Milking stall and calf pen

Don and I couldn't agree on something. The issue has been nagging at both of us, and we couldn't come up with an adequate solution. I refer to the subject of building a milking stall and calf pen.

Maggie, our Jersey heifer, is getting close to her due date, which we estimate will be toward the end of May, give or take a few days.

What we typically do with our milking cows is to let the calf have unrestricted access to mama's milk for the first week or so. This will insure the baby gets suitable colostrum and an opportunity to bond with mama. Additionally, since this is Maggie's first calf, she'll need a few days to get used to being a mother.

After that, however, it will be time to milk Maggie. And to do this, we need a calf pen where we can separate the calf up at night so I can milk Maggie in the morning. Once-a-day milking will give us plenty of milk and is less stressful for both cow and calf.

But how to build the calf pen and milking stall? That was the question. This is not a trivial issue. These structures will shape the function of the livestock side of the barn for years to come.

The problem is the limited space we have in the barn, which has already been subdivided into multiple uses (storage lofts, tool shop, wood shop, hay storage, etc.).

The space we have dedicated for interior livestock needs (including the feed box) is about 10 feet by 30 feet. With the feed box at one end (taking up 10 feet of space) and a wide center gate (taking up about 9 feet), we wanted to put the calf pen and milking stall at the other end.

This leaves us about 11 feet of room. Ten by eleven feet; that's what we had to work with.

Initially both Don and I had vastly different ideas of how to build these two facilities. His original vision was to put the calf pen on the left, the milking stall in the middle, and the milker (me!) sandwiched between the milking stall and the right-hand wall. (The arrow indicates where Maggie's head will be facing.)

I didn't like this because it only gave me about three feet of space, which didn't give me room to back up or move around. Believe me, when cows decide to let loose and urinate during milking, the milker learns to scramble out of the way, taking the milk buckets with her. I needed space at my back.

My thought was to have a sideways milking stall, with a fold-out gate where I could close it and lock Maggie inside, when me on the outside.

For a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of physically securing a freestanding stall, Don didn't like this idea. Additionally, I would be crouched on a milking stool with my back to the cows while milking, which is a vulnerable position should some other bovine decide to get rambunctious.

We stared at the available space and tried to come up with other options. "Just a crazy outside-the-box thought," I suggested. "What if we put the milking stall along the wall and I milk while inside the calf pen?"

Don didn't like this idea because the calf would be all over the milk buckets while I was milking ... not to mention chewing on my hair and clothing.

Again we stood back and stared at the space. We were stymied, absolutely stymied, as to the best configuration for the milking stall and calf pen.

Finally Don had a brilliant idea, based in part on my last suggestion. He suggested building an inner (calf) pen and outer "milking" pen, with either sliding or swinging gates (we haven't decided) leading into both. The milking stall would push part of the way into the calf pen. The outer "milking" pen, which is where I'll be sitting to milk, will be protected from the other animals, and extra pen space is always a good idea.

So he mocked up the design on the computer, in part to figure out how many posts he'll have to secure to the concrete, etc.

As this project takes physical shape, doubtless we'll be making tweaks and adjustments; but given our space restrictions as well as personal preferences (I like to milk from the cow's right side, for example), this is the very best use of the space we can think of.

Just another example of what it takes to develop infrastructure on a homestead.

Meet Maggie

I guess today is Earth Day, right? Yawn.

Most Earth Day celebrations are empty bits of nonsense. However Don and I did something fairly extraordinary today, something I suppose could be attributed to our desire for clean food and self sufficiency. We bought a heifer.

Dear readers, meet Maggie.

With all the crazy stuff going on in the world, it's been on our minds to get cows sooner rather than later. Then yesterday morning just before church, Don got an email from an acquaintance who told us this family had a little Jersey heifer for sale, and were we interested? You bet!

We called the seller and made arrangements to see the animal. She's about 13 months old and comes from the west coat of Oregon, near Tillamook. She's been blood-tested as A2. As you can see, she's horned (we're talking to the local vets about correcting that), has a sweet disposition, good udder attachment, and – except for the mud-caked fur – is bright-eyed and healthy.

We've hesitated getting livestock up to this point, since we're still getting cattle infrastructure set up. This is only the first of what we hope will be at least two or three animals, since it's not good for cows to be alone.

The enclosure where this heifer (and some other heifers) were being kept was quite muddy, but the seller was waiting until the ground dried out a bit to turn the animals out on pasture.

Comically, the ear tags of Maggie give her the name of Nosey (due to her white nose). That was the name of my childhood dog, LOL. So yes, Maggie it is.

The sellers are holding onto Maggie for another four to five weeks while we hastily fence a pasture and set some horse panels up around a feed lot. During this time, Maggie will be bred to a bull who's about half Jersey, half Holstein.

So I won't be milking Maggie anytime soon, but it's a start.

Meanwhile, we'll be looking for (probably) another Jersey heifer or young cow, and also a feeder calf we can raise for beef.

It's a start, dear readers! The start of our new homestead.

A fresh face on the farm (well, soon)

Ever since our Jersey Matilda lost a second quarter through the magic disappearing teat technique (it turned out the cartilage collapsed, by the way - irreversible), Don and I have discussed the idea of getting another Jersey cow.

But how to find one? Most mature cows we find for sale are culls. Matilda - much as I adore her - was a cull. Commercial dairy cows, I learned, only have a working life of four or five years. No dairy would sell a healthy young four-quartered cow, at least for anything short of a fortune.

We won't get rid of Matilda, of course. She makes beautiful calves and she's such a beloved member of the herd that she has a place on our farm for life.

But Don's been keeping an eye on Craig's List for Jerseys. We've called about a couple of animals, but either they were culls or they were too expensive.

So yesterday he called me over to his computer and showed me a new listing on Craig's List: a five-month-old Jersey heifer. The photos showed both her and her tiny udder (meaning, the sellers are cognizant about her milking potential). The price was reasonable. I immediately called and left a message and frankly didn't expect a call back - surely someone had snapped this little girl up already?

But no, the sellers returned the call a few hours later and said she was still available. All my questions were satisfactorily answered. Don and I decided to take a trip up and see her. Today.

In fact, we made a "date" of it. Don and I seldom have time together without kids along, so we left the kids at home (with a host of chores to do, poor things). It was going to be an all-day excursion because this nice homeschooling family lived on the other side of nowhere, a three-hour one-way drive.

It was a grey and rainy day. We had never traveled to the interior parts of the extreme northeast corner of Washington State before, so it was interesting to see the terrain. Once we escaped from the intensity of Spokane, the land alternated between flat open areas, steep mountains, and agricultural valleys. Yep, other side of nowhere.

We passed this drop-dead gorgeous farm on the way - I just had to take a snapshot - and it's for sale! (Too bad it was right on the road.) Anyone want a little piece of paradise in northeast Washington?

We arrived at last at the seller's farm and met our little girl. She was enchanting - healthy, leggy, good udder potential, sweet-natured, halter-broken.

Obviously the animals on this farm are well-cared for. We met the mother Jersey and while her udder wasn't quite as tight as I would have liked, it was nothing like the pendulous blob poor Matilda's udder has become. The calf's father was a high-quality A.I. (artificial insemination) bull. The nice thing about A.I. is you can choose the sire's qualities according to what you're breeding for - and can even select the gender of the calf. Amazing.

The only disadvantage we saw is the heifer hasn't been dehorned. At five months old, it's far too late to use dehorning paste, so we're faced with either the horrors of manual dehorning, or having a horned Jersey. We're not sure yet which route we'll take.

See her horn buds?

She has a very sweet disposition and, just like Matilda, wants to lick us (hence this unflattering shot of her tongue).

The bottom line is, we bought her. We paid about half down, got a receipt, and left for the long drive home, pausing first to admire the vistas from the seller's farm.

We'll probably pick the calf up next Monday. First we need to find someone's horse trailer we can borrow to bring her home, and we also need to make arrangements to stop at a vet's in Washington to get the necessary Bang's vaccination, health certificate, and brand inspection required by law to transport livestock over state lines.

On the drive home we passed some "Burma Shave"-style signs with the Ten Commandments posted by a church, which I thought was clever.

We haven't decided on a name yet, though Older Daughter suggested "Polly" which is growing on me. (I was looking for something old-fashioned, like Matilda's name.)

Oh, and the kids did all their chores too. The house looked lovely when we got home.

Milking questions

A reader sent the following email which I'm posting for everyone's benefit:

I am writing about milking cows. We live on 12 acres is East Texas. We moved here about a year ago. I always said I would never milk anything, but things change. I have Nubian milk goats and I am just not satisfied. Milking two gets me less than three quarts a day. You can not easily separate it and my husband thinks the cheese tastes goaty. I agree on the soft cheese. So my question for you is do you milk once or twice a day? If you milk once a day, how do you get to that point with the calf? How long til you can separate the calf from the mom for the night? Cows are much larger than goats, hence I didn't get one to start with. A little nervous. But I really like making cheese. Excellent article in Backwoods Home Magazine on cheese making by the way. So I think I am going to need to upgrade to a cow. Also any suggestions on buying one? Should I go to a dairy or buy one from someone on Craigslist?

My reply:

Regarding milk cows: I think it depends on what breed you get. For years and years we had only Dexters, which are a small dual-purpose (milk and meat) breed and I milked two cows. But then our neighbor got a Jersey and I fell in love with the breed, so we got Matilda. With the Dexters, because their milk output is not huge, I felt comfortable milking just once a day (I'd separate the calf at night and milk in the morning). But when we got Matilda and since she came off a commercial dairy, she had no calf on her and I was forced into a twice-a-day milking schedule. The rewards were tremendous - huge amounts of creamy milk, so I made butter and cheese like mad - but the schedule was rather unforgiving. It's not like I could skip a milking, after all, or the poor girl would burst.

But an interesting thing happened after Matilda had her calf last year - the calf took a lot of the cream and a lot of the milk, and though I was still milking twice a day, her output was FAR less (actually, this was a blessing - who needs five gallons of milk a day?). So I dropped to milking once a day (evenings) and that worked fine. Then as Matilda adjusted her output, I actually got lazy and stopped milking altogether. (Frankly it was a nice break.) I certainly could have continued milking but as I said, I just got lazy.

So to answer your question, a lot will depend on whether you get a heavy milk-producing breed or not, and whether you keep a calf on the cow or not. A cow will adjust her milk production to the demand. If both you and a calf are taking milk, she'll adjust her output higher. If you forego milking and just leave the calf on her, she'll adjust to that.

Frankly I like the once-a-day schedule and sharing the cow with her calf. I think it's healthier for the calf to be raised by its mama (and I think it's beneficial for a cow to raise her own calf), and a once-a-day schedule means you're not a slave to your cow. You can occasionally skip a milking by keeping the calf with the mother at night, for instance.

I like to keep a calf exclusively on the mother for two weeks. This bonds the animals and insures the calf gets all the colostrum it needs. Then if you plan to separate the calf at night, make sure you do so in such a way that the animals can still see and smell each other, such as a pen for the calf. If you just spirit the calf away at night and the mother has no idea where her baby has gone, she'll break the barn down in a frantic effort to find her calf. But if they can see/smell each other but are just physically unable to touch, there will be a lot of loud complaining but at least the cow knows where her baby is. It takes about two or three weeks for them to stop complaining and get used to the idea of being apart at night.

If I were to recommend a breed to a new milker, I would recommend a hand-raised Jersey. Dexters are a more spirited breed and may be a difficult adjustment, but if you're familiar with handling cows they're a fine breed to get. If you get a Jersey - and if we could do it all over again and if we had more money - I would get a healthy four-quarter cow (meaning, all of her udder quarters are working) with NO history of mastitis. You'll pay more but we had a nightmare case of mastitis when we got Matilda and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

Since getting Matilda I've learned a great deal about udder attachment. Matilda has a terrible udder attachment but our neighbor's Jersey has a superb udder attachment. When looking over a potential animal, see if you can bring along someone who is knowledgeable about such things to help guide you. Commercial dairies tend to sell off their lower-quality cows. Be careful with a Craigslist listing, as you don't want to pick up a sick animal that someone is disguising as healthy. With a cow, you really do get what you paid for. We paid $500 for Matilda and, while I love her to pieces, that's all she was worth. Our neighbors paid about $2000 for their Jersey, and she is a far higher quality animal. Ah well, live and learn.

Dexter cow - excellent udder attachment

Dexter cow - poor udder attachment

Dexter cow - poor udder attachment - see how saggy-baggy she is.

With udders, a poor attachment looks "saggy baggy." A good udder attachment means the udder is held tight and close to the body. Ideally teats should be not misshapen and not poking out in all directions.

Dexter cow - excellent teats - all uniform.

Dexter cow - misshapen teats (harder to hand-milk)

Hope this helps! If you don't mind, I'm going to post your question and my answer on the blog so everyone can see it.

Imminent calf?

On Sunday afternoon as I was cleaning Matilda's pen, I noticed something interesting.

Matilda, for my newer readers, is our Jersey cow. All our other animals are purebred Dexters, but I fell in love with our neighbor's Jersey a few years ago so we got one of our own in November 2008. We had a nightmare case of mastitis when we got her from a commercial dairy north of us, but she has become my all-time favorite cow because of her sweet disposition.

Anyway, our bull Gimli bred Matilda last April. Wrong time of year, since that would mean a calf would be born mid-February. So last August we had the vet give her a shot of Lutalyse (an abortant) so she could be re-bred at a better time.

Now I'm thinking the Lutalyse didn't "take." That's because on Sunday I noticed Matilda was suddenly bagged up.

I haven't been milking Matilda for the last few months out of pure laziness. Pearly, her calf, was taking most of the rich milk and it was rather nice not to be tied to a twice-a-day milking schedule that I had before Pearly was born. As a result, Matilda's udder was flaccid.

But no more. Suddenly it's huge and turgid (bagged up), which only happens in the final weeks before birth.

This morning when I let Matilda and Pearly out of their pen, I noticed a string of mucus hanging from her backside. Another indicator.

The reason this takes me so much by surprise is Matilda doesn't look near as pregnant as she did last year. I mean, last year she was massive. This year, no.

Concerned, I called the vet and asked what effect a Lutalyse shot could have on a calf if the cow doesn't abort. Could the calf be born deformed? The vet said no, Lutalyse wouldn't harm a fetus if the cow didn't abort.

So time will tell. At least our winter weather at the moment is mild with no snow on the ground, and we always tuck Matilda (and Pearly) into her pen at night, so she'll have protection if she does indeed have a calf in a couple weeks.

I'll keep everyone posted.

Vaccinating cattle

The vet came today.

It's always a big occasion when the vet comes.  Farm calls are expensive so we try to get as much done in one fell swoop as possible.

Today we needed to get Bang's shots for two heifers as well as Lutalyse shots for a yearling heifer and Matilda, our Jersey.

But before we could welcome the vet, we needed to get ready.  This included a couple of stout O-rings to hold ropes attached to thrashing animals...

...as well as adding a removable board above the barn gate to keep panicked animals from jumping the gate.  Don did these in the morning.

Then we borrowed some neighbor boys for extra "bodies" and started herding the cattle from the pasture into the corral.  Then we picked off the ones we didn't need and shooed the two calves into the barn.  Let's just say this was easier said than done.

Here's Smokey, Ruby's calf, looking highly suspicious.

I managed to get a rope around her neck, to her immense disgust.

We needed to fit her with a halter.  Here's our basket of halters.  Surely one will fit?

No such luck.  Don had to take the closest-fitting one into the shop...

...and burn three more holes in order to tighten it enough.

After a minor rodeo, I got the halter on the calf and attached a rope to it to make it easier to catch her.  As it turned out, the halter was still too big and came off her nose.  Oh well.

Next came Raven, now just a bit over a year old.

Surprisingly, she was a whole lot easier to handle than Smokey.  I fit her with a halter and rope without much trouble.

Make a note: always remember to wear mud boots, not my new thrift-store sneakers, into the barn.

When the vet arrived, the first thing we did was give Matilda a shot of Lutalyse.  Lutalyse is an abortant.  After her ill-timed heat cycle last April, we needed to abort the fetus or we'd have a calf born in January, which would almost guarantee a dead calf in our harsh Idaho winters.  We prefer to breed our cows in late August or early September so the calves are born in late spring.  This will be easier to control once we build a bull pen for Gimli.

But meanwhile poor Matilda needed a shot of Lutalyse.  She was not amused.

Then it was Raven's turn.  Raven also needed a shot of Lutalyse, not only because we don't want a calf born in winter, but also because she's still too young to have a calf.  We like to breed our heifers at about 15 months of age, so they'll be just about two years old when they have their first calf.  Once she aborts the fetus, she'll go into a heat cycle and Gimli can breed her.  This way her calf will be born next spring when she's about two years old.

But Raven needed more than a Lutalyse shot.  She also needed her Bang's shot, which also requires an ear tag, and ear tattoo, and a blood sample (because she's older than a year).  Here the vet is trying to draw blood.  Raven didn't cooperate, so after more rodeo antics the vet got the blood out of a neck vein.

After this it was Smokey's turn.  All Smokey needed was a Bang's shot, her ear tattoo, and her ear clip.  Sorry, we didn't get any photos of this because it was, er, rather a lively event.

That's it for vet calls!  We should be good until next year.

My new milking gig

This is Matilda's new milking stall. Don made it for me after my sweet gentle Matilda went on a nasty-tempered bender and wouldn't let me milk her. She would dance her hind quarters around and kick her back right leg with abandon, making milking now only frustrating but dangerous. No more!



She's tied at the head, with a feed box that has a bit of grain in it to give her incentive to go inside.


For the moment, I'm using old tires as "spacers" to keep her closer to my side.


My favorite part: a hobble on the leg that kicked.


We're still working on tweaks here and there, but for now this new stall makes milking 100% easier. I no longer have to dread milking. Once again it's the enjoyable chore I've always found it to be. Thanks, Don!

To Matilda's credit, she doesn't struggle while in the stall. She doesn't fight being tied at the head, nor does she argue with the hobble on her leg. Gee, it's almost as if...she knows she's defeated.

Ha.