Awhile back I posted about getting a new Dexter cow/calf pair, and my hopes for training the cow to milk.
Well, we have made excellent progress on helping the two critters become accustomed to us. We started feeding them fresh grass (scythed from the ditches), since they didn't recognize the hay cubes as treats. Once they got the idea that the hay cubes were yummy, we fed them treats from a bucket, and they started being happier to see us. We spent a lot of time standing near them, talking quietly, and eventually they let us rub their heads, then necks, and sides.
We built a barn, and got the fences adjusted so they could get into and out of the barn on their own. Just the other day, we put them into the barn for the first time: a bucket (which they now recognize) called them up from the pasture, and a bowl of hay cubes on the floor got them inside. The nice stalls (with gates wide open) filled with straw were appealing enough that they lay down in there, all of their own accord.
Last night, we brought them up again and put hay in the stalls and shut the gates. The cow walked right into her milking stanchion and munched the hay - and let me touch her all over her sides and belly, even her udder. She didn't even change the rate of her chewing!
We left her and the calf penned up for the night (the calf got out somehow, we'll deal with that..) and this morning the cow was quite happy to walk right into her stanchion and eat her hay again. The routine is beginning!
While she was munching hay, she let me touch her again - and this time I held onto her teats, one at a time. No reaction. So, I thought, why not give it a try? I bumped up, squeezed off, and wrapped fingers around the teat ... and a stream of milk came out! WOW! Milk!
Okay, that was just really, really exciting for me.
I just pumped a few streams of milk out onto the ground ... she let me and didn't even really seem to notice. Woohoo!
All that patience and trust building is paying off. Next we'll have to get her comfortable with moving all the way into the stall and having a gate closed behind her, and then accepting a bucket.
Yippee!
"
