This is one of the older babies.
Emily is now old enough and big enough to hold
the bottle and feed babies.
Al feeding 2 babies at once.
Emily loves having her tricycle at the barn. She loves
playing with the babies and Annie.
Emily scooted close to this cow for the picture,
and it looks like the cow was wondering
what Emily was doing so close.
Me with Emily and a baby.
Washing up the lines and milkers after milking is finished.
This is 2 milkings of milk in our bulk tank.
The paddle in the middle stirs it every so often
so that the cream doesn't rise and it is mixed and
stays cold.
Now, I'm off to take some cheese to mail out to Tennessee. I'm going to let Al do the driving, since the truck slid with me when I was coming down off of the hill from the cheese house. Finally able to get some sawdust today as well! The cows will be thankful for the dust.
11 comments:
I love your pictures of the babies!! And, the one of the milk is really interesting too!
Wow!! I love the photo journal of the happenings down on the farm.
~Mrs. M
Your pictures are so great to see. How interesting! Your cows are adorable and so it your daughter. They grow way too fast don't they??!! Be safe
I love your pictures! I think your life is so interesting. I love reading about what goes on at your farm.
OK, I know you run a farm and this is your business and all, but, those babies are ADORABLE!!!! Soooo sweet! Thank you for sharing them! And thanks for showing some of the milking process, really fascinating!
Thanks for the comments! I'm glad you enjoy the pics. I love taking pictures, so that fits in well with what we do.
We really do love what we do, I have to remind myself at times that we run a business, because it doesn't feel like it. :) We love caring for the animals, they have such great, individual personalities! This time of year is my favorite, when the babies come. Such an awesome experience, so I like to share in pictures.
How come you have to feed the baby calves? Doesn't the momma cows nurse them?
That's a good question, Cheryl.
Basically, mama cow gives about 6-8 gallons of milk per day, baby will only drink about 1. If the mama cow is not milked out completely, she can have udder problems, like mastitis. Plus, the milk going into the bulk tank is where our pay check comes from. We let the babies have mama's milk for about 3-4 days, just enough time to give them the colostrum. However, any longer than that, with the high fat %, babies can get what is called scours,diarrhea.
We start the babies at around 4 days old on medicated milk replacer.At this time the babies are removed from the main barn and placed into the calf barn. Sanitary reasons, it prevents disease. We can also monitor how much baby is taking in by using bottles, if they don't want to take the bottle, it can mean they are sick. Beef cows can have their babies with them until they are old enough to be bred. But, beef cows don't produce as much milk, and their milk isn't used for human consumption.
Hope that answers your question. :)
Wow! :) Yes that definitely does answer my question, Renae! :) Thank you. So how many times a day do you have to feed the babies and how old are they when you wean them? Boy, I'm just full of questions, arent I? lol :)
We feed the babies 2 quarts, 2 times a day. And they are usually weaned around 7-8 weeks, but some babies just wean themselves once they start eating grain and are drinking water.
Those babies are so sweet! And so is Miss Emily! And the milk...it looks delicious. Could I have some with some chocolate chip cookies please? :)
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