Three Calf Day

We had three calves yesterday. Antonia had calved when Earl went up to the barn, Kristee calved during morning milking, and Charlyze calved in the afternoon. All heifers. It was a good day.



When cows first freshen (that's what it's called when they have a calf, although I must say, having given birth a few times myself, that "fresh" was not one of the ways I would have described the postpartum time), they make colostrum, which is full of all kinds of good stuff for their babies. Colostrum has antibioties, immunoglobins, and tons of protein and fat. It's bright yellow-orange and sticky and pretty unappetizing for people, but just the perfect thing for calves. We milk fresh cows into a separate pail until they stop making colostrum, which is usually around the fourth or fifth milking.


Antonia, Kristee and Charlyze will go into the tank tomorrow, and milk production will start to come up. This is a really, really good thing. We were almost 1600 gallons short for today's orders. Antonia and Charlyze are heifers, so we don't really know how they'll milk, but we can expect about forty-five lbs. a day from each of them. Kristee is a very good cow, probably because she is so smart and rascally and always finding a way to sneak an extra bit of grain, and will likely top out at over sixty pound a day. Butter and Nala have just started going into the tank and we'll probably see over 70 lbs./day from each of them, as we will from Tessa, who looks ready to calve any day now.

So it's looking like we'll have more milk for a little bit here. We'll have a bit of a drop when we stop picking up Putnams milk at the beginning of April, but we hope it will be short lived. We have seven cows due in March and April and nine in May and early June.

I hope the folks who have been looking for our milk will start finding more of it. I hope all these cows calve easily and that their calves are healthy and strong. And I hope I'm the first one to spot one of the heifer calves. I have some good names in mind.