Milk Thief

Feb 1 2017

Last week I noticed one of our milkers kept coming into milking already empty. All the cows have been milking pretty good this winter but demand for our 100% Grassfed Raw milk has been increasing and I've been counting on every little bit. Especially since this cow has been a good milker at 3 to 4 gallons of milk each day.

I immediately became suspicious of the 2 heifer calves that are currently being raised by their moms. Our best heifers spend the first 6 to 8 months of their life with their mom and pretty much keep the cow empty of milk. However, it appears that someone was getting greedy and starting to suckle off another cow. This gets expensive as it is even less milk for us to sell so this behavior really isn't tolerated. Drinking all of moms milk, that's ok. Getting greedy and stealing from the other cows, not so good.

So last week was spent figuring out which calf was getting greedy. Turns out it was an older heifer that was already supposed to be weaned. I guess she decided she didn't like being without milk. So I brought her in and put a nursing ring in her nose to keep her from suckling of the other cows. Problem solved and I'm glad to the 2 younger calves can go back to being with thier moms. I wasn't looking forward to bottle feeding a couple calves right now and they never do quite as well as when mama raises them. So because of that we were a little tight on milk last week but now production is back to normal. So stop by either Mondays or Saturdays to get some delicious raw milk! Or check with me if you want to come out another time.