The Dairy Daily Diary

Tonight I'll bring you up to date with what's going on with the milking operations at Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  We're milking one cow (LuLu) and two goats.  We drink all we can and sell the rest.  Despite the high heat LuLu, our Jersey cow, yields rich milk, high in butterfat.  Look at the cream line in that gallon jar of milk!  The cream rises to the top and almost a third of it is heavy cream - perfect for butter or whipped cream, excellent in coffee or for making ice cream.

I walked out in the pasture in the late afternoon.  Cows aren't super smart, but they aren't super dumb most of the time, either.  Notice how Rosie and Elsie are grazing in the shade.  They follow the shade out and wait until the shadows lengthen before they move on out.  Belle is guarding her charge, too.

LuLu is grazing by herself, but she's following the same protocol.  She'll move on out as the shadows lengthen.

Here is Rosie in the foreground.  She is 18 years old!  She is the first Jersey calf born on our property.  She was a champion show cow in her time and gave us many wonderful calves over the years.  Her time is getting short, however, and we'll have to make some hard decisions soon.

Here's Elsie.  She's a bossy beast, if there ever was one.  She is still a heifer.  She should have calved two years ago.  We had the veterinarian come and check her out when she never got pregnant.  He found a cyst on her ovary and got rid of it.  She was going into heat every cycle, but still never got pregnant.  She's a fat, good looking Jersey, but if she's only going to eat and not give us calves and milk, well... the clock is ticking for you Elsie, girl.  The pressure is on.

We'll see.  We haven't seen her go in heat for the last several cycles and Tricia seems to think her udder is showing some changes.  Is hope on the horizon for this heifer?  Funny, I pray every single morning that our cows get pregnant.  As I said, we'll see...

And this is LuLu.  I call her LuLu Boofaloo.  She has been in milk now for two years come July.  That's a long time to be milking a cow.  We need a break and she does too.  We plan on drying her off on July 4th.  Independence Day (in more ways than one.)  We've seen her milk production really fall off.  It could be the heat or the time in milk, but it could be that she's bred, too.  We will find out in due time.

Here is the bull.  Nicky.  He's a registered Jersey like Rosie, Elsie, and LuLu.  He, hopefully, has planted his fertile seed.  When the girls had not gotten pregnant, I had talked to a neighbor down the road.  He has a Holstein Jersey cross.  He wants to trade me his bull for Nicky.  That way we'd learn if Nicky is "hot" or fertile.  Introducing a bull with Holstein would make calves with more volume.  Holsteins give more milk, but Jerseys give richer milk.  I'm thinking we'll just keep Nicky, but if he's not going to be successful in his breeding endeavors, we'll make necessary adjustments.  We send our bulls to be processed to fill our freezer and it's pretty empty right now.

The pasture is holding up pretty good right now, thanks to the lime Dad and I broadcast in the early spring as well as the wonderful rains we have been getting.  Cows head down is something you like to see.  Later, when they sit, chewing their cud, you know they are happy creatures.

That's gonna be a wrap in the Dairy Daily Diary.