Cow newbie questions

[piccololily]

We've only had goats, so here goes...

1. Does she need grain while lactating, (I've heard conflicting info on this) if not, what kind of grass/pasture is good and what kind of winter hay? We have a weedy grassy field with about 1/4 acre of it in white clover.

2. We want a Jersey. What kind of milk production could I expect, with or without grain? I know this will vary according to age, health, etc...

3. How many of you hand-milk? We easily hand-milked the goats, but I realize cows are a lot harder. I've been told not to even think about milking by hand...but mankind has done this for millennia, so?? My hubby and older kids will be milking, (teen boys and middle girl.). Opinions?

I've read a bazillion books, but want to hear from real people.

Thanks for your time!

[kycountry]

#1 it is not a golden rule that you must feed grain. Even more so if you have high quality pasture and hay. The amount of production will vary by the quality of feed. Another point to make is grain keeps them coming to the barn!

#2 is a hard one for anyone to put a number on.. there are different sized Jersey breeds, along with different genetic traits in any one line of Jersey herds.

#3 yes, hand milking is very possible with most cows. Stay away from small, short teets.. think of it as a pump.. the more volume there, the less pumping.. to a degree.. you don't want anything overly massive either..

If the cow is already trained to milk, most are used to being milked from one side.. take it slow and get her so you can milk from both sides.. you take hubby on one side, kid on the other and you can milk her twice as fast.. that's less time she has to stand there so the less likely she will get agitated..

Now, buy a few tennis balls and tell them to start squeezing, if not, they will think their fingers will fall off before they get done milking.. lol

[Awnry Abe]

1) I'll defer to experience. I am weaning my girls off of corn in the stanchion, though.
2) you can expect production to ebb and flow throughout the lactation cycle. Related to your first question. Mine get what they can find out in pasture. What the field provides or holds back shows up in the bucket. As a data point my PB Jersey at her low point was 2 1/2 gallons, but generally hits the rim of a 3 gallon bucket. It rained yesterday so I didn't even bother to measure tonight excess. But the cats dish was full.
3) we used to hand milk a tiny-teeter brown Swiss that just never quits. When the next cow came fresh, we switched to machine. Hand milking is possible. You can do it. It's my backup.

[jcjersey]

i love the idea of tennis balls to practice.. getting my first cow soon.. i work at a bank and we have tiny houses that are perfect size as a stress ball. i just grabbed two of them to start playing LOL.. my co worker looked at me funny, I told her it was about our new mamma cow then she understood LOL

[piccololily]

JCJersey--funny!

Thanks for the input guys!