permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <venaurafarm@bellsouth.net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [SANET-MG] Milking a single dairy cow with calf
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 2010 08:13:07 +0100
From: Kathryn Marsh <kmarsh@IOL.IE>
To: SANET-MG@LISTS.IFAS.UFL.EDU

some questions Amy

Are you keeping the cow and calf separate and only allowing the calf to 
feed at specific times?

Are you milking first thing in the morning? and I do mean first thing - 
just before dawn

do you milk while the calf is feeding at the same time

Are you very, very thorough about "stripping out" when you milk

Is the cow well enough fed

Does she come from a good milking strain of whatever breed you have - 
did you see her milk records and her parents milk records  before you 
bought her

Is this her fist calf

Cows tailor their production to demand and are able to "hold up" their 
milk, hanging on to the last bit. The less they give one milking, the 
less they will give the next.

Things I've found helpful with a single cow are

First milking before dawn
Milking one side while the calf milks the other
At the end of millking massaging with a towel soaked in warm water to 
encourage the letting down of the last few drops
Increasing the number of times you milk in a day. Like a human child the 
calf feeds little and often, if you demand more, the cow will give more

At three months the calf is demanding a lot of milk but only a bit at a 
time. The cow is in the habit of giving that bit at a time regardless of 
whether it is you or the calf milking her.

Is she an easy milker in general? What breed? The supply will gradually 
decrease over the year, depending on the breed, but not that much - and 
in fact if you didn't get her back into calf there is no reason why she 
shouldn't go on milking well for a couple of years as goats do - we've 
done that when we didn't need the offspring because the  freezer was 
full - a yearling beef gives an awful lot of meat even in a small breed.

Write to me off list if you want more info

kathryn