Filed under: Cows, Raw milk | Tags: cow, cow shares, Jersey calf, Jersey cow, raw milk
Heifer calf born November 3rd
Well, we have decided to take the dive and do a cow share program at City Girl Farm. I have been hesitant because we only have Tiddles, our family cow, not a herd of dairy cattle. That makes the risk for the shareholders a little higher since if something were to go wrong and her lactation ended, there aren’t other cows there to take over. On the other hand she produces what a herd of 5 or 6 goats produce so there is plenty of milk! Plus, nothing beats fresh Jersey milk. It’s the best! But my children are getting older (one is gone half the time) and we just can’t drink enough milk, make enough cheese, butter and yogurt to keep up with what she produces after having calved in November.
I also see I owe an apology to the people who followed me for having fallen of the planet the last year. For those of you who care, here are my (pathetic) excuses:
- lost one farm hand to school and then to work
- lost another farm hand to a European vacation last summer
- attended sacred music training last summer
- became the choir director at my church
Ah! I fear I will always be torn between the city and the farm. Glad to be back, though. 🙂
Filed under: Cows | Tags: calving, dairy calf, Jersey calf, Tiddles' bull calf
I could tell she was getting close. I think the definitive sign is how they walk—-or more accurately, can’t walk. That’s how you know you are less than a week away, in this case about 3 days. Plus, we were expecting a spring snow storm and that seems to be the favorite time for livestock to give birth. I guess if they survive the cold and wind, Old Bitch Nature (my favorite little nugget from the Contrary Farmer) figures they can survive anything! I could tell she was in labor Tuesday night at milking time so I decided to wait up with her and watch. I was not disappointed! A healthy bull calf was born around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday morning (April 27th). The birth was uneventful but still a little miracle as every birth is.
It took him a really long time to nurse which was of some concern. That sent me in to take a look at the internet and I picked up some interesting information. Dairy breeds have been bred to have HUGE udders and their teats are not tucked up in the natural place that calves look for the food source, high up between the mama’s back legs. Tiddles’ teats were hanging down below her hocks so they were hard for him to find and latch on to. Some smart agricultural expert had a little table of how low cows teats are and how long it takes on average for the calf to find them. The lower they are, the harder it is for the calf. Who knew?
I also discovered that the calf’s ability to absorb all the antibodies from colostrum goes down the longer it takes to nurse, so that if it doesn’t get colostrum until 48 hours after it is born, it only absorbs 5% of the antibodies. That was enough information to get me worried. We hadn’t got him to latch on really well by 4:00 a.m., so he has been bottle fed since then.
I am posting pictures (mostly so I can refer back) so if you are squeamish about these things, you’ll probably want to stop after this bit of text.
The City Girl Farmer 