Sunday, September 22, 2013

Backyard Dairy Cow Management

Hi, I am Riley Williams, and I am sixteen years old. I own a small herd of dairy cattle, and have been managing a back yard dairy cow business for over a year and a half. We use our milk for animals and we also drink it ourselves.

I have two mature cows named "Betty" and "Cortana". Cortana is a nurse cow only and Betty is a milk cow. Together they feed four calves that are almost a year old. Two of their calves are their own, and two are foster beef calves owned by Nevada County Free Range Beef. In addition, my prize milk cow delivers enough milk to meet the needs of out animal milk customers. Betty currently gets milked every other morning.

Both cows are pregnant again. We should have new calves in March and June of 2014. We are hoping for females because they are more marketable than male calves. My dairy cattle are a lot of fun, but they are also a lot of work and are somewhat expensive to keep.

Interested in starting a back yard dairy business? Please feel free to ask any questions you might have.

Today I am going to talk about dairy cattle temperament. Almost all dairy cattle are very docile with the exception of one type of bull. Jersey bulls are probably the meanest type of cattle. They are sneaky deceiving animals, once you turn your back you could be on the ground being gored by a nine hundred pound bull. Jersey bulls are not recommended that you own one. On the other hand jersey cows and steers are extremely nice and sweet cattle. They have been bred over the years and have been made into backyard family pets. My steer calves at five months old where trained to go in trailers and are currently being haulter trained and are currently nine months old. They would of been fully haulter trained already but we started later than you are supposed to. All of my dairy animals are very docile and can be approached by everyone and anyone.

Today I'd like to talk about milk production, Jersey cattle produce the richest milk, while Holstein cattle produce the greatest volume, of milk. We have the best of both, because my cows are Jersey/ Holstein crosses. Milk production will vary according to consumption, The dairy cow will produce more when more calves are nursing and as the calves grow. We will take our now ten month old calves off their mothers in another couple months, and milk supply will dry up. This will give the cows the extra energy they need to bring their pregnancies to term and deliver healthy new calves.

Sometimes, you can end up with bull calves rather than heifers, which are more desirable. You can either sell your bull calf young or keep him for steer meat. You must follow a few steps when your bull calf is young if you intend on keeping him as a steer for meat. First you must castrate your bull calf, because if you don't you will end up with a breeding bull and most likely a not too friendly bull. There are at least two different methods of castration. One of them, and probably the easiest, is putting a tight rubber band around the calf's testicles for a few weeks and then they should just fall off. Another method is by surgically removing them, which is more painful and stressful.

The second thing you should do is to dehorn your calf. Dehorning also has several methods. There is no really nice way to do it. You can either put an acid paste on their horns when they are just beginning to grow.  Or, you can also use a hot iron which burns the horns, and then clip them off with a special device. I have had experience with each method and prefer the hot iron approach. If you use paste, then the calf might burn his mother by bumping his head, with paste on it, against her udder while nursing.

A great way to gain some money from your cattle is to show them in events for example, the Nevada county fair and at other cattle shows farther away. Other ways are selling your cattle for butcher, breeding a bull with a cow and selling the offspring either for breeding or beef.

You might be wondering how a person with a backyard dairy operation can ever go away for a little while. The answer to that is that you can't leave town often. Finding competent help to come in and do cow care and milking when your gone is not easy. However recently I did need to be out of town for a memorial service in Texas. Fortunately in our county their is a mobile livestock service called Gold Country Livestock Services. This company offers a full range of livestock services including dairy services. Cheyenne Little the owner of this company is only sixteen and she already she is providing a niche service that can help people like me when I need to leave town. http://hilltopfarmhealth.weebly.com/ She did an exceptional job taking care of my dairy cattle while I was away and I highly recommend her.


1 comment:

  1. On the right track here, Riley. Add some pictures though to make your blog more visually interesting.

    ReplyDelete