Hi, well it is almost December! Wow! and almost a New Year. They delivered our new house cow today. She is a beautiful 7yr. old Jersey. Due to calf at Christmas time. I found this story on the web today. I thought I would share. I believe the lady is from the UK somewhere as you can tell by her writings. I hope you enjoy it.
The Jersey, with her gentle nature, small stature and rich, creamy milk, makes an ideal house-cow. Her stunning good looks and ever changing colour of coat, which occurs with the changing of the seasons, can only add to the above mentioned qualities! They love to be brushed, scratched firmly – especially behind the ears and around the tailhead, and generally fussed over. Each has their own individual personality – some have been blessed with personality plus and are real characters! If you feed them well, treat them firmly but kindly, give them a treat whilst they’re being milked, they’ll come to the call for milking or already be waiting for you at the gate nearest the milking shed.
Keeping a house-cow, although a lot of fun, is a big commitment as she has needs that will require some of your time ‘each and every’ day. She will usually be in-milk (lactation) for 9 or 10 months of the year and if she doesn’t have her calf or foster calves on her, will need to be milked everyday, sometimes twice a day, depending on the volume of milk she’s producing. Jerseys are known to be more suited to OAD (once a day) milking, than other breeds. She will need rebred, either through artificial breeding or by live cover (bull) so she produces a calf each year. Drying her off, two or three months before she’s due to calve again, takes careful management so as to avoid mastitis. Even during her ‘dry time’ she should be checked each day to make sure all is well with her and the coming babe.
I’d like to say here, that in my experience, by the time a cow shows visible signs of being ill, she’s normally already quite sick and needs immediate treatment. If you don’t know what you’re dealing with and how to treat it, don’t delay in getting the Vet out, as rarely does a cow get better of her own accord. Losing a much loved dairy cow creates immense heartache.
There are various methods of managing a house-cow, all of them dependent upon the volume of milk she’s producing. Some folk prefer to take the calf off the cow soon after she’s given birth and bottle feed or sell it so they get to have all the milk. Others prefer to share-milk with the calf so they’re not tied to having to milk everyday.
Share-milking is the method that has best suited my needs. It entails separating the calf/calves from the cow either overnight or during the day, and taking the milk you require before allowing the calves to nurse. I always leave at least ‘one full quarter of milk per calf’ so as to avoid a hungry calf knocking the udder and teats about. Whilst the calves are separated from the cow they must have access to good feed – pasture and fibre such as lucerne (alfalfa), straw or calf meal, and of course clean water. This food not only helps develop the calf’s rumen quicker, which aids digestion of fibre and pasture, but ensures it’s not starving between feeds on the cow. Mine love to eat lucerne drizzled with molasses after nursing on the cow.
Now’n again you will hear of a cow who is into her second, or even third year of lactation. I recently took two high producing cows through a two year lactation. Despite raising many foster calves over this period, and only pasture-fed, they put on way too much fat and were producing mostly cream in the final 3 months. Great for butter-making, but not so good for our drinking and cooking needs! It also took two attempts at AI before they conceived, so for me, this isn’t something I’d do again.
Her genetics and the feed she has available to her, greatly influence the volume and taste of milk a cow produces. Most of my cows have produced 20+ litres per day, far more than I could use each day, which is why I initially started mothering-on foster calves and share-milking with them. As for the taste of milk, we like it best when the cow has a cup of molasses and a biscuit of lucerne, morning and night, in addition to good quality, unlimited pasture.
Keeping the cow in good body condition and the udder healthy is vital. A cow in good condition is less likely to develop metabolic problems. Contrary to what you may read elsewhere, a Jersey cow does require a lot of feed, more so when lactating than when she’s dry. If she’s pasture fed, the grass needs to be a good length as cows wrap their tongue around the grass and rip it off. A cows upper jaw does not have incisor teeth – just a hard pad. They do however have ‘very’ sharp sets of molars further back in the jaw. It’s these molars that grind the food when the cow is cudding (regurgitating and chewing food that was eaten earlier).
A well trained house-cow is worth her weight in gold. If you are thinking of buying a house-cow but don’t have any prior experience in handling cattle, I recommend you purchase an experienced girl. Training a heifer to milk can be hair-raising and extremely frustrating at times. If she has oedema (fluid retention ) of the udder or milk vein, training her to milk will be even more difficult, even for the experienced cow person. You may have to pay considerably more for an experienced cow, but you’ll have a much more enjoyable time whilst you learn the ropes of milking. All going well, she will have paid for herself within the year.
Having your own milk and cream and making butter, cheese and yogurt saves thousands of dollars on the grocery bill each year. And then there’s the annual calf, which if a heifer, can be sold as a weaner to another small-holder as a future house-cow. Unless you have a buyer for it, a bull calf should be castrated as a youngster and if well fed, can be slaughtered for beef anywhere between 12 and 18 months.
I once had an 18 month old bull slaughtered for beef a couple of months after he’d finished breeding the cows, but the meat, although tender and juicy, tasted blimmin awful, so I donated it to the SPCA. The meat even gave off an unusual aroma whilst cooking. I guess this bloke still had a lot of testosterone coursing through his veins!
The nature of the Jersey bull often changes dramatically for the worse after serving just a few cows, so I don’t recommend keeping one if you have just a few cows. I’ve run a few bulls over the years and the thing I disliked most about doing so, was the loss of freedom to roam wherever I liked on my farm. No longer could I take a relaxing stroll amongst the cows that the bull was running with. Thankfully, I have good electric fencing, so I was able to tape off an area by the gates and entice, with their daily dose of molasses, the cows and calves into it for their daily check. Having a bull pacing up and down the other side of the tape sure took the joy out of what is normally an enjoyable job. If I wanted to remove cows from the bull paddock altogether, I’d have Gerry distract the anxious bull further along the fence line. Bulls don’t like losing one of their ladies.
Artificial breeding is the way to go. The AI technicians in my area borrow the required gear for AI from the large semen companies and only have it for a short time. As I like my cows to calve when the pasture comes away in spring, I have them AI’d just before the techs. send their tanks etc back in November.
Jersey calves are just the cutest things – such a delicate wee head with a dished face, and oh my, those big, dark, liquid eyes! Heifer and bull calves alike are born a soft tan colour, and ‘without’ the white mealy ring around their muzzle – this starts growing in within a week. You’ll begin to see changes in their coat colour within a few weeks.
Mature cows come in many colours – all shades of tan, yellow, grey, red, white (although white is rare), black, even tan or liver coloured with big white patches – these are known as ‘Spotted Jerseys’. The most common colour for mature bulls is black on the head, neck, and lower stomach. The colour along the spine varies on bulls. I once had a visit from a highly respected judge of dairy cows, who upon seeing my spotted bull calves, commented that spotted bulls are thought to have a lot more vigor than the commonly coloured bulls. Maybe word has got around, that’s the reason I’m seeing more spotted bulls in my area now – they used to be a rare sight.
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©2009Midge Henderson
