Drying Cow Up?

[Renee70]

Hi everyone,

We bought a jersey cow 6 weeks ago and now want to dry her up. Can you tell us how to properly do this? (most efficient, painfree, timely etc!)

We have lots of people around us offer advice but after reading this forum for a couple hours tonight feel you are the bunch to ask! LOL

Renee

[Ronney]

Hi Renee and welcome to the forum

I'm a great one for wanting to know the background. In this case how far into her lactation is she, how much milk is she producing, when is she next due to calve and I assume your milking her yourself?

Everybody has their own ideas on drying off a cow and I tend to dicker around with it depending on the cow, the feed, when she's due to calve etc. Generally speaking, I put them on to once a day, then I will milk every second day then every third day for a few days before ceasing altogether. This takes between 8 and 14 days.

Cheers,
Ronnie

[linn]

I use the same method as Ronney. The only time I listened to our vet about drying off a cow was when he told me to just stop milking her. Big mistake, because the cow ended up with a bad case of mastitis. Cutting out the grain usually helps to reduce production.

[Paula]

Yes, definitely cut her grain out (if she's getting any) to help with drying her off.

[Renee70]

Thanks for your trips everyone! No one here has told us about the grain, we'll definately cut back.

Ronnie - I will tell you what we know, altho it isn't much.
Mary (previous owner) bought "Daisy" Sept/06, Daisy had calved July/06 and had the calf on her and was bred. Mary found milking a cow was just too much, so let the calf have free reign on her, just stealing a little bit of milk here and there. When we purchased her from Mary May 1/07, the calf was still sucking her. We didn't purchase the calf so she ceased nursing a calf on May1/07.
Mary didn't know a lot about her when she bought her - so couldn't tell us anymore.
Since we've had her we had her preg checked and she is not pregnant. The vet feels Daisy has been overmilked at some point in her life (they think she's 6 or 7) and a good 6 - 9 months off milking would do her good. We agree and are willing to dry her up now and look forward to the milk in 9 months when she has a calf.
We milk her (yes, ourselves) once a day and get about 3 gallons... and of that about 1.5 - 2 quarts of cream a day!
We love having her, she is such a nice quiet, well tempered cow but has had some obvious hard years so want to give her a rest. We want to do it properly and the best way for her health.
We have every other animal on our farm and thought she'd be the perfect fit!

Sorry this has got to be such a story but this is what we know!

Renee

[dosthouhavemilk]

Is she confirmed bred back? If she is not pregnant, it is not a good idea to dry her off yet. She can get fat quickly and a dry cow is harder to impregnate than a milking one. They build up fat around the reproductive track and it is about the last to come off.
I don't see how a cow can be overmilked, unless they were underfed. You can just give her some more groceries to put some weight back on. Or even dry her off..*after* she is confirmed bred.
Jerseys put their feed towards their reproduction first and foremost.
Wait until she is safely in calf before drying her off.
When we dry off our cows, dad cuts down on their grain as they approach their dry dates. He then milks every other milking a couple of times and by that point they usually just quit coming in. Since they only get grain in the barn during milking, they just aren't invited back in. lol

[Renee70]

Wow! Information we did not know!!

We're re-considering drying her off, at least until she's bred.

I thank everyone for their responses and now that I've found this site you can be sure you'll see me around more!

Renee D