Just another Day on the Farm

Amazing wonderful milk, this is Girls official first day of Milk, that past couple days have been classified as colostrum milkings (the first five milkings).

I am thrilled

I am totally overwhelmed

So lets talk about the colostrum first off, I have had comments and private emails and my father even called my momma to find out why I should not be using the colostrum, because it was just “not” done but neither of them could figure out why not 🙂

Question #1

The calf should get all of that milk, why are we milking her..

Answer #1

The answer is because Glenda can’t drink it all, At a max Glenda can drink about a gallon of colostrum/milk as a young calf, and she is most likely not even drinking that much yet, more likely she is around two to three quarts a day right now, Girl is half Holstein and she has been breed to have lots of milk, after the calf drinks all she wants, we are getting another four to five gallons of milk or colostrum per day after the babies needs are meet.

If we didn’t milk girl out, she would be at risk of having udder issues, she needs to be milked out fully twice a day.

That extra four to five gallons (and it will be another few days before Girl settles down to her regular amounts, I can effect it to a point by how much grain I am willing to give her, I would like her to sit at four to six gallons a day ideally (far, far! less then what a dairy would want) that gives me two gallons of milk a day to feed Glenda for when she is big enough to go that high on it,  with two to four gallons of milk for the house and farm uses.

While the dairy part of girl is high milk production with low cream, her beef half is lower milk but richer milk with lots of cream, she is averaging a quart of cream per milking, or two quarts of cream per day so far.

Question #2

You should not drink or eat the first milkings..

Answer #2

So lets look at the history of humans using colostrum . Its used as a health food in pretty much every single culture in the world, It can be drank (but the first milking is very thick and is much better suited to be used as in the puddings or cheeses) It can be used to replace egg in recipes and will set up just like you did.

http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/cooking-with-colostrum

The most common recipes are puddings, curds or cheese’s, it is a slightly sweet light creamy cheese or curd, if used to make cheese the amount of cheese and the lack of  whey compared to being made with regular milk is amazing!

I can find no reason in my research on why? it was not eaten back in the day, if anyone know why they didn’t, other then it just was not done, I would be interested in hearing about it?

Ok so we are settling down on the milking and I am hoping to get to the point of around four gallons of milk for the house plus fresh milk to meet all of Glenda’s needs.. only time will let me know if this is to much.

So we are all slowly but surely getting into a routine,  I swear the cow is faster at figuring this out then we are..  she is being such a good girl, she lets me do my bag cleaning and massage, she lets her milk down for me and she stands and waits an waits for me to finish even after she done her grain, so far fresh new hay is rarely of interest, (why would it be, when she has a acre of pasture) but she has not kicked at the bucket since the first milking time.  She however does have one clear bad habit, thankfully she gives warning on it but I still don’t like it..  she is starting to pee and poo about half way though the milking..

Which means I have to back off with the bucket, and then clean the bedding and area again before starting again.. thankfully she shifts and moves in very clear ways before starting, so there is time to make sure the milk bucket is moved and covered but still! its a bad habit and not one I want to see, so far morning milkings are more likely to do this then evening milkings.

As for my own milking, my hands and arms are slow to build the required strength, I find I can only milk two handed for a certain length of time before the burn gets so great that I find myself milking one quarter at a time, giving my arms a break.. and let me tell ya, its not just your arms, its your fingers, wrists, forarms, upper arms and your chest muscles that are all getting a good work out, my mother informed me that it will help lift and tighten my own girls, I laughed until I looked down while I milked and I get it now LOL

Each teat and each quarter are milking different and I had a WHAT the heck is this moment, you see I just assumed? that the back teats and quarters would be the heavy producers and the front less, but on girl its the opposite, and I was having a bit of a worry about this but thankfully my momma had milks a cow or two that was this way as well, turns out each cow is different, and that I can just relax and go with it.

The two back teats are about half the size of the front teats, and they produce about 3/4th of the amount of milk as the two front ones do.. the front left teat and quarter are my favorite to milk, its just so perfect, the right front teat is a bit more tricky.., it requires a different hand motion with each stroke getting a bit less milk in the stream and because its a reach across to milk, I find that its harder to get that pressure right..

Thankfully Girl does not mind that I talk and hum and lean on her.. the lean is just comfortable but it also allowed me to feel her body, I can tell if she is going to shift her weight etc.. this is very, very helpful, on the other hand, I am also teaching her that she can’t lean back on me.

Glenda update: She is a lively, bouncy, interested in everything, happy calf, with a low barky moo.. she’s hoot, she explores and bops and mini-bucks and then curls to sleep wherever. We got Girl three weeks old and we got Marty at a week plus, and both of them were weaker and less lively then Glenda is at three days old.  I will wait till she is one week old before starting to halter break her, I am in so much trouble, I just adore her, but I can’t keep her, so its going to be very hard to find that balance, enjoy her, train her and love her to bits, while knowing that she can’t stay, and that the odds are poor that I could find her a family milker home..

On to the milk.. so we are straining it and then into the fridge in glass jars to chill, the cream is then skimmed off, leaving enough that its still whole milk, we are starting to feed half to a gallon of milk to the farm purrpots, we have made butter, and I have a quart of cream being cultured to make cultured butter, I have a quart of cream being made as I type into clotted cream, I have already made farmers cheese, I have a gallon of yogurt culturing away this morning, I have made icecream and milkshakes, we have made cream soups, I made the hounds supper last night – a very healthy whole milk, egg rice pudding, they loved it. I have a jar cultured to start my clabber, the clabber is the best way to use the milk to feed the chickens, its much much better for them to be served clabber then it is just give them raw whole milk.

I have a small problem, that that is my fridge will only hold three milkings worth of jars plus cream plus the rest of my food, I think we will need to consider bringing down and using the small guest room fridge ( mini-collage type fridge) and use it as a milk and cream fridge.

This is something that I should have thought about more, It means that I have to not only fit the milking, stall cleaning, grooming, washing and calf time into the farm day twice, but I need to add in the straining of the milk, cleaning of the milking equipment but it also means that I need to use a couple gallons of milk into farm use per day.. every single day!

Right now, I am finding I am investing four hours or so and a huge part of my day when you add in the rest of my regular things, I clearly need to find the swing in this regards, each new thing always has a learning curve..

I would ideally like to get these new chores down to two hours a day, we will see how long it takes me to get there, it could be a bit.

I have this ideal version of loving milk as a child on the farm with Jessie the milk cow, and when we moved to town, I remember not liking town milk and that was pretty much it, I have never been a milk drinker since, so t was with great care, I poured myself a small glass of well chilled milk from the 3rd milking, the first one that looked and milked like regular milk and I took a sip, rolled that raw fresh but chilled milk on my tongue and then drank the whole glass and then poured another and tried to sip it, down it went.. and I just laughed.. it is as good as I remember! Amazing!

I see a lot more of drinking milk in my future..