How long to milk before drying up?

[darbyfamily]

If you have a cow that is not bred back, and you're milking... how long can you milk before you really need to give her a break and let her body rest? 10mths? a year? Obviously lactation doesnt continue forever... so how long can they go unbred?

[Chixarecute]

Length of lactation will depend upon genetics, food, pregnancy, etc. But by all means if she isn't bred back, keep milking her as long as it is worthwhile.

In an ideal situation, a cow calves, is bred back, milks, and is dried up for 2 months before calving again (12-14 month interval). The old dairy standard was a 305 day lactation, 60 days dry. But then those cows were probably producing under 20,000#/lactation. Over that, the lactations can get longer. THe really well typed, high producing dairy cows don't get bred back, they get flushed for embryos, until their production curve indicates it is time to breed back to maintain/reinvigorate milking levels.

High production is linked to poorer reproduction genetically, though.

Anyway, if she is a family milk cow, and not pushed with grains & high quality feeds to produce, but still has access to decent feed, she could probably get by with a 4-6 week dry period. Not so much because she needs a rest, but because the growing calf fetus needs so much.

When we dairied, we always bred back asap. that was in the late 80's, and our herd average was about 16,000. "worthwhile" to milk for a dairy (then) might mean 25#/day. For drying up, we would go from 2xper day milking to 1x, then depending on how well she adapted, maybe every 3rd milking, etc.

A homestead cow might only peak at 40#/day, and as long as it isn't a hassle, you could milk her down to only 5-10# a day.

But the real trick is to estimate her production curve from her peak milking at 6-8 weeks post calving, figure at what production you want to stop milking, add 6-8 weeks to birth & then count back 9 mos for breeding.

So as long as you don't mind feeding her while you're not getting milk or calves, she can go forever without being rebred.

Sorry about the lengthy answer, I guess I really miss milking cows!

[MARYDVM]

A friend was given a 4 year old 4H cow that had freshened at 2 years of age and was not bred back. She was a huge Holstein that was still giving 1 to 2 gallons on once a day milking.

[willow_girl]

Working for DHI, I've seen a few cows that were out more than 600 days ... of course, at that point, they weren't producing much, but if you're only milking for your own table, what the heck!

Is there some reason you're not breeding her back?

[darbyfamily]

no reason... we hope to breed her back, just we dont have access to a bull, so unless we do AI, we're not sure yet. as much as we're laying out for these two and some other expenses surrounding them, we will have to save for a bit or hope our other house sells so we can afford the AI :P but its good to know we can continue to milk her for awhile while we save.