Holly says..."Eat more Chicken!"

I am just so thrilled that this cow is such a good girl, easy to work with and has so far shown no signs of aggression at all, these are also qualities that she has passed on to Bangers, so I am looking forward to her having a heifer calf one day in the future that we will keep as a second milking cow.

Holly and Bangers are both learning to trust me – of course I am not above bribery so it heaps that I am always the bearer of gifts in the way of yummy cow food.  On Thursday Holly walked right up to me for the first time and stood right next to me happily munching on the oats in the bucket I was holding, and this morning scarfed down a bucket of oats, flaked lupins and lucerne chaff for the first time (up until now the only thing she would eat was the hay and plain oats the other day).  Its possible that she dosn’t like the taste of molassass, but I will try again and see if she does as it is full of vitamis and minerals and particularly good in drink form when a cow is recovering from illness or giving birth.

Holly

We’ve gone from milking just one litre on Sunday up to 4 litres yesterday and while I think settling in here and enjoying unlimited good quality hay is helping, I suspect a large part of the increase is due to improvement in my milking technique and improving dexterity of my thumbs and forefingers that are doing all the milking.  Yesterday I also tried something different and completely stripped one quarter (her rear right) which is her biggest producing quarter, and only partially milked out the two left quarters.  Within just a few hours in the fridge the cream was over an inch thick in the one litre bottles, so it will be interesting to see if todays milk is thicker and creamier in general.

Holly’s milk production for the week:

Sunday: 1 litre,  Monday: 1.5lts, Tuesday: 1.5lts, Wednesday: 2.25lts, Thursday: 2.5lts, Friday: 4lts, Saturday: 3.5lts (Total: 13.75lts)

Holly

Such a sweet face

Holly and Bangers

Holly and Bangers

This is particularly amazing because she is not distracting herself by eating while I milk – so far she won’t even taste anything that I have put in her bucket – flaked lupins, chopped apples and lucerne chaff topped with big dollops of molassas, and today just plain oats to see if that would work as she has probably never had any ‘treat’ food, but not even oats could tempt her.  When I let her out after milking she did stop to grab some big mouthfuls of the lucerne/molassas that I had tipped on top of her hay (before running off down the hill to meet up with Bangers who had gone the long way), so I think the not eating is her way of showing that she is stressed about the new situation and where Bangers is – she is fine when he is standing so she can see him, but starts the mamma-mooing when he moves around the yard out of her sight.

Sunday morning was our first milking and I got just on one litre, there was much more to take, but my fingers had given up on the job.  I was milking one handed into the cup and tipping that into the bucket in case she kicked or pooped and I had to move in a hurry, but by the end I realised that she was going to be ok with the milking bucket under her belly.  She has tiny teats so I am strip milking with thumb and forefinger rather than being able to ‘clam and pull’ with my whole hand as I did with Charlotte.  Its been more than five months since I last hand milked so its going to take a while before a) my hands build up again and b) I can learn how to co-ordinate this new milking technique and aim correctly!  I expect the pain to start in the next few days, so probably should start massaging my hands with something now to help with the aches and pains.

Yesterdays milking gave me 1.5 litres not counting what I miss-aimed and squirted on the floor (not sure how its possible to miss the big opening in the milk bucket but it is) and today I seemed to get into the swing of it a lot quicker and got a fraction over two litres.   LOL much to Bangers disgust, he’s never been handled but that didn’t stop him from coming right up to me and stretching through the steel rails to see if he could reach the milk bar.  He even let me reach out my hand and touch his nose (probably because my hand smelt like his breakfast!)  There was still alot more in there as I wasn’t able to get a full let down, but my hands said enough before her udder did.  I am very relieved to have Bangers to milk her out fully, but can see that he is going to need halter training sooner rather than later.

I still havn’t settled on a suitable name for her yet.  Abbey, Rosie, Ellie, Poppy and Blossom, but I think she is rather graceful for a cow, so Gracie and Violet are also in the running.

Fresh raw jersey milk

I’m sharing this on the Barn Hop:

The Dexters: Matilda, Charlotte and T-Bone

T-Bone's growing up

Tazzy, Tommy and Sandy saying hello to the newcomers

I seperated Bangers and our still un-named jersey for the night so that I could milk her this morning.  Given that she hasn’t been milked since the beginning of this lactation in December and after my experience with Charlotte, I was fully expecting a rodeo and allsorts of arguements and complaints, but she was incredibly easy to get into the yard from the paddock and walked straight through the chute into the crush.  Apart from pulling her head back a couple of times when she got a fright, she stood rock still the whole time, didn’t move one hoof, swish her tail or cover me in cow poop – I didn’t need the kick stop, the glove on the stick, the tail or leg tie – what an angel of a cow!

I only milked a just over a litre off her because I didn’t want to stress her too much being the first time and I was milking one handed into a cup, but I don’t think there will be any problem tomorrow milking straight into the bucket.  She has tiny little teats compared to Charlotte, so it is going to take awhile to get into the swing of milking her in a good rhythm.  I plan to continue milking her in the crush for a week or two, then move her into the stanchion.

She is so terribly skinny, I am worried about the weight she has dropped, and the possibility of her going into ketosis (she hasn’t been starved or anything, but the high water content and lack of nutrition in the fresh grass she has been on the past two weeks combined with feeding her big steer calf has drained all her reserves.  She is alert, happy, has bright eyes, poop has normalized, she’s drinking and her appetitie is good, she ate about half of the bale of hay I left her last night, but has not eaten much of the molassas soaked lucerne chaff/flaked lupins – she most likely has not had anything but hay and only grains when she was being milked previously and I remember that Charlotte was very fussy (and still is) about any new food that she gets introduced to.  I’ve given the new cow a huge pile of our hay which she seems to be enjoying more than the bale that I got from her previous owner.  I’ll be putting her onto speedibeet as soon as it comes in and either oats, barley, cow muesli or a senior horse feed (depending what I can get hold of tomorrow), and will get a weaning nose poker for Bangers so that he can only get milk from her once a day when I take it off – being close to 150 days into this lactation (when lactating cows drop the most condition) it will be nearly impossible to get weight on her with such a big calf still accessing the milk bar.  If she is in calf and due in Spetember, getting weight on her is essential well before then, and even if she is not, she will need more condition before she can be bred (and before I can graft a foster calf on her, which I would like to do if she is not in calf).

More photos this morning with the old camera so not as good as normal, but better than yesterdays effort in the dark!

Bangers

Pretty girl

Way too skinny:(

Investigating their new home

Shows how big he is for just one five months of age

Such a sweet face!

Bangers and mum

And some more photos from this evening, I’m hoping its not just wishful thinking on my part, but to me her rumen dosn’t look as sucken and tucked up as she did this morning.  And she still dosn’t have a name.

What choo lookin’ at?

Jersey

She has lost some condition since we first saw her ten days ago – I can see her ribs (possibly because of her having the squirts from the huge quantity of green grass that has sprung up where she was after the opening rains), so I will be pumping the hay into her to get her back to a bit better condition asap, especially as she may be in calf – she was running with a Murray Grey bull and would be due to calf in September, so I will do a blood draw and have her preg tested at the end of next month so I can wean bangers and dry her off before she freshens.

I’ve got him seperated in the yard tonight and plan to attempt milking her for the first time in the morning.  I am fully expecting a rodeo for the first month or two until she settles down and learns to trust me, but I figure nothing can be as bad as hand milking Charlotte aka devil-cow!

It was nearly dark by the time I got them seperated for the night and fed so the photos from my old camera are not the best – I will get better ones from my good camera tomorrow.

The farmers have been busy the last few weeks raking and burning the left over stubble and fertilizing their paddocks before seeding.  Our paddocks have been fertilized the natural way (with semi rotational grazing and horse, sheep and cow poo), but next season we plan to have soil testing done so that we can apply trace elements and minerals as they are needed.  It will be interesting to see what pasture mix comes up this year, especailly in the seconf paddock which had a large amount of flatweed in it last year (something that most people around here also experienced, so it was a season/weather thing rather than related to our soil).  We will be spreading some oat seed in that paddock before the next lot of rain and then shutting it off from the stock until the end of the year when we will either have it cut for hay or use it as standing hay again like we did last season.

We’ve had our share of illness and injury lately that I am well and truly ready to be over and done with.  A couple of months ago Tazzy bucked me off onto my head giving me a severe concussion for over a week, which led straight into a head cold followed by a big sinus infection all of which combined to completely wipe out nearly four weeks.  G was in hospital last week and is back in for a small, unrelated surgery today, Taj had a grass seed absecc in his foot last week, Raj pony had scours for a week (finaly narrowed it down to hay that was too rich for him), then Monday night just after dark he slipped in the mud and landed in the fence getting his front and back legs caught in the wire.

I saw him sitting down from the kitchen, this is not that unusual as when he rolls he sits like a dog to change sides, but after a couple of seconds I was running out to see what the problem was.  Thank god he didn’t panic because the wire was pulled tight on his front fetlock and above the hock on his hind leg, we are extremely greateful that all he did was scrape some hair off in two places above the hock, it could easily have been a broken bone or degloved leg.  Gave him (and us) a hell of a fright and he took off away from us, but did a 90 degree turn back to Miss B when she came out of the house calling him.  The bond between the two of them is just amazing, we couldn’t have asked for a better pony for her and would be beyond devastated if anything every happens to him.

On a brighter note (for me anyway as it means less work;) I have been able to re-home two of our home grown frizzle roosters so they get to live out their lives as roosters instead of going to freezer camp…while the reason for breeding our own chickens *is* to eat the roosters, this lot are all bantams and honestly not worth the effort of plucking!  I’ve also given seven bantam hens to a friend and have another four to re-home…that leaves me with quite a few more than the dozen hens I had originally planned for when I decided to downsize, but I have kept three pekin hens and a roo for the time being becasue they are so cute and it would be nice to get some chicks from them next spring.  Hopefully when they start laying again they will be happier being less crowded and we will actually get more eggs than we did last season!  In the mean time, I am impatiently waiting for the ducks to start laying sometime in the next month or so.

I also have fingers, toes and everything crossed that I have found my next house cow…if everything goes to plan this time next week we will be drinking fresh sweet milk.  I’m trying not to get too excited until she actually steps foot on the place (in case something goes wrong and we don’t end up getting her), but its very hard not to be excited, I’ve wanted a jersey cow for as long as I can remember.  She has a five month old steer calf on her so the plan will be to share milk for the time being, and if she is in calf dry her off around August, and if she is not in calf I will look at getting her bred and if her milk production is suitable I’m considering a poddy calf to raise for additional beef (or even a week old jersey heifer to raise as back-up milker if I can find one).

Regular readers of this blog may notice that I have gone back and adding posts which I will contionue to do as I have time, in particular to show the changes to the farm over the seasons.  I plan to keep a more regular posting schedule when the new cow comes as well, especially as I will need to record everything once I start cheesemaking.

May 1, 2012: This is actually our neighbours farm and sheep, our land is this side of the fence, but it shows how dry and brown everything was.

The one below is not the best photo as it is very bright with alot of dew on the grass and quite hazy with smoke out there this morning, but it shows the difference between end of summer and the start of autumn I think.

May 9, 2012: Taken this morning in the same direction, showing the greenery growing in our house paddock, top paddock and next doors plowed paddock.

Our paddocks are dusty, the roads are dusty, the air is dusty, we have really had enough of the dust and would like to get some rain.

We have our lowest levels of water in our Water Tanks since living here, with our stock tank at only 15cm, with only 8cm usable and our main house drinking etc tank is now down to 70cms.  The capacity of each tank is around 100,000 litres and both were full at the end of Winter, though I think we have a leak in our Stock tank liner which I need to go and climb into and check (yuck).  So as for what is available litre wise in our tanks I estimate it to be 4500 litres in the stock tank and around 32,000 in the House tank.  While that seems like a lot have a think about your daily water use, from toilet, washing, drinking, showering, cooking and so on… you only need to look at what the Water Corporation says is used by each person in a household to know that it is not much at all.

A couple of telling graphs of our water tanks at Eagleburra as of today.

Eagleburra Stock Tank Level 27-04-2012

Eagleburra House Tank Level 27-04-2012

We were, and still are hopefull of some rain today as our local radar shows rain is there, however looking outside we see no rain…

Rain Radar as at 11:40 AM 27-04-2012

So something is wrong, the radar shows light rain but where is it?

If you know of a rain dance then start dancing, we could use the rain.  Hopefully we will not have to tank water in, it is not that cheap… are you dancing yet?

You can see in the background just how brown and dry the paddocks are.  Really have had enough fo this heat and dust – can’t wait for season break!

Ryley giving me a mouthful of cheek

Ryley in front, freckles at the back and a bit of Trinity in the front corner.

I did adjust the recipe to suit the volume I had (3litres of whole milk, 2 cups of cream, half a 100ml or so of sour cream for culture (store bought with live culture), powdered Junket Rennet and a bit of salt.  I’m not sure if this is just normal coloured whey from a jersey cow (she gives at least 1/3 cream, sometimes more) or if I have just made a weird science experiment that my chickens will enjoy in the morning.  Note to self: follow recipe exactly next time!

Unfortunately we won’t be getting the jersey could I looked at last week.  We did go to pick her up (with her mother and half brother that my friend was going to buy), but despite our best efforts (and my friends lifetime experience with cattle), we could not get the older cow into the horse – as soon as she stepped onto the ramp she threw herself down on her side and refused to move. Nothing short of a front end loader would have got her up and in the float. Her calf was an absolute little monster and of course the people selling them did not have any facilities suitable for cattle, so we were trying to work with small sections of ringlock fencing which cows just have no respect for (and no possibility of getting a proper cow truck into the paddock or ramp to get them in the truck either).

In hindsight the only thing we could have done different was tried to load the cow I was interested in first before she got to witness her mothers theatrical performance…but in the same token, we learnt a few things that the owners let slip in frustration that strongly suggest we are better off without any of them. It also appears that the beautiful behaviour we saw last week was related more to lack of food (ie starvation) as they have been fed up all week on good groceries after our comments on their poor condition last week, and so today there were very, very flighty and non-compliant.

So I am disappointed but have learnt, once again that if something seems to good to be true (the price was an absolute bargain for a calm, friendly pure bred jersey with handmilking experience), then it probably is.

The other lesson was don’t buy a milk cow from a person who would have trouble training a toy poodle.