raw milk squirting into full milk bucket

My Side of the Milk Bucket

untitled-14

{I Heart Raw Milk}

{Splish Splash}

untitled-4

{Our Dolly, Holly}

untitled-7
untitled-8
untitled-18

{Sweet Stella Vanilla}

untitled-29

{Dandy Candy}

{I Got A Little Sloppy, Don’t You Think? *Hangs Head in Shame*}

untitled-2

{Candy’s Cream. Oh.My. Go’ness.}

untitled

{The Most Yellow I’ve Personally Seen}

Screen Shot 2014-07-17 at 10.32.39 PM

{Bright, Beautiful Buttah}

“My Side of the Milk Bucket.” Sounds like a good series title for ranting posts, doesn’t it?

This isn’t a ranting post though. More of a rambling one. (Not that I couldn’t rant. I’m sure if you gave me a minute a topic could come to mind. Actually ranting comes naturally to me.  I’m not a fan of Post-Rant-Fallout, so I refrain.)

On with the Cattle Prattle then, shall we?

– – – – – – – – – –

Bill has been wanting me to come out and do the evening milkings with him.

I’m not sure if it’s sweet or not. I mean I’m not sure how to read it. Is it, “I love ya, let’s spend some quality time together.” Or, “Honey, I bought two more milk cows on a whim. How’s  about you come spend an hour or more of your evening and hand milk all three with me? By Hand. With the repetitive squeezing till your forearms are cramped and you want to cry. You don’t have anything better to do anyway, do you?”

I tell myself the former as I push through the pain.

Really, I don’t mind. It’s summer and I love working outside. Especially with the animals. And I’m just glad I get a pass on the early morning milking. 5 AM comes too quickly when you’re up nursing a baby a few times a night.

– – – – – – – – – –

The red dashed lines are telling me that Milkings is apparently not a real word?! It most definitely is in our world.

– – – – – – – – – –

We had to wean Rusty. It’s early. Even for us who usually do it around 5 months. He was drinking all.three.cows.DRY. I love him. But not that much. We offered him the milk in a bucket, rationing it for a couple days but he wasn’t interested.  Literally walked up sniffed it, didn’t take so much as a sip, and sauntered on.

– – – – – – – – – –

We’re currently getting about 10 gallons of milk a day between all the girls. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot by commercial standards, but it’s more than we sure need. Yes, we could give them more grain and ramp up production, but we’re not interested in that. As it stands, they’re getting a pound of grain at each milking. For Holly, that’s a pretty big reduction from the 6 pounds she was getting before we bought her. With what we are getting we’re going to start a micro-dairy herd share. It’s exciting to think our endeavors might generate a smidgen of income. So if you’re in central Ohio and interested, let me know…

– – – – – – – – – –

Until that happens though, I’m finally making a ton (and by ton I mean pound) of beautiful butter daily. It’s the pigs who are the lucky ones. They get the skimmings every day and don’t even have to work for it. They could at least repay me by coming into heat. That is why they get to live here and all. The question is, Will one birth a litter before or after butchering season? Things they should be thinking about.

– – – – – – – – – –

This weekend is the big weekend for these gals. We’re giving them the prostaglandin shot, to sync their cycles and the AI tech will come out about 80 hours later. This will be our first year not going au natural for breeding but we haven’t figured out the logistics for this either… Maby is almost a year old and starting to cycle and she’s definitely too small to breed, especially to a bull that would be more appropriate for the bigger gals. How would we keep them apart?

Not that the two new cows are very big. We’re going to just have the tech help us pick something that would make for an easy birth for those two. Holly however is going to be bred to a specific bull of the Normandy breed. He’s A2A2. And has BB Kappa Casein which means that if I’m not spending the rest of my evenings from here on out and forevermore milking, I might get good conversions on any cheese making I would do from that cow, should it be a heifer.

Am I happy that we need the hormone shot to get this done? No. But I don’t see a way around it without a bull. I’ll stop making butter today and save the milk and we’ll have to dump next week’s milk. Fertilize the pastures with it perhaps? I’ve read that works well. Technically, “they” say you can still drink the milk because prostaglandin is a naturally occurring hormone, but I’m not comfortable with it, so we’ll dump.

– – – – – – – – – –

I actually wrote that last paragraph a couple nights ago. I was too tired to trust my proofreading so I didn’t post it. Since then Candy has gone into heat. She’s standing today and the tech is coming out tonight. It looks like Holly is going into heat too, so if that’s so we’ll not have to give her the shot and have him back on Monday? So I guess that will just be Stella’s milk we’re dumping. I’m so thankful that it is going to come out that we will have a little less intervention than is necessary!! Seriously. It was upsetting me thinking of messing with them like that. We’d like to do things as naturally as possible, but it’s hard to work that out on small acreage. I imagine it will take some time to flesh out all the answers.

– – – – – – – – – –

We’re excited to be doing the BioPryn blood testing again this year. Not only because it’s less expensive & invasive than a vet visit, but we’ll also get results a month sooner. I suppose if they come into heat again we’ll know before then, but even if they don’t come in, we’ll still spring a couple bucks for the test and the peace of mind that the next 9 months won’t be wasted waiting for a calf that doesn’t come.

– – – – – – – – – –

Raw milk. Heavy Cream. Butter. The End.

I Heart Raw Milk

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

27 Comments

  1. Hi, I would love to learn more about your herd share. So awesome you are in central Ohio.

    1. I’m literally sitting here in front of 5 half gallons of milk that has to go out to the pigs today. I’m REALLY hoping you can join 🙂 I just sent Bill your email!

  2. Quinn, please add me to the list of those interested in learning about your herd share…am in central OH and wondering if you are close enough that it could work for us…does my disqus login share my email adress with you?

    1. Hi! It does show me your email address and I’ve passed it along to Bill. I believe he’s sent you along some information about the herdshare! Hope it works out for you 🙂

  3. Can I buy it on demand, if it’s available? Not sure the kids will drink it and I’ve honestly never had raw milk before but the idea is intriguing. Can I buy some to try and then let you know? This is, of course, if there are any shares (or milk!) left to try… 🙂 Thanks, Sarah

    1. There are shares left Sarah… If I’m not mistaken, the contract is such that you’ve 30 days to back out & get a refund. I’ve got a couple of sick babies right now so I didn’t get a chance to meet the last family that bought in yesterday, but was told one of their little ones who is a milk hater tried a glass & was wanting more 😀 Let me know if you’re interested in more info. and seeing the contract.

      1. I’m interested, please e-mail it to me at sarahbussey at earthlink dot net… thanks!

  4. Wow!!! The milk is AMAZING!! We had such a wonderful time meeting you and your family today, as well as meeting your beautiful cows! Thanks for offering us this opportunity!!! We are truly grateful!!! Until next time, God bless

    1. Oh good!! I’m so glad you like it! I confess after you left, I said to Bill, “What if they don’t like it?!” I love it when people love what I love, you know? It was wonderful to meet your family too Julie! Your daughter is a delightful young lady and it was so good to see her enjoy my baby- honestly, you don’t get to see that too often these days and it was a real treat. I beat myself up later for not offering to let her hold her- I’m so used to no one being interested it didn’t even occur to me then. Looking forward to seeing you guys again!

      1. No worries! It is DELICIOUS!!! Thank you for the sweet words about our daughter:)!!!

  5. I would love info as well! I’ve been looking for a herd share up here

  6. I had no idea you were in Ohio! Would love to hear more about a herdshare! Please send along some info.

  7. I’d love to learn more about your herdshare. Please e-mail me some more info. Thanks!

  8. I have been thinking of getting a family milk cow, but I am nervous about raw milk. Is it easy to pasteurize your own. How time consuming is making butter? How long does it take to milk?

    1. Hi Heather, I really can’t speak to pasteurization at all. I’ve never done it. I do know the machines can cost nearly as much as a cow. Drinking raw milk can be nerve wracking at first but you get over it. Especially since studies are showing that it’s not as dangerous as all the hoopla makes it out to be. Making butter isn’t time consuming once you get the hang of it. I do it while I’m cooking or doing dishes actually since I’ve figured out how to skim the cream hands-free. The actual butter making is hands free too if you use a stand mixer.
      Skimming Milk:
      https://www.reformationacres.com/2014/04/how-to-skim-milk-the-hands-free-way.html

      Making Butter: https://www.farmsteadcookery.com/sweet-cream-butter/

  9. I’ve been reading your blog for quite awhile now and had no idea you were located right here in Ohio! I would love to hear some more info on the herd share and see if it would be possible for us.

    1. Wonderful Rebecca! I’ll send you’re email address over to Bill and he’ll be in touch soon 🙂

  10. Hi Quinn. We’re in central Ohio and would love to hear more on your herd share! Quite exciting news!

    1. Yea Julie! That’s exciting 🙂 I’m sending your email over to Bill… he’ll get you the details today.

  11. We don’t have our own milk cow, but we buy fresh raw cow milk. We actually drive 45 minutes to buy milk. My family is on a rotation with 4 other families so we each go once a month to pick up milk. Nothing like a cold glass of raw milk. We make butter from the cream as well. Yummy!