow nutrition and digestion processes that I have ever read.  She writes that you can't buy poor hay and expect to make up for it by feeding more grain, your cow will just get fat.  She also explains hand milking and how to stop a cow from kicking.  The advantages of raw milk for humans are also explained and I really enjoyed the discussion on why commercial milk is pastuerised.  There is a huge amount of detail in nearly 300 pages.

I was surprised by how much space was devoted to milk fever.  Its good to know about it and be prepared to treat it if your cow suffers from milk fever after calving.  I really like the way Joann explains the biological processes that can cause problems with cows.

This book is written for the north eastern US climate, and as I always say about US books, there are a few things that are not relevant to Australian house cows because we don't have to deal with snow.  We have different pastures, different fencing techniques and different pests.  But in general, this is a great start for any cow owner.

Of course, I would recommend my house cow ebook as a supplementary guide for Australians.

Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on Scribd, Lulu and Amazon, or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange delivery.

House cow ebook now available on lulu.com

I have published "Our Experience with House Cows" on lulu.com in ebook format.  Personally I think it looks better in .pdf (buy from scribd), but if you prefer ebook format, you can buy it here instead.  If you just want me to email it to you, send me a message on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com.

If that is too confusing, just look at this photo of lovely Molly, now don't you want to know how to get a house cow of your own?

House cow milking schedule

Unless you really need every drop of milk from your cow, you can make life a lot easier for yourself by using the calf as a share-milker. Here is how it works.

Molly cow with her calf Ruby

A cow makes the most milk after she first calves and then her production gradually decreases. The amount of milk she makes will depend on her genetics, her health and the quality of her feed. We notice a huge difference in milk production if we have lush green grass in summer compared to dry grass in winter.

For the first few weeks after the calf is born, you leave the calf with the cow and milk the cow twice a day. The cow will gradually produce less milk and as the calf grows, it will drink more milk, so the amount you get at each milking will decrease. When you’re only getting 2 L at a time for a few days, you can cut back to milking once a day, either morning or afternoon, and the calf gets the rest. When you’re only getting 2 L a day, you can stop milking altogether. Now if you want milk, you separate the calf from the cow, usually overnight, and milk your cow in the morning. This provides plenty of milk for us for one week, so we milk once a week and calf gets the rest. This means we can go away for the weekend if we want to. It also means that we have 10 L of milk per day for only the first few weeks, and then gradually less until we only milk when we want to, so we’re not constantly trying to use up all that milk, but we can make cheese for a few weeks with the excess.

The easiest way to separate the cow and calf is to lead them both into a small pen where the calf will spend the night. You then lead the cow back out of the pen, she is usually tamer and quicker to follow a bucket of grain or hay than the calf. You give the calf some grain and hay and a bucket of water for the night. Don’t set up this pen too close to the house, because you will have to listen to them both crying all night! Gradually the calf will get used to having its grain too, and will follow you into the pen by itself. Make sure that there is no way that the calf could manage to get a sneaky drink through the fence, or you will be disappointed in the morning when your cow still has no milk!

Any questions about house cow milking schedules?  How do you manage your milking schedule?

How to buy the house cow ebook

My house cow eBook "Our Experience with House Cows" is available for purchase on Scribd.  Its only US$4.99, and it includes lots of information about keeping a house cow in Australia. 

If you don't want to go through all the Scribd/paypal effort, just send me an email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com and I can arrange to email it to you instead, with either a bank transfer or I can send a paypal invoice.

If you would like  see it on another site, just let me know where you like to download ebooks and I'll investigate.

photo shoot with Molly cow

this is how you buy from Scribd

Our Experience with House Cows is now available

Our Experience With House Cows, by Elizabeth Beavis
Available from Scribd here for only $4.99 in .pdf format.

Have you ever thought about owning a house cow but don’t know where to start?  Do you dream of unlimited raw milk, manure and beef to complement your small farm activities?  “Our experience with House Cows” is an eBook written by a house cow owner to help other small farmers get started with a cow of their own.  The eBook is written for Australian conditions, particularly sub-tropical Queensland, but much of the information is applicable to cows and cow owners all over the world.  This eBook covers the basics of getting a cow, getting her in calf, milking her and caring for her calf, all using natural methods.  The final sections explain how to use all that milk to create delicious dairy products!  The eBook references several other cow, cattle and dairy books which are useful to the new cow owner and explain some aspects in more detail.  Go ahead, learn how to realise your house cow dream today!