The cows are doing really well, both of them. We’re getting 5 or 6 gallons of milk per day from the two of them, which doesn’t seem like great production until I remember they’re both almost entirely on grass, with a very small—token, almost—amount of grain, and they’re both staying in good condition. So our input is very low, and considering that Pearl is going on a year of continuous milking, I’m pretty happy.
Last week I sold two of the goats. Oscar had just kidded, so I didn’t sell her, and I liked her personality so much more than the other two, that I thought maybe I would keep her and her two kids, which would give me a little goat milk to play with. Then this afternoon I walked outside to find her standing in the garden, and I turned around, came back inside, and listed her on craigslist. Ten minutes later she was sold. I love craigslist.
So maybe goats really aren’t for me, or maybe I just need to have a better infrastructure before I attempt them again. And for now I can get 6 or 8 gallons of beautiful goat milk every week from my neighbor—all the fun, none of the hassle.
Speaking of animals wearing out their welcome, Gloria the pig has decided no fence can hold her—I had to chase her out of the garden last night at midnight. So, although I had hoped to breed her, she’s going to the butcher Friday, and we’ll just get a couple of weaner pigs who will have more respect for the electric fences.
It’s sort of a zero tolerance thing around here these days!
May 30, 2012 at 10:49 pm
What a lovely cow little Maeby has grown into… 5 or 6 gallons a day. Are they about even, or is Pearl doing more than her half? Hand milking? Once a day milking? Calves still on?
Maudeuce is doing 2 gallons+ from three quarters once a day after being separated from her calf for around 8 hours. (We leave the hardest to milk quarter for him.)
We’ve been reminded of what a great job you and your milkmaids did with her early upbringing… Just got an Angus bull calf to be raised as her consort starting next year, and he had zero handling. (And he’s older/bigger than she was when we put her in the back of the Cherokee!) Volunteering for Freezer Camp as hard as he can, the moron!
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May 31, 2012 at 8:58 am
Maeby is giving more than half that, and that’s twice a day milking—we sold both calves, so it sounds like Maudeuce is doing just fine!
I would think an Angus, being a beef cow, would be naturally harder to handle than a Jersey! Especially a young bull.
May 31, 2012 at 5:22 am
Oh, you sound so much like me! Four days and counting before Poncho, the Jersey bull goes to the processor. Yea!
May 31, 2012 at 9:00 am
Doesn’t a freezer full of beef sound nice! I keep thinking a freezer full of pork will be so much better than a garden full of pig! 🙂
May 31, 2012 at 9:59 am
Yea, we may end up with more meat than we can get in the freezers. We *might* be getting two young pigs to raise and we *might* be buying a 700 to 800 pound grass fed steer to put in the freezer. Farmers Market here we come! I have been CRAVING pork. I wonder what that means. Eleven goats in milk = 11 creatures with perpetual PMS.
May 31, 2012 at 6:59 am
Lovely! I share your experience with goats. Used to have a dozen of them. I love goat milk, but cows are a lot less trouble.
May 31, 2012 at 9:03 am
Goats are always so discontented and whiny; the cows are ‘so placid and self contained’, to borrow from Walt Whitman.
May 31, 2012 at 2:27 pm
I have been hearing that Jersey bulls are surprisingly mean. Little Jangus Chuck certainly has a ‘tude. But he’s also been handled from birth, unlike the new bull, so we’re starting to like Chuck by comparison. Too bad he’s Maudeuce’s, or we’d just keep him for a bull.
I’m thinking we’re gonna ring the Angus’ snout and reinforce a paddock for him, stick him in there and just let Maudeuce (and eventually the second heifer) go in to visit him when the time comes. I don’t suppose he really has to be as halter-broke and manageable as I’d originally hoped.
A lot of hassle just to be sure of being able to freshen the cow(s) should AI cease to be an option.
Wife said we’ll never get through all the beef if both Chuck and the new bull go to Freezer Camp… Especially since I don’t really eat anymore.
I agree about goats. Entirely too capricious for my liking. Maudeuce is mischievous enough.
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June 6, 2012 at 7:38 pm
Hello, I am interested in using this picture of Maeby for a personal memoir. The book will be given to family members, the La Jolla, CA Historical Society and the La Jolla Public Library; it will not be for sale. If it is okay, please let me know how you would like the credit to read. Thanks!
June 14, 2012 at 10:09 am
Sorry for not answering sooner—your comment got shunted to my spam folder!
I don’t mind if you use the picture in that application. Please credit it to Terra Mecho. Thanks!
April 10, 2013 at 4:43 pm
[…] of weeks and we’ll start weaning everybody off hay and grain as much as possible. I know Maeby does fine on all grass, but we don’t know how well Joanne and Mags will […]