Now, how can you possibly see what you think. Imagine if we were all walking about with the picture of what we were thinking flying about our heads for all to see. Thank goodness you cannot see what I am thinking . But let us see what we think.
I was talking to my friend from Colorado yesterday and we were talking about Daisy and her mastitis. (Daisy had mastitis in two quarters that we struggled with for months last winter) my friend has had years of experience with house cows and said that it was more likely that the mastitis will recur. I agree. She will never be a perfect house cow. Those two quarters will always be more likely to carry an infection. She suggested two possible solutions for me to see what I thought.
The first is to share-milk. The quarters that are prone to infection would do better if they were milked by her calf. At the same time as I am milking the other two quarters for the house and the cheese and the pigs and the chickens (and hopefully not orphan lambs this year)- the calf will be nursing on his side, then once the calf is done and I am done, I check his side to make sure the quarters are stripped and we are finished. This sounds like an excellent idea. As long as I can arrange my milking parlour to accommodate a fast growing badly behaved calf.
The other suggestion is so sensible I felt myself stepping out of my thinking square.
How did Daisy get mastitis she was musing. I told her that I found a steer I was raising nursing off her before she was even pregnant. I separated them forever but in retrospect I believed the damage had already been done. This made my friend pause then she suggested that Daisy might be a natural mother for calves other than her own. Why not let Daisy adopt Queenie’s calf and milk Queenie, she said.
You can milk a beef cow, I stupidly asked.
Of course you can, she said. You will maybe get two gallons a time rather than Daisy’s four or five but you can certainly milk a beef cow.
Well. I thought.
And I can keep Daisy as a breeding/ wet-nurse cow. And with any luck she will throw a heifer and I can raise her as the next milk cow. (Though there is a lot of luck in that thought!). And I will have to keep a very close eye on Daisy’s udder.
Well, we will have to see what we think.
Daisy is due in the middle of March and Queenie is due the beginning of April, I will have a small window to work this out. But what a very interesting think we will have.
Farming is full of learning.
Have a lovely day.
your friend on the farmy
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
58 responses to “We will see what we think”
So the answer was under your nose all the time. Reminds me of the value of conversation too
Morning Claire, it clarifies things, especially when you get to talk to someone who has already been through the trials and errors you are involved in. And most importantly we are all of an age to know the value of Listening.. c
It’s good that you have friends with experience with whom you can ‘chew the hay’ … so to speak. Are you going to send her some of your homemade soap or healing lotions?
Oh yes! I have some wonderful new soaps curing almost ready to send away. c
I would have to keep journals to remember everything there is to learn about the farmy C.
Have a beautiful day.
🙂 Mandy xo
LOVELY to see you mandy darling, i am zooming over to see what you have been up to!.. c
oh my goodness..if I had to ‘see’ what I am thinking it would be like a very messy jig-saw puzzle with bits here and other bits there….total confusion is my usual state.
I did get a bit confused with Queenie and Daisy’s milking habits but I am absolutely positive that you know exactly what to do…so I shall go back to sorting out the jig-saw puzzle!
Have a bright sunny lovely day MissC
I net your jig saw thoughts are very colourful!.. c
Brilliant thinking there! But then don’t you think the Farmy Friends are one big ‘think tank’ anyway? No matter what the problem, question, idea that is mentioned here, there seems to be always someone that has been there, done that, or at least have an idea about it! I have learned so much from this ‘tank’ in the short time I have visited.
Hope you are holding out in this next breath of cold! We expect 3 to 6 inches of snow today, out first of the year!
Hugs, Lyn
Yes, we got some snow last night and now it is very cold, painfully so. Oh that reminds me, did you get more kefir. shall i send you a few grains?.. c
Came in the mail yesterday and this batch has bigger grains so hopefully I wont lose them in the ‘thick stuff’! Had to wait to get Pasturized milk though to re-hydrate them. Supposedly you can’t use raw milk from the get go!
hmm, interesting.. good luck!!
Well, they sound like two great ideas to work with and Queenie always seems such a gentle soul, perhaps better to work with in the confined space of your milking parlour!
Christine
Yes, John always used to joke that he would rather milk Queenie!! Lets hope Daisy is well though as she gives so much milk and i want to raise the piglets on milk this time.. c
Wow! How nice to have two options Celi! It would be so interesting to compare the taste and other quality of Queenie’s milk compared to Daiay’s too!
Evidently the beef cow milk is richer. It is an interesting thought. c
Oh,I think the dairy cow milk is the richer. And within the dairy family the Brown Swiss and the Jersey are the richest of the butter fat milkers. But you will still get butter fat in a beef cow, instead of four -five inches of butterfat(in a gallon) you will get maybe (MAYBE) and inch. It will just take you longer to store up enough to make butter with, but it can be done.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
Having other farm friends for guidance, support and to assist in problem solving is priceless.
I’m learning so much simply by reading your experiences. Such wonderful knowledge I can carry with me to my little farm one day.l
There is so much to learn, we are lucky to have the Fellowship. c
growing up, we had gurnsey milk cow, mabel, i would milk out what we needed in eve, then turn calf in to finish milking cow, i would leave calf with her till morning, then seperate them during day, before i caught school bus at 6;45 am, after school, i would milk, turn calf back in for alnighter.
sometime we would get extra calf, or 2 , she would raise them along with hers.sometimes we raised heifers for replacement cows, or sell them as veal, and buy 2 or 3 more calves, some years would have as many as 6 calves, at different times, before we dryed her off for her next calf. never had mastitis problem.Mabel became my responsibility to milk when i was 6 yrs old, can you imagine the child protective services today if they knew kid was left alone with cow now
A wonderful idea and once I get a cow who has never had mastitis i hope to do something similar. Unfortunately if Daisy’s mastitis is chronic I will have to ensure that the infected quarters are milked right out every milking or it will go black, etc. Not nice. In a normal dairy herd she would be culled. But she is my milk cow, in a herd of TWO and I think I can manage it. She may present with a healthy udder, if she does then I will work out something like your Mabel. Bet you were a stunning 6 year old, no wonder you know so much. I honestly believe that because we worked hard as kids we are able to problem solve and work hard as adults.. Children (like blue heelers) love responsibility! c
the calves would drain her better than i could, plus they would nurse often and keep her emty all night long
exactly, I will definitely be using calves as part of her mastitis management.. plis i am sure everyone will be happier!
Ah, she’ll be like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (sort of)! And as for my wild and random thoughts – crikey, could be scary 🙂
Nursemaid Daisy!.. lovely.. c
I think we complicate our problems too much for ourselves – always a good idea to hand it to someone else. Others will have a completely different perspective and cut to the chase much quicker. 🙂 I think I like Ron’s suggestion the best – probably less stressful for all? Laura
It is a good suggestion, we will have to see how the mastitis is, hopefully it will not recur, we will have to see what we think.
There were studies done in the 1980s (I think) that showed a link between calves, living in groups, fed mastisis milk and developing mastisis as adults from suckling on each other. It lays dormant until the heifers freshen. So if Daisy (or Queenie if you plan to keep her calf) were to have a heifer you might want to make sure it can’t be suckled by the other calf/calves. We had a half Angus in our herd of purebreds for awhile, a patch of black in a herd of brown. She started as a nurse cow, but we had a spell of no heifers and Dad put her into the milking string. She milked quite well.
Thank goodness nobody can see my thoughts, especially when I’m driving.
I believe that is exactly what happened. Being such a tiny outfit it is hard to keep one calf all by itself for a year or so. But if we do have a heifer I will be extra vigilant. A damaged udder is miserable.. c
We often after milking the cows allowed the calves to suckle… it saved a lot of problems and kept the cows production high… had some sneaky ones that held back milk specially for their calves… we supplemented the calves milk with a powder milk… got good healthy calves as well as good healthy milk producing cows..
It all makes perfect sense, I hope to do something like this. c
I love the second photo of Daisy and the sheep both looking at Queenie, whose expression seems to say, “Who, me?”
It seems perfect for today’s discussion doesn’t it! morning mary.. c
I wouldn’t have known that you could milk a beef cow, either, but of course it makes sense. I don’t think I care to see my thoughts, thank you very much! 🙂
We are learning at a rapid rate aren’t we Betsy! .. c