Dairy cows

[Kzp1020]

Okay so backstory to the saga that I intend to start documenting. I did not grow up near farm animals and neither did my husband. We moved to what was previously an active dairy farm thinking we could slowly start with chickens and sort of move on from there and maybe eventually get a single dairy cow as sort of a family cow sort of thing. Well, one day a guy knocked on the door and told us he had been renting the barn and milking gallery for his cows and wanted to start doing it again. We thought, sure, its just hanging out there. A few short months later we essentially inherit 2 of this man's heifers and the rest of his cows are taken to an actual dairy. So last year we got thrown into cow ownership. I figured out most of it and then last summer we decided to inseminate them. We didnt think they would both get pregnant because, well, statistics. Unfortunately for us we are either very lucky or very unlucky and now I am just a few months away from having two calves and likely 6 gallons of milk daily. So that, my friends is how this story started, come along as I figure out the rest.

 

[BoundlessLove]

Thank you for sharing your story.
Such pretty cows!
You will have to share pictures of your calves. That’s exciting!
What are you going to do with six gallons of milk a day?

I’ve asked my hubby if we can do this with the extra milk when/if we get some Nubian goats:
Raise some small breed pigs and feed them mash and milk.
Then process for meat and lard.

 

[WingItRanch]

I love this! We also moved out to the country a couple years ago. I figured chickens would be a good start. Dipping my toe in the water.

I ended up adopting two Nigerian Dwarf goats that needed a home when the owner had to move away. Surprise! One is pregnant. I wasn't planning on breeding/ milking so soon but when life gives you lemons... make cheese!

 

[Kzp1020]

Honestly I'm mostly going to waste some figuring out how to make cheese. We probably will wind up doing some feeder pigs but at the moment I am a bit scared of pigs haha. We have 3 very curious young kids so I worry that they'd think pigs are as easy going as our other animals and stumble into the pen.

 

[WingItRanch]

I would love to follow your cheese making process. I've never milked anything before and certainly never made cheese so this should be interesting! I'm mainly just excited for a baby goat.

 

[Kzp1020]

I also have never milked anything before so itll be a weird learning curve. Oooh, goats are kind of cute. Yeah, I will share my experiments when they come. Our first calf should be here in early to mid May and then the experiments begin haha