I might finally be getting a milk cow!!!!

[farmerjan]

Use a baling gun to get the last few doses down her, she can't get them back up. She won't like it but once they are partway down her throat she will swallow them. We have one that is smaller for calves/sheep and a big one for the big cattle. Indespensible when you need them, we don't use them much but....Also have a "nose catch" that we seldom use but when you need to get inside a cows mouth and my 6'6" son can't manage to hold her in the chute it is also worth it's weight in gold to catch the nose and you have control.....
Sounds like LUNA is getting to a "normal"; I really do think it was a lack of hay/solid roughage that was making her so loose. Glad to know that it is finally getting to where you are feeling comfortable with her condition...She is cute.

 

[Lanthanum]

Have you looked into Nubian or Nigerian Dwarf goats? Both have very high butterfat content, and are small, easy to handle, and also make great pets!

Nubians can give a gallon + a day and little ND's can give 1-1.5 quarts a day.

Maybe I am a little biased.

Pygmies also, but they have a very small amount of milk. You get them if you want just one glass a day, well more like 2/3 of a glass haha. Even when my Bonnie looked like she was about to bust, all the milk the gave me filled up one small bowl. Ugh but milking her was a pain because even though I've had her four years and she was never abused, she hates being touched. She had to be milked or it would hurt her so I had to leash her and hold her tightly while she was thrashing about to get all the milk I could.

 

[Green Acres Farm]

All mammals can give milk, but that doesn't necessarily make them a dairy animal.

I've had to milk out a pygmy, too. Not easy. Teats are tiny and I only got a small stream at a time while she was squirming. And all for a 1/4 cup of milk.

 

[farmerjan]

How is Luna doing?????

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Pygmies also, but they have a very small amount of milk. You get them if you want just one glass a day, well more like 2/3 of a glass haha.

As someone who has raised pygmies for a very long time I can tell you from experience that there are pygmies who give much more than 2/3 of a glass of milk a day. I raised a doe who I milked for over a year and she gave me over a quart a day until I dried her off.

 

[Latestarter]

It could have just been that she wasn't "letting her milk down" where you could get it, because she didn't want to be involved in the first place.

 

[Lanthanum]

Yeah I had to give up milking her because she was kicking and screaming bloody murder and that's all I came back with. This was when her kid was stillborn so all I had to milk was enough not to hurt her

 

[Green Acres Farm]

As someone who has raised pygmies for a very long time I can tell you from experience that there are pygmies who give much more than 2/3 of a glass of milk a day. I raised a doe who I milked for over a year and she gave me over a quart a day until I dried her off.

Wow! How long did you keep her in milk?

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I milked that little gal for over a year.

 

[WindyIndy]

How is Luna doing?????

Hi! Sorry for the delay in posting, been crazy here between work, farming, and normal day to day living. I'm also having knee trouble and need to go back to the dr Wednesday. I'm too young for this!

Enough with me, Luna is WAY more fun to talk about She's dong very well!! The runs never come back and her 2 week fecal re-check came back negative I hadn't done anything with her halter training training for about a month so decided to take her out when it got nice. Once I finally caught her, she walked like a pro! I only had her out twice before the break but she remembered! I can tell she's a fast learner, I'm just proud of her. I had to leave her halter on as she's scared of it and the rope, once she gets more comfortable with it I'll take it off each time again. I've also been tieing her outside the fence to eat as she's been dropping too much grain and Maggie eats it then gets ear infections, sigh. She hasn't learned to stand tied yet, she likes to dance She's very good at letting me touch her all over though and I have even lightly squeezed her teats and she didn't even bat an eyelash.