As you may remember – we milk dairy goats. At the moment we have 9 lamancha dairy goats, 8 in milk. Goat milk is naturally homogenized so it requires an expensive cream separator to get cream. With no cream you can not make butter!
Additionally, the amount of grain and hay and labor that goes into milking these 8 goats (which includes all the work to get them pregnant, help them deliver, etc etc) fails in comparison to the amount of milk we would get from one cow with much much less labor and cost.
Its for this reason that we have been mulling getting a cow for more than 2 years now. Today we finally decided to just do it and buy a cow, who you see below.
She is 15 months old, a full blooded jersey and not very large – which is very good for a family cow. She will be bred next week (by AI) and will do a few beauty pageants with her current owners.
In September we will have her come live with us!
She should deliver her baby sometime in April or May 2012 and then we will be in milk!
She’s super cute! What’s her name? I have a hopeless crush on Highland cows and would love to have one live with me but that makes no sense right now for so many reason. Maybe later.
Julie: she is a cutie! we do not have a name for her yet… we just met her today.. yeah – you need to get settled in first. a couple of goats would make much more sense for you right now
Oh what a beautiful cow! We are def getting chix, would love a cow one day.
Jaden,
Aww – thnx – she sure is a cutie – we love our chickens and goats too!
I recently “met” some La Mancha goats for the first time–fell in love! Despite the drawbacks you mention above, I’m still tempted. . . .