7th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2016 Hatch-A-Long

TJChickens said:

Wow. And here I am complaining about one.

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Those were all automated milkers, but do it wrong and you got a swift reminder not to forget how to do it on the next cow.
My mother in law got me the job through a friend. Boy was she mad when I quit. Never milked a cow in my life till then. Still don't know how too by hand. Well I'm signing off morning comes early. Been good talking to you.

TJChickens said:

Breezie also loves playing with a ball. Yes, that's her hoof print. She signs most of her paintings.

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that is awesome!

daxigait said:

I just got into goats for milk this last year, though I do have one beef cow that I milk for a while after she calves. I just take enough for me while she eats her grain untied in the pasture. She is a great cow and her babies do fine. Last year was her first and that heifer on just pasture weighed 696 pounds at six months to the day.

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I have a dairy doe and she was milking a liter a day and I was only milking once a day... I just dried her off... and now she is of at the breeders getting bred again... so more milk and some goat babies

TJChickens said:

Yeah, it is hard. I milked for years, just can't really do it now.... The last cow I milked, I was getting lazy with. I kept her calf on her and I just stole milk whenever I could. I have let them keep their calves before, but still milked them twice a day.

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Pensmaster said:

The wife would make me buy a cow first.

But it would be fun for awhile. Milking twice a day rain or shine 7 days a week is really hard. The cows don't take a break.

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Pensmaster said:

Those were all automated milkers, but do it wrong and you got a swift reminder not to forget how to do it on the next cow.

My mother in law got me the job through a friend. Boy was she mad when I quit. Never milked a cow in my life till then. Still don't know how too by hand. Well I'm signing off morning comes early. Been good talking to you.

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I'm going now to milk the cows, With a surge machine.
We only use one stall at a time.
I can do it both ways, But I think manual is still quicker up until about 7 cows in.
Of Course, I'm milking 6 cows this morning! With a Dang machine.....
Easier on the hands though......

There is nothing like fresh, raw milk! I'd love to have a cow of our own for our own milk but we only have just over an acre of land. I'm working on talking hubby into either dwarf goats or dairy sheep. For now though, we're fortunate to have raw milk available at a local, year round, farmers market. Though, at $6 a gallon.....

LocalYokel said:

I'm going now to milk the cows, With a surge machine.
We only use one stall at a time.
I can do it both ways, But I think manual is still quicker up until about 7 cows in.
Of Course, I'm milking 6 cows this morning! With a Dang machine.....
Easier on the hands though......

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Wow X2
Chickens are enough for me now.

Auroradream26 said:

There is nothing like fresh, raw milk! I'd love to have a cow of our own for our own milk but we only have just over an acre of land. I'm working on talking hubby into either dwarf goats or dairy sheep. For now though, we're fortunate to have raw milk available at a local, year round, farmers market. Though, at $6 a gallon.....

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Dwarf might be an option when I retire, maybe....
I don't think we can even buy raw milk here so $6.00 would be good. It's pushing that for "organic milk" milk here. Maybe more.

Auroradream26 said:

There is nothing like fresh, raw milk! I'd love to have a cow of our own for our own milk but we only have just over an acre of land. I'm working on talking hubby into either dwarf goats or dairy sheep. For now though, we're fortunate to have raw milk available at a local, year round, farmers market. Though, at $6 a gallon.....

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I have a feeling that the raw milk you are drinking is from the people that gave me my first sample. It was at the Potatofest (OMG! I am not a city girl anymore!) in Ebensburg. They will sell you a cow. In fact, I think they have a few mini cows. Don't forget that they are an option! A quart or so a day isn't bad!

@prizepeteI really like my does. The Billy, not so much but he is a purebred Saanen so I hope he chills out as he gets a bit older. I am not into bottle babies. They lack boundaries.

Saris said:

You can bring your bator here. ^_^

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Aw, thank you!
Got power back at 11pm last night. Bator was only off for about 30-45 minutes. It only got down to 89°.
Hopefully the chickies are ok.

MotorcycleChick said:

I have a feeling that the raw milk you are drinking is from the people that gave me my first sample. It was at the Potatofest (OMG! I am not a city girl anymore!) in Ebensburg. They will sell you a cow. In fact, I think they have a few mini cows. Don't forget that they are an option! A quart or so a day isn't bad!

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I wish we could figure out how to offer raw milk to the public. Getting certified for raw milk production it hard and the latest news is the Land O'Lakes "Cooperative" will be dropping farmers who are selling raw milk. I suppose they want to squash the competition. They are also penalizing farmers that ship more milk than they have in the past, enough to make sure that all farmers start cutting production. Expect all milk prices to rise in the future, due to "shortages". I think they saw what happened to egg prices after AI wiped out a few million layers.

I believe we should be paying more for our food, but with the extra cost going back to the producers to support better quality and better quality of life for the animals, not going to pay executive bonuses at the agribusiness companies.

I wonder if we could legally rent out cows and have people come milk them themselves to get the raw milk. Or sell the cows and charge a fee to maintain and feed them. Maybe I could form a local group of several families that would jointly own the cow and take turns milking it, taking whatever milk they get for themselves.