Yes, our Jersey girl finally has a name – Holly. She and Bangers have settled into life on our farm really well and have quickly accepted the routine I have started for milking in the morning and ‘getting to know you’ sessions during the day.
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 helps 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 doesn’t like the taste of molasses, but I will try again and see if she does as it is full of vitamins and minerals and particularly good in drink form when a cow is recovering from illness or giving birth.
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 today’s 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)
