Raw milk scare

[canesisters]

R U nuts??????? Milk her 2X a day, every day, for the rest of your life???? I married my wife, not going to be married to an dang old stinky cow! No thank you, I will GLADLY pay whatever the price for dairy products.

(turn on sarcasm meter as you read but I am serious as heart attack on no milking cows, goats, sheep...... For me).

"married the cow" hahahaha
I've been doing a LOT or 'research' - since I am starting from ZERO cow-care knowledge.
Did you know that you can 'share' with the calf and only milk when you want to?
Or that there are 2 different kinds of milk? And that A2 milk can be consumed by people who are lactose intollerant?
I've still got a lot to learn... But I'm getting excited to get something in the barn & pastures again.

 

[Carol Dee]

No idea on beef breeds how often you have to milk them but dairy cows will develop mastitis if not kept milked. But even 1 X a day is more than I'm willing. I'll pay.

On automatic milkers, cows will go 3-4X a day to get milked. Must feel good to drain udders.

Or they want to treats offered!

 

[seedcorn]

Or they want to treats offered!

Not given treats except for certain times. Some of them go through 15-20X per day because they haven't figured it out yet.

Actually makes me want to buy a bag and go feed them some. Dad was a dairymen (50's) and I had my pet cow-Blackie. She would let me attempt to milk her. I miss having a pet cow but NO milking-I'm not that far gone.......

 

[Carol Dee]

@seedcorn there is a large dairy operation near us that has automated/robotic milkers. They drop molasses when the cow whose collar chip says it has been long enough between milking. Yeah. You can stand and watch the same sweets craving bovine walk through the milking station over and over.

 

[seedcorn]

@canesisters I'm not sure I would do that with a dairy cow. I know I wouldn't, that means I would have to milk her. We don't use that many dairy products anyway.

 

[Jared77]

I would like the milk at the rate we go through all dairy products at our house but Seedcorns right the commitment is not worth the return. Although knowing I could use a beef bull to get a decent calf to and then raise for meat might help offset things a bit.

Still more big critters than I need to deal with on my property though.

 

[Ridgerunner]

View attachment 7033 "married the cow" hahahaha
I've been doing a LOT or 'research' - since I am starting from ZERO cow-care knowledge.
Did you know that you can 'share' with the calf and only milk when you want to?
Or that there are 2 different kinds of milk? And that A2 milk can be consumed by people who are lactose intollerant?
I've still got a lot to learn... But I'm getting excited to get something in the barn & pastures again.

Cane, with ours the calf got two teats at each milking and I got the other two. Then when the calf reached veal size, about 210 pounds, it was gone and we got all of the milk.

The calf was left locked in the stable all the time. The cow was let out to graze and fed corn during the milking, which was twice a day. If the calf had been allowed to roam with the mother, it could have fed at any time so we would not have gotten as much milk.

The cow was not a purebred, just a barnyard mix. But she probably had some Guernsey or Jersey in her background so she gave maybe 2-1/2 gallons a day with a fairly good butterfat content. A purebred Jersey or Guernsey of god stock would have given a little more milk but it would have been a lot higher in butterfat. A Holstein (which really were not used as individual family milk cows, just commercially) would have given a lot more milk, a tremendously larger volume, but the milk would not have had much butterfat at all. The commercial diaries around me kept a couple of Jersey's of Guernsey's to increase their butterfat content. That made the milk worth a lot more.

I could also get some huge earthworms around that commercial dairy barn when I wanted to go fishing. That was before all the lagoons and the manure management techniques became required.

 

[so lucky]

@canesisters, I believe the Guernsey and Jersey cows are the A2. They have more of them in Europe, but they are apparently not as productive as Holsteins, so the commercial dairies don't want them. Just have richer, non-belly-aching milk. Yum.

 

[so lucky]

I see Ridgerunner beat me to the punch extolling the virtues of Guernsey and Jersey.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Something I did not mention. The cow produces what milk is taken, up to her capacity to produce. If you stop sharing with the calf and just let the calf take it, soon she is only producing enough for the calf, leaving none for you. When we sold the calf for veal, we had to gradually reduce her production so she would not hurt herself overproducing. We used a lot of milk with 5 kids but even we had limits.

So Lucky, for absolutely no rational reason I'm aware of, I've always favored the Jersey over the Guernsey. Maybe it's the color, I don't know. They are both good cows.