Today I will not be milking Daisy. The milking has finished. Oh, how I will miss the milk. And I will miss milking but after a while. It will be nice to have the time off. 
It will be a shock to the system, not milking.
We have been milking Daisy for over a year now and it is time. I could not dry her up until she had dropped her production markedly. And she did, after a struggle, so the time has come. She had her last milking last night, then because of her history of chronic sub clinical mastitis I injected a compound into each quarter of the udder to fend off any infection, (she does not even flinch so for a drama cow like Daisy I have to assume she does not even notice, it is a slim catheter not a needle) and she has been led down the back to the rubbishest field with the worst grass where she will whine and lean over fences and carry on about the lack of good food and her udder will dry up.
I will not call her, bring her to the barn, ring the bell, turn on the milking parlour light or do anything that may trigger the milk letting down. The milking door has been closed and shuttered and she will not even be allowed in the yards for a while. Before you and I launch off to the Rocky mountains she will be able to go back with the others and have some decent feed.
Whose got her mothers ears then?
Well maybe, either that or she is listening very carefully. The piglets are starting to eat their mothers food and are already chewing on the greens that I pile into the pen each day. I always make sure to leave soil on the roots of the lambs quarters that are their main green as pigs need dirt. It is actually part of their diet and supplies them with much needed iron. These guys eat eggs too which also gives a hefty serving of iron. When I come home the back gate to the pen will be opened and they will go into their yard and begin to chomp on grass. But I need to be here for that, they will be testing their boundaries and I will be electric fencing them across a field, so they go on new pasture every day. Once again I will be learning how to do this as I go along. In the past the Shush Sisters just roamed the field on their walks, then I called them in, but for pasture raised pork I am going to have to be a bit more disciplined.
Good morning. It rained and rained and rained yesterday. The weather was grim. So wet that I could not even get onto the hay field to clean up. And it is unusually cool. Wet and cool is great for gardening too. Today I will be setting up electric fences for the cows and sheep, I have combined them for ease of managing in my absence and today I will open up a new field that I have been saving for July. But not until it is dry and late afternoon. We don’t want any bloaty Queenies!
I hope you all have a lovely day.
your friend, celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
55 responses to “Daisy begins her dry period”
I bet the other animals will miss the milk too 😉
SAo many logistics involved in your days Celi. I bet you could brain storm an idea in a quarter of the time it would take the rest of us.
Have a beautiful week ahead.
🙂 Mandy xo
Oops, that was meant to be So not SAo!
I like SAo. c
HI Celi! Who would have thought that so much thought and preparation must go into stopping milking? I learn so much when I come here.
I just love pigs…they really are like large dogs and just as smart and just as loyal. Great Post, Celi!
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Very large, Sheila was trying to play with me this morning! And she is a big pig! c
Dear Cinders, I have a couple questions…does this mean that you will not have any (buy) milk for quite some time now…what about those pink milk, cocktails…won’t you miss them? 🙂 And did you get to see Chg. John while you were in well…Chg.??
I love that profile of Q. Charlotte and all that lovely borage…what else can you do with it besides freeze it in ice cubes? Ok, I know, that was 3 questions and not just a couple!!
The new leaves of borage are wonderful in salads! They taste cucumbery. Yes, I did see ChgJohn, we had a lovely time. I will not buy milk from a supermarket. Here they add Vitamin D to it which is actually sourced from pig skin, pig brains or fish oil, not on the label of course.(I get enough Vitamin D) Plus the Dairy Board is trying to get aspartame renamed as a milk product so that they can put sweeteners in the milk without informing us either. So no trusting regular milk. I need to do some work on organic milk. I do have other sources for raw milk though. But I guess the fast answer is that I take my coffee black from now on.
Celi, after reading this comment, maybe having a dairy allergy is not such a bad thing after all!
I am full of admiration for your orderly management of land and animals. An object lesson for any young agricultural student. And what a great crop of borage you have.
I hope Daisy dries up without a problem. I remember the human version (enforced because of, you’ve guessed it, mastitis / abscess) which was painful as hell!
I have taken a five minute breather from clearing out and packing stuff, but am also cooking supper, so I’m only visiting two or three of my very favourite blogs!
Celi, it just occurred to me how lucky you were to not come into Chicago on the Blackhawks’ Parade Day What a nightmare THAT would have been. Hardly a day of R & R!!
Lucky me! Sounded awful.. c
Good luck with Daisy! The piglets are awfully cute 🙂 I have a soft spot for them.
Glad to read that Daisy has dried up, just in time for your Canadian holiday. That’s one less thing to worry about while you’re away. It was a lousy day here yesterday, too. You picked the only good day of the entire week to come here. You’ve taken some great photos of the piglets. I bet you could gather them up, add a little dialogue, and create a wonderful children’s book. Yes, you could do it in your spare time. 🙂
Those little baby pigs are just the cutest little things.
Well, Chris asked ‘my’ question for me: you use such a tremendous amount of milk on the farmy [Milk in coffee being about .0001% methinks] : is everyone on short rations – surely your budget can’t sustaing buying all the daily gallons?! Aspartame: a horror story – how can that become a ‘milk product’ and surely that would have to be clearly noted on the back label as in Australia, such as GM etc . . . ?
Not milking. What a change for all. I hope Daisy enjoys her new life – and you especially.
After milking daily for a year, you and Daisy will now have time to do something else. 🙂
‘Like read a book!’ was the first thought that came to my head. I’d love to see Daisy beyond in the field reading a book. How about it Celi…. since you now have half a day to yourself! 😉
Truly those piglets are growing like weeds! Faster than Boo, even.