Sigh... she's drying up

darbyfamily · #1 05/30/08, 10:46 AM

My cow

I hadnt noticed right away that she was pushing the calf away.. fine, because shes 8 mths old now, ....so anyway, I hadnt started twice a day milking until last saturday, then Sunday and Monday we got a LOT of rain... flooding, wading thru puddles in normally dry areas and I couldnt get out to milk her in the storm that night or the next night.

I've been twice a day milking but only getting about 1 1/2 cups morning and night

I will keep trying and see if it builds or just dwindles off, but its so frustrating.

We dont have her bred yet so we'll be waiting a full 9 mths to have milk again unless we find a jersey between now and then.

The other one sold before we could get the money for our calf, so we're back to looking.

any ideas for getting milk production back up?

Sue Usry · #2 05/30/08, 11:28 AM

We have raised production by increasing feed a little, top dressing with calf manna (about a cup) and milking three times a day for a week or two. Our older cow Dolly produced until two days before she had Little Dolly. (We weren't real sure when she was bred when we got her). I noticed that she looked like she was going to calve soon, and she did!!! We generally try to give them a little more rest than that! Good luck with increasing her production.

darbyfamily · #3 05/30/08, 01:55 PM

Im going to keep at it and see if I can keep her going. I hate to spend that much money on calf manna, but if it will help I'll start adding that in again too. we're giving her about 8 cups of sweetfeed/alfalfa pellet mix in the mornign when milking, I fill the hay trough several times a day with an armload of grassy alfalfa hay, free choice grass in the pasture and then 4 cups of sweet feed in the evening.

is that too much sweet feed?

darbyfamily · #4 05/30/08, 01:56 PM

thinking I may mix a bag of calf manna, one of sweet feed and one alfalfa pellets in the large can that I keep feed in.... then give a couple of scoops (4 cup scoop) per day when milking only.

JKB07 · #5 05/30/08, 10:11 PM

let her dry up. Your just going to put a lot of money and time into her and not get that big of a return... If this was a high producing cow i would say bring her production back up, well if it was a high producing cow,you would be in trouble from skipping two milkings. I would keep your eyes out for a good jersey. One cow, that meets the whole families needs...

JKB

cowkeeper · #6 05/30/08, 10:27 PM

Why not give it a try? You will soon know if her milk will come back up and if it is worth continuing. And if it does, then even a small amount is better than none, until you find another cow.
You have done really well with this cow, and it has been fun reading about it!

matt_man · #7 05/31/08, 12:05 AM

If she does dry up, you need to get her rebred ASAP or she will get fat and she will be hard to get bred.

Rachel

Ronney · #8 05/31/08, 06:11 AM

Jennifer your going to have to get better organised.

She should have been put back to the bull a couple of months after calving.

The fact that she was kicking her 8 months old calf off indicated that she was probably already starting down the track of drying off and the storm helped it along. If your getting that little milk now it's not worth the time, energy or money to try and bring production back up. You mightdouble it but for 1.5 litres a day, I wouldn't be bothering milking her at all let alone twice a day - and to that end I agree with JKB's post. Get yourself another cow and keep them both bred on the understanding that if you rear their calves, you don't have to milk both of them when they overlap which they are going to do.

Also Rachael makes a very good point, a dry or low producing cow is going to get fat quite quickly if being well fed so get her bred ASAP.

matt_man · #9 05/31/08, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darbyfamily

Im going to keep at it and see if I can keep her going. I hate to spend that much money on calf manna, but if it will help I'll start adding that in again too. we're giving her about 8 cups of sweetfeed/alfalfa pellet mix in the mornign when milking, I fill the hay trough several times a day with an armload of grassy alfalfa hay, free choice grass in the pasture and then 4 cups of sweet feed in the evening.

is that too much sweet feed?

I don't even give my two Jerseys half that amount of feed and they are each producing 3.5 gallons of milk a day. We don't give them grain at all actually. They only get alfalfa pellets. They haven't been eating those at all lately either. We had slowly weaned our main milker off of grain and she is pouting about that. They have access to all the grass they want in the pasture and have maintained body condition and milk production so I am not worried about the fact that they are not interested in eating while I milk.

My best guess is that it is costing you almost $15 in feed before you get a gallon of milk out of your girl. Is it worth it to you??

Another note: and I am really not trying to be mean or rude. You need to milk regularly regardless of the weather. The postman's phrase "nor rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night will keep me from my appointed rounds" comes to mind. If you do get a jersey or higher producing cow, you are not going to be able to just skip a couple of milking because you don't want to get wet. It will cause damage to her udder, you will be dealing with mastitis, etc...We have been getting a lot of rain here as well and it always seems to want to downpour at milking time. The cows still need to get milked. It is just another part of cow ownership. (I thought you had separated the calf from momma anyway???)

darbyfamily · #10 05/31/08, 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ronney

Jennifer your going to have to get better organised.

She should have been put back to the bull a couple of months after calving.

The fact that she was kicking her 8 months old calf off indicated that she was probably already starting down the track of drying off and the storm helped it along. If your getting that little milk now it's not worth the time, energy or money to try and bring production back up. You mightdouble it but for 1.5 litres a day, I wouldn't be bothering milking her at all let alone twice a day - and to that end I agree with JKB's post. Get yourself another cow and keep them both bred on the understanding that if you rear their calves, you don't have to milk both of them when they overlap which they are going to do.

Also Rachael makes a very good point, a dry or low producing cow is going to get fat quite quickly if being well fed so get her bred ASAP.

Well, there hasnt been a bull anywhere near us up until now. We just had a friend (she's posted here) buy a bull and has moved within 25 miles of us, but we know nobody in the area who has a bull and with the price of gas, there was no way to drive 2hrs to someone who does/did. We'd love to AI her, but there again, money is a factor. We're paying house payments on two houses and utilities on both as well. On one income, with 8 kids... there is not a lot of play in the budget for ordering straws of semen and having it shipped.

We're going to get her out to Janelles as soon as we're able to get together, and get her rebred and once we have the calf sold, (should be next week) we'll look for a Jersey again.

darbyfamily · #11 05/31/08, 09:34 PM

Oh and if she's not giving milk, the sweet feed goes away... thats just what we give her to keep her standing still while I milk, since I dont have a stanchion and just tie her to a post.

I understand that its a huge commitment to milking, but our cow shed has a metal roof and the storms we had last weekend were severe lightening storms...it was not at all about me getting wet... i dont care if Im wet but its not worth risking my life, sorry... I'd let her dry up and rebreed her before I'd go out in a storm like we had. Keep in mind, we got 4 inches of rain in under 2 hrs... it was pretty bad.

mrsjbh · #12 05/31/08, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darbyfamily

Oh and if she's not giving milk, the sweet feed goes away... thats just what we give her to keep her standing still while I milk, since I dont have a stanchion and just tie her to a post.

Just an idea that we use. . . we don't have a stanchion either, we actually milk in a 3 sided car shed, we took one "parking place" used a welded wire cattle panel to seperate it from the other parking place, tied Star to the side of the shed and put a 2x4 longways from the shed to the cattle panel to keep her from moving around. I'll attach a pic of how we did it. We're cheap and try to rig anything that'll save us money

I'm sure it's not the best setup but it worked for us!

I would have been worried about milking in the lightening storm we got too! And we didn't get the full brunt of it like it looked like ya'll did! Our 5" of rain came over about 3-4 days.