Dairy Cow - TB you will be all over this one..

[cow pollinater]

We've had jerseys as family milk cows a few times in the past but switched to goats about three years ago so that my kids could be more involved. I've never had a problem with jerseys being kickers and I do walk behind a couple thousand of them a day, but they are smarter than holstiens and that does mean that you have to be kinder to them. Quirkey is how I describe them. If you can get along with quirks without losing your cool then jerseys may work for you.
I miss having five gallons of super rich milk every day, but at the same time it's overkill unless you just love the shyt out of making butter and cheese. And you do have to feed them like you love the shyt out of making butter and cheese regardless of how much you love it because they are metabolic disasters if they don't get enough to eat. They are also expensive to feed when they're dry. Even if you run them on pasture she takes the place of a beef cow.
Goats, on the other hand, are kid sized and give you a manageable amount of milk. It's not as high in butterfat as a well fed jerseys milk but it will match a poorly fed jerseys butterfat on poorer feed. When they're dry they can run on next to nothing and they are a lot more forgiving to feed changes. Nubians and Nigerian Dwarfs are a good choice for higher butterfat if you want to make cheese and the sanaans and toggenburgs are milk machines like a holstein cow.

 

[chippie]

I think that he means that they are kickers when being milked.
We had one cow, Cookie, that was born on our place and raised on our place. She started out easy to break to be milked with the machine. After a couple of months, she decided that she did not like her job and would kick the poo out of you when you were putting the machine on. The machine was checked out and the other cow was fine about being milked, so Cookie found herself a new home.

 

[I luv herfrds]

When I first started to milk Honey she kicked the crap out of me. Fired up the milking machine and she was fine. Milking her daughter right now. She was kicking at first too but her bag was hurting her, but she only bumps me a little bit when first putting the cups on.

 

[suzorse]

Nesikep Cocoa dose not give the real light color cream normal for the Swiss ,it is an in between color
and not as heavy as Jersey , I have not made any butter yet with it , as I was dealing with a lot of edema for over a month after calving , she is an easy keeping cow and dose not require or eat lots of grain, she has been the easiest to milk and has never offered to kick me, she takes good care of and guards Ginger my bottle calf ,but will not let her nurse which is what I want for this lactation,
Suzanne

and her next to Gingers mom before calving

and this is Ginger , I will need to get new pictures as she is turning into a little butterball

 

[TexasBred]

ok theres a few qs that need answering lolol.1 a jersey is not sweet and kind.they are kicking machines.an they will kick you without warning.2 they are better house cows than holsteins because of their rich creamy milk.a jersey will give 4 to 5 gal a day of milk depending on her breeding and the amount of feed and hay you feed her.now you can milk a holstein for a house cow.ive got a friend that milked 2 everyday firing his milk barn up.they would produce 12 to 18 gal a day.but he fed them to milk heavy no matter if he needed the milk or not.he drank 7 gal of milk a week.plus he made 3 to 5 gal of ice cream a week.the excess went to hogs.

YOu do realize that is 150 lbs. a day?? Everyday !!!! How much did he feed them?? I had cows that milked that much but I was selling the milk.

Sky try to find you a 4-5 year old jersey with a good udder. No long bags and huge tits. She'll milk based on what you feed her but should meet all your needs without any problem unless you too drink a gallon a day and a half gallon of ice cream a day. :mrgreen:

 

[bigbull338]

TB he fed those cows like he fed when he ran his reg dairy for over 40yrs.i asked why he fed them so heavy and he said that was the only way he knew how to feed cows.his RHA was always 21000 to 23000lbs a cow a year or more.

 

[TexasBred]

TB he fed those cows like he fed when he ran his reg dairy for over 40yrs.i asked why he fed them so heavy and he said that was the only way he knew how to feed cows.his RHA was always 21000 to 23000lbs a cow a year or more.

MIne was higher than that but I didn't milk two cows just for the he// of it either. Guess he enjoys cranking up the old barn, sanitizing it, milking his two cows and washing everything again. Must have a little flat top tank to store so little milk in and be able to agitate it.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

We have a Jersey and we had a Guernsey. Our particular Jersey wouldn't let down her milk for us to well and her teats were hard to grab on to because they were so small. The Guernsey had loads of milk and teats that were just the right size to milk.

We kept a Murray Grey x Guernsey heifer. She calved 3 weeks ago. Her teats are easy to grab on to, and she has great udder attachments. We milked her out in the middle of the pasture and got 1 gallon in one milking. We would have gotten more, but we weren't expecting her to give that much milk. We filled up our container before she was empty. We didn't separate her from her calf and the young cow wasn't halter broken. In that 1 gallon, we had 1/3 of a gallon of cream. With our experience, I prefer Guernseys, but they are harder to find than other dairy breeds.

 

[bigbull338]

well he drinks 7 gal a week or more.plus they make 6 to 10 gal of ice cream a week.the hogs get the excess milk and cream.

 

[TexasBred]

well he drinks 7 gal a week or more.plus they make 6 to 10 gal of ice cream a week.the hogs get the excess milk and cream.

That's high dollar hog feed and makes nothing but gobby fat hogs. A pork chop will be 10 inches across with about four bites of lean meat in it.

 

[skyhightree1]

ok theres a few qs that need answering lolol.1 a jersey is not sweet and kind.they are kicking machines.an they will kick you without warning.2 they are better house cows than holsteins because of their rich creamy milk.a jersey will give 4 to 5 gal a day of milk depending on her breeding and the amount of feed and hay you feed her.now you can milk a holstein for a house cow.ive got a friend that milked 2 everyday firing his milk barn up.they would produce 12 to 18 gal a day.but he fed them to milk heavy no matter if he needed the milk or not.he drank 7 gal of milk a week.plus he made 3 to 5 gal of ice cream a week.the excess went to hogs.

YOu do realize that is 150 lbs. a day?? Everyday !!!! How much did he feed them?? I had cows that milked that much but I was selling the milk.

Sky try to find you a 4-5 year old jersey with a good udder. No long bags and huge tits. She'll milk based on what you feed her but should meet all your needs without any problem unless you too drink a gallon a day and a half gallon of ice cream a day. :mrgreen:

LOL I do like to make ice cream but not that much.

 

[skyhightree1]

I ran across this

http://charlottesville.craigslist.org/g ... 66432.html

Nice nurse cow, exposed to a registered Jersey bull for late summer calf. Has had 4 calves, all heifers. Will make a good family cow as well but does have some flaking in one quarter that would need to be treated first. Great opportunity to buy a good cow cheap.

 

[bigbull338]

alot depends on what he wants for a 3 teated cow.that cow would be worth $750 as id be buying her as a 3 teater depending on what she loooked like.

 

[skyhightree1]

I thought the price was too high.

 

[bigbull338]

its a tad to high but as you know im tight and cheap.so i try to set cows like that in at a fair market value.

 

[regolith]

That 'flaking' is the vendor's duty to treat.
Otherwise it's like bb says - you're paying for a potentially three-quartered cow, and an aged one to boot.
It may be naivety on the vendor's part but if a cow had had mild mastitis I wouldn't even mention it to a buyer unless specifically asked for her treatment/mastitis history. He's mentioned it so either it's seriously impacting her, or he's an idiot.
For this area, that's a reasonable price for the cow described... it's budget cow price. If her udder support is holding up she could be fine. I've just sold two for around that through the local sale yards, both were average producers about that age, with minor udder issues.

 

[TexasBred]

You seldom lose a quarter when you have simple "flaking". The price isn't that bad either.

 

[Putangitangi]

That 'flaking' is the vendor's duty to treat.
Otherwise it's like bb says - you're paying for a potentially three-quartered cow, and an aged one to boot.
It may be naivety on the vendor's part but if a cow had had mild mastitis I wouldn't even mention it to a buyer unless specifically asked for her treatment/mastitis history. He's mentioned it so either it's seriously impacting her, or he's an idiot....

Or wishes to fully disclose all relevant information - honest, rather than idiotic? Who should treat it, is another question.

 

[regolith]

Honest and naïve.
If the buyer wants a cow that has never had a case of mastitis it's up to him to do his homework. Stating that she has had a case makes a 'good' cow a 'budget', worth half the money. No one is going to buy a cow with the history if they can get one without - yet 10 - 40% of dairy cows have probably had a case at some stage.

 

[Nesikep]

Suzorse, All nice cows! I was playing with the idea of getting a Brown swiss heifer calf and raising her... She's have to let any calf suck because I don't have the hours in the day to milk, especially over the long term... I think a brown swiss/Gelbveih could make a heck of a dual purpose animal, heifer or steer would be worth something.

TB, I guess what he fed those hogs apart from that could make a big difference too.. If they got places to root and be active, then the milk and cream wouldn't make them so fat.. also depends on how many hogs were getting it.

Friend of mine who had the jersey I spoke of earlier had a brown swiss years ago, and she was producing less and less milk, and she was puzzled as to why... One day she saw 4 piglets, standing on their hind legs nursing from the cow... I'd have paid to see that!