We're back!

Well, the Sonnier Family has returned home from our annual family vacation.  This year we went tent camping in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park for a week. We escaped for a week in the mountains, leaving sweltering 100 degree heat and humidity and escaping to highs in the 70's and lows in the low 60's. It was truly refreshing and I'll tell you a bit about the trip over the next week or so.  In addition to making some great family memories, we also learned a lot, believe it or not.  It was great to get away, but as it always is, it was great to be back home.

How, you might ask, does a family get away from a farm in which we're milking two cows and a goat everyday?  Not to mention taking care of two dogs, two cats, two turkeys and 60+ chickens?  Two words: Good Friends!  It also takes a little planning.  A couple weeks prior to leaving for North Carolina we started the process of drying off Rosie.

You left me high and dry

Rosie had been in milk for about 9 months.  Sometimes we'll keep milking the cows for a year and a half, but since Rosie will be calving somewhere around November 3rd, we wanted to give her an opportunity to put the energy that she's currently using to produce milk - into developing her calf for the last trimester.

Since milk production is based upon supply & demand, for a few days we stopped milking twice a day and went to once a day milkings.  Then we stopped milking completely.  If the cow is producing less than 2 gallons a day, you can do this.  If she's producing more than 2 gallons a day, you have to milk her down a little bit to take the pressure off.  Rosie was right at two gallons and we watched her closely for several days.  Her udder was pretty tight after the first day, but after a couple of days, her bag began to loosen, confirming that she was indeed drying up.

Well that solves the issue for one cow.  How about the other?  Well, unlike Rosie, whose calf was stillborn, Daisy has a calf, Bully, by her side.  Normally we share the milk with him.  He gets the milk all day until a little after 5:30 pm when we separate him from Daisy.  Daisy then makes milk for us all night and we milk her at 5:30 in the morning and then put Bully and his Mom back together.

Bully will get ALL the milk while we're gone!

While we were vacationing, Bully simply stayed with his Mom all day long, getting double the amount of milk than he normally does.  He kept Daisy milked down.  This made the old boy very happy and enabled us to get away without Daisy getting engorged and possibly getting mastitis.  It worked beautifully.  When we returned, we simply separated Bully and began teaching him to share again!

But what about Nellie?  Well, we have the same system with Annie that we do with Bully and we could have used the same method and left Annie and Nellie together all day during the week.  We actually have some good friends who volunteered to milk Nellie for the week, so Tricia put on goat milking training for a few days and our friend fed and milked Nellie all week!

What about us?

Instead of putting Nellie and Annie back together, though, it is now time to wean her.  I'll separate Annie from Nellie by putting her in a separate pen.  We'll have to start milking Nellie twice a day, but Annie is eating grass now in addition to milk and she's getting big - too big to still be on Mama.

The cows and goats were in very good hands while we were out.  Another very good friend came by the house twice a day and fed and watered dogs, cats, cows, the calf, goats, turkeys, chickens and gathered eggs  for us.  Family members checked on the house while we were gone.  What a blessing it is to have good friends and a loving family!  Our family enjoyed the vacation immensely and it wouldn't have been possible without them.

Tomorrow, I'll share with you about the art of blacksmithing!