Mini/Old World Jersey

What we did is buy a Jersey cross. She was bred to a jersey/guernsey that was smaller than her. Our cow was in milk and had an adopted jersey/ angus heifer on her. I paid $850.00 for them. I would not dish out the money to buy registered Mini because I can breed down to it with a regular jersey. It might take longer but it is more fun too. Deals like this are much easier to find. Minis are not easy to find or get hold of in adults. Only the young are for sale and then you have to wait three years to have milk. Waste of time and money in feeding.

Now on temperament. Jerseys can be a bit much to handle when they are large size. The bulls are known for being the worst of all the cattle. But this does not apply to the so called minis. From what I have seen and learned from those that have them the bulls are alot easier to handle. The small Jersey does not give as much milk more like 3 to 5 gallons as opposed the larger ones giving 6 and up in gallons. Our jersey cross is giving us milk and feeding the calf. We get in our morning milking over a gallon from front teats and calf does back teats. We do not take evening milk.

__________________
Our farm site
http://www.bluemoonvalley.com/
Breeding Working farm dogs and
La Mancha Dairy Goats.

What we did is buy a Jersey cross. She was bred to a jersey/guernsey that was smaller than her. Our cow was in milk and had an adopted jersey/ angus heifer on her. I paid $850.00 for them. I would not dish out the money to buy registered Mini because I can breed down to it with a regular jersey. It might take longer but it is more fun too. Deals like this are much easier to find. Minis are not easy to find or get hold of in adults. Only the young are for sale and then you have to wait three years to have milk. Waste of time and money in feeding.

Now on temperament. Jerseys can be a bit much to handle when they are large size. The bulls are known for being the worst of all the cattle. But this does not apply to the so called minis. From what I have seen and learned from those that have them the bulls are alot easier to handle. The small Jersey does not give as much milk more like 3 to 5 gallons as opposed the larger ones giving 6 and up in gallons. Our jersey cross is giving us milk and feeding the calf. We get in our morning milking over a gallon from front teats and calf does back teats. We do not take evening milk.

__________________
Our farm site
http://www.bluemoonvalley.com/
Breeding Working farm dogs and
La Mancha Dairy Goats.

We need to be very careful to advise anyone on temperament . There are some that think Dexters are as tame as lambs. I have seen a few that were wild as the wind. My jersey would let me put my arm over her neck and lead her anywhere. Stood in pasture while I milked her, untied.
In general terms, dairy bulls can be mean, but all bulls pose great danger.
Part is genetics, part training.
But if you are training to the point of your cow getting up on a milking platform or any other tricks, you will have already formed a strong bond and invested much time.

IMHO, once a day milking often leads to mastitis that can damage a cow. I do not recommend it.

OK one thing that I have noticed lacking in the thread about mini cattle is the mention of Chondrodysplasia and how it affects breeding.
If you are planning on having just a single cow and doing AI on her it's easier to use straws that have been tested...but then you'll also need to know the genetics of the cow you have to be more aware of the breeding possibilities that you will have.

__________________
SuzyHomemaker
rtfmfarm.com
LaMancha & Nubian goats

From the feed back in this thread I think the mini breed is too unstable at the moment for me to indulge in. I do know I want a SMALL Dairy cow. So now my question to you all, what is your favorite breed of SMALL dairy cow? I have 4 kids (7-5-3-1), 2 of whom are moderately hard of hearing and thus remarkably LOUDDDD! lol So the cow I get (I don't care if it's a "mutt" as long as it's a dairy mix) needs to be mellow and not prone to starting/shying. I know each animal is an individual and I will consider that when I go to buy the animal, I'm looking for breed generalities.

Thanks a bunch you guys!

I need to post a picture of our small dairy cow. I don't know what breed she is. She is remarkably smaller than our our other two dairy cows (a Jersey and a Brown Swiss)--who are remarkably smaller than our average beef cow. She is hideously ugly, has a fish teat---but out produces the other two combined. Each day. No joke. (That is a knock against the other two--or more importantly me. I let their production drop too low because of mismanagement.) With all three, I can see only minor variations in their ease of handling. The largest of the three is actually easiest to handle during the milking routine. But she is totally not fun to work with out in pasture. Contrarily, the smallest is stubborn during milking, but a breeze to work with out in pasture. Go figure. YMMV. But as for generalities, all three are keepers. (except the one that occasionally tries to knock my block off).

I think mellowness comes from the routine of milking. There is occasional calamity in the milk room that I will think will have them unglued, but doesn't. Then there are other things, like a stray piece of trash fluttering in the air, that spooks them. They will quickly become accustomed to your kids.

One thing that may have made a big difference is that I got all three as young heifers--six months old-ish. They got used to me and my nube-ile ways. I've since read that this isn't the best way for a newbie to start, but I'm glad I didn't know then because I wouldn't have these three awesome cows.

Alright, I just said a whole lot of nothing. If I had to do it all over again, I would select a breed known for a moderate to heavy cream content. In my tiny, limited view of the domain, that eliminates only the Holstein. After that, I'd throw breed out the window and start evaluating the individual cow.

__________________

Honesty and integrity are homesteading virtues.

Just to stir the pot, our best milker so far was a Florida Cracker Cow. I know that they are not available where you are, but I mention it because no one around here considers these dairy cows, although they used to be widely used as a dual purpose family cow. Folks thought we were crazy because she wasn't a "milk cow". However, she is smart, easy to handle, and gave us 1-3 gallons a day with awesome cream. And, crossed with our Dexter bull, she makes the nicest babies with the roundest butts I've seen.
My point is, all cows can be milk cows. Don't write off a good cow just because she's not a Jersey .

I think one of the best so far is the Jersey/Dexter cross. You get a nice manageable size, more milk from the Jersey side and a little beefier from the Dexter side, if it's a steer you want to butcher. I know a couple of folks who breed them and they make a nice family cow. I'm glad you are kind of going off the "mini"...I have had minis and a lot of them are bred down culls. Check the web for Bellfaire cattle, that's the pretty name for the cross.

__________________
given the oppurtunity, a cow will always take the wrong gate...Baxter Black
www.newdaydexters.com
Irish Dexter Cattle for sale..............

Our info..
We have 4 kids (all small). Everyone is a big milk drinker. We have a Jersey paid $1200 bred about 3-4 years ago. She weighs about 800lb. Great with our kids, dangerous around strangers, and pigs(she really really really hates them).
When I milk her(we have a machine) don't even need to tie her. When my hubby milks hers he has to tie her and has made a board contraption so she does not kick him. When she first calves we milk her every day only in the morning (~4 gallons per milking). At this point I try to make soft and hard cheeses (really don't have a good place for them to cure though) and have a few pigs. Once the calf gets bigger we milk every other day. When we don't get enough milk we start separating the calf at night. Calf is now 10 months old. We are milking her every other day and getting (2 gallons a milking). If we have too much milk I just make a batch of cc cookies.

Was thinking along the same line as you a few years ago. The minis were just too spendy and I wasn't going to drive all over the county to get one. I had to go to another state just to get the cow we have.

Good Luck!

Glad you've changed your mind, StarOfHearts.

When you're looking for an animal for pet purposes, I think it's fine to go out there, if you want.
When you're looking for a working animal, sometimes it's just better to find a way to make an established, well known and less expensive breed fit your needs. A smaller dairy cross sounds perfect for you. I plan on looking for the same when I get out of milk goats and into a milk cow.
Good luck and keep us posted.

__________________
" It's better to ride even if you get thrown, than to wind up just wishin' ya had."

Chris Ledoux

Because I've had Jerseys, I vote you get a pure Jersey and you breed her to Jersey. Very calm cows. Do get the horns off any cow you get. Jerseys tend to give a higher percentage of cream, so you'll get more butter.

You've never had any issues with difficult personalities?

What on God's green is a "Florida Cracker Cow"? I want one just because I love the name!! LOL

They only eat crackers made of OJ.

We met a couple on a cruise a while back that milked an angus as their family cow for many years. They moved from NYC to Missouri and one of the first things they did was went out a bought a little black heifer so they could milk. Everyone one told them "they were wrong", but they didn't see the conventional wisdom and had a wonderful symbiotic relationship with a beef cow. To me, their story says that a person can do very unconventional things and still come out smelling like a rose.

__________________

Honesty and integrity are homesteading virtues.

The road to where is paved with good intentions.
Sure, Wild Bill Cody broke a Bison to ride in the circus, but it wasn't his first ride. I saw a photo where a boy taught a pair of turkeys to pull a little wagon. I'm sure he did little else that summer.
Just as draft horses have to be easy to manage, disposition is critical. Same for beef cows vs milk cows. Gentleness isn't critical, not even really important, in beef cattle. A spooky milk cow would create hardships in the barn twice a day. Because you intend to milk her, a milk cow will be handled more, restrained for milking, trained well before calving. Beef cows won't get combed much if ever. A dairy cow needs to be combed and kept clean, to insure the milk is kept as clean as possible. So, a gentile cow by nature, with plenty of hands on training, tends to create a gentile cow. Jerseys are quite a bit smaller than the most common Holsteins.
A milk breed bull is another story and any bull calves you get should be banded as soon as possible.

My grandmother milked Herefords, lot's of people around here milked Herefords or Shorthorns, way back when. I have a neighbor that has always milked beef breeds, even Charolais. There are some really calm and laid back beef cows out there. Just go to a 4-h show and you will see that some of them are very tame and able to be groomed. That being said, there is a reason that dairy breeds are dairy breeds, the beef breeds don't put out a lot of milk, although the milk that they do put out is rich and creamy. But a dairy breed would certainly give you more consistent results.

We came across a mid/mini Jersey heifer. While in search of a bull, we settled on breeding her to a standard jersey with small stature scores on his daughters. One thing that is alarming about the minis, a lot of people selling them don't have pictures of cows in milk, and some of the pictures out there are not very flattering. There is also, apparently, no DHI testing being done on the minis, so there are no milk records. I'm sorry, but the whole point of a milk cow is milk. It needs to milk more than a goat to be worth feeding even what a mini sized cow will eat. "Cuteness" is a good sales gimmick, but when they are too short to fit a receptacle under their udder that is big enough to hold their milk, it is time to breed some legs back on some of them.

Florida Crackers are cousins of the Long Horn. When the Spaniards came to the New World in the 1500's they brought cows. These later became the Long Horns in Texas and Mexico, and the Crackers in Florida. Here's a website: http://www.floridacrackercattle.org/
If I did the pics correctly, the first one is my beautiful Bella, the second is her bull calf from 2013 and the third is her heifer from 2012. The dad to both of these is a Dexter bull.

Attached Thumbnails

     

My husband's family is from a place where small farms are (or were) mostly expected to feed the family as well as produce a paycheck.

One favorite way to produce milk for the family was to have a half-dairy cow. A half-bred cow would produce enough milk for the family, and if they bred her to a beef bull they got a calf that would be worth something for beef, and if a heifer was kept she might make a good milk cow as well. It was not unusual to see milk cows that were 1/4 dairy.

A popular way of handling these part-dairy milk cows was to bring them into the barn at night and separate the calf. In the morning the cow would be milked and then the cow and calf would be turned out to graze: the milk for the rest of the day would be for the calf. So, the owner of a half dairy cow or a quarter dairy cow would be milking once a day.

I do not own a dairy cow and I do not know any more than that: this is what I have been told by my husband's Uncle who lived in the area.

I hope the people in marketing at the American Angus Association don't catch wind of the fact that beef breeds can be milked. Then we will have genuine Angus milk, and you won't be able to give away Jerseys at the sale barn.

Star, before you give up on the mini's (don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of mini anything), check out the mini jersey sites. I think yahoo groups may have a couple of them. You'll should get good opinions from folks who raise the breed.
I love anything cow so think you'd be happy with any big (or small) calm, doe eyed, friendly cow who's happy to see you twice a day, especially if you have a big brush in your hand for quality time after milking!
Cows are awesome! They truly are the gift that keeps on giving.