Drying off Rosie

Rosie is one of our three Jersey cows who will be calving first and we think the earliest date of exposure to the bull puts her due date about June 18th.  She's been in milk for around one and a half years and that's a long time for her (and us). Generally, a practice that we do, is to dry the cows off exactly two months before their delivery date.  That means we stop milking them. This gives them a much needed vacation from being milked every single day, twice a day. It also gives us a chance to have a break as well.  The cow needs to build up her stores of energy and use that energy for growing the calf in its final two months before birth and also to build up her strength for calving.

The first thing we do is gradually go down on the minimal amount of dairy ration that we give them during milking time, switching from a higher protein, nutritionally balanced ration to sweet feed only. This reduces the energy content of the feed they use to produce milk somewhat, and results in a drop-off of milk production.  The cows primarily eat grass, though.  As mentioned earlier, we gradually stop milking over a week time period.  On April 11th we stopped milking Rosie twice a day and dropped to once a day milkings and followed that practice for a week.

Milk production is based on demand. Where she was previously producing 2 gallons a day, when we went to once a day milkings, her daily production dropped to 1 and 1/3 gallons.  At this point (after a week on 1 milking per day), it was safe to stop milking her entirely.  Tomorrow will mark a week since she's been milked.  It's been nice to sleep 30 minutes later each day!

Rosie eating in the side yard by the potatoes and corn

It is very important to keep a close eye on your newly dried off cow.  The udder will swell with milk. I'm sure it is uncomfortable for the ole girl.  There is a chance that the cow could get mastitis and you don't want that infection to set in.  This is more of a danger when the cow is producing much more milk.  Actually, different publications I've read state that if the animal is producing a daily volume of milk that is 2 gallons or less, you can just stop with no problems.  The cow's body signals the mammary glands to stop producing milk since no one is drinking it.  Over a few weeks, the udder will shrink back down.  Until then, we inspect her every day.

Each day we feel Rosie's udder, each of the four compartments, to ensure that they are soft and not warm.  A hardening of the bag or heat tells you that something is wrong.  As you can see in the photo, her bags are somewhat swollen, but they are not hard and although they were full of milk and tight a few days ago, they are softening over the past couple of days.

Rosie in the process of drying off after about a week of not being milked.

So now it's only Daisy that we're milking once a day.  Daisy will be calving around October 31st, so we will repeat this process with Daisy on August 31st.  Then we'll get ready for Amy to have her first calf around December 23rd.

For now we'll relish our time off.  Milking one cow once a day is not a big deal and provides a little downtime while still giving us access to the delicious milk we enjoy drinking and turning into butter, cream, kefir, and cheese.  Once Rosie calves and freshens, we'll have an abundant supply of milk again, but for now, we'll enjoy the break - or use that time to get the Spring garden in!