we got a milk cow! & questions, please?

[cathleenc]

kinda quick, kinda surprising, but we decided and made the plunge to get a milk cow. Found one and bought her, brought her home mid-day Tuesday.

She is 75% jersey 25% guernsey, 40" high at the hip, from an organic dairy (yes, fed grain as well as forage), milking 42 lbs/day at time of purchase. Her name is Biscuit.

It was quite the adventure trying to get her - borrowed truck broke down on the road, had to be towed, loaner vehicle for a day - the great news is that we had not yet picked up Biscuit and all worked out well. Kind people at every step of the way.

I'm milking by hand - she has always been machine milked. She is patient and tolerates all well, well, till she is bored silly when my milking attempts exceed 1/2 hour. My right hand is significantly swollen and sore! at this point but I'm hoping to keep working through and get to the other side of my new conditioning experience. Surprised at my discomfort as I milk goats daily.

Question: is it possible to get clots of pure fat in the milk? I'm worried that she may be struggling with mastitis already. First night home she had no milk at all - she was a gassy, nervous, dry cow. Yesterday morning she was full - I milked her out completely and got 2 gallons. Last night - full - got 1.75 gallons. When I took last night's milk into the house I could see a couple of small globs floating on top of the bucket. Ivory in color, felt like congealed grease/fat between my finger. Not stringy, not pussy - but then again, I've never seen mastitis in a cow.

We got significantly more cream on top of the milk last night than we had yesterday morning - like 75% more cream.

I'm off to milk in a few minutes and I will check in with the vet and pull out my california mastitis test this morning - but any insights? advice?

thanks
Cathy

[springvalley]

Hey Cathy;
Well you did it, you went and got in the dairy business. Yes you can have fat globes in the milk, but use your test kit to make sure. It will take your hands about three to four days till they get hardened in to milking. She sounds sweet if she puts up with half hour milkings.I really love my Jersey`s wouldn`t trade them for the world.Thanks Marc.

[sammyd]

If it was bad enough to see as globs you'd feel it when you milked her. I bet it's butterfat churned into balls from the milk streaming into the bucket.

[cathleenc]

2 neg cmt tests later - and continued globs, strings, flecks, and blobs in the milk -yes, we all agree, it's butterfat coming together. Her quarters are all nice and soft, no thickening or lumps. It was shocking to see that first day! but so glad the stress of relocating had not caused illness. Talked with our vet who said that it was not uncommon for high producers to throw some solids when cutting back production quickly. We've cut most of her grain as we dont need 5 gallons milk/day - she's getting a mere 3 lb/day while in the milk stand. Her previous owner started the cutting back for us before we got her.

She tested at 7% butterfat in her last milk test at the dairy we got her from - so she's got background to make lots of butter. Just didn't expect to see it floating in our bucket! lol

[Shagbarkmtcatle]

Congratulations CathleenC. I think that's very exciting.
I strain my milk before I put it into the fridge for cooling. THen I have to hand skim the cream off. After that, my kids make me re-strain the milk so there is no left over clots of cream when they pour a glass of milk from the pitcher. They hate drinking clots with their milk. I don't like it either so I do it and they drink a lot of milk around here which is great since we are all very fine boned and need the calcium to prevent osteoporosis.
I can hear Marigold outback bellowing now for her grain. She doesn't mind being milked but it's the grain that the stinking hussy wants. She is such a pig

[gone-a-milkin]

Congratulations on your new cow. Biscuit sounds like a sweet little thing.

How about some pics, when you get a chance?

[cathleenc]

Originally Posted by gone-a-milkin

Congratulations on your new cow. Biscuit sounds like a sweet little thing.

How about some pics, when you get a chance?

you betcha. just waiting till we can get her a bit more cleaned up - she was very nervous on the drive over and got all mucked up in the process. Slowly getting all the gunk off, as she allows. Don't want to show off our family cow all poopy on the backend! (don't fret, her udder is cleaned off each milking)

[Mrs. Homesteader]

Originally Posted by gone-a-milkin

Congratulations on your new cow. Biscuit sounds like a sweet little thing.

How about some pics, when you get a chance?

I second this... or is it thirds now!!!