Eight Acres

I am often asked if we have to milk our cows twice a day, everyday.  I don't think we could handle that kind of schedule, so thankfully the answer is "no"!  Sure, if you want a lot of milk, and you have the time, you can milk your cow that regularly, but we only need a few litres of milk a week.  We use the calf as a share milker as soon as its big enough, and I've written all about it over at my house cow ebook blog ...   Click here to read the rest ... Molly with baby Ruby You might also be interested in my series on getting started with homestead dairy Interview with myself Interview with Mark and Kate from Purple Pear Permaculture Interview with Kim from the Little Black Cow Interview with Rose Petal Interview with Marie from Go Milk the Cow Interview with Ohio Farmgirl Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on  Etsy ,  Lulu  and  Amazon , or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange delivery.  More ...

One of the key parts of our milking routine ( here and here ) is washing Bella's teats.  We do this after she is settled in her milking bales eating hay, and before the milking cups go on.  Washing her teats is both for cleanliness and to help her to "let down" her milk, by relaxing her and signalling that we are going to take some milk.  At a commercial dairy, the cows' teats are washed with a blast of cold water, I'm not sure how that helps them to relax!  For Bella, we use a cloth to gently wipe each teat with warm water, then squeeze out a few squirts of milk and put the milking cups on.  At first we used a couple of old face cloths, but it was difficult to keep them clean and ready to go when we were milking twice a day, so I decided to make some more. The very well used cloths on the right and some new ones about to be sewn up on the left. Occasionally there is a stall at the Nanango markets that sells old towels and sheets from hotels. ...

I keep forgetting to take photos at milking time because its usually still dark, but we slept in a little the other day, so I was able to take a few photos so that I can explain the process. As you can see we bought a mini milking machine.  I would have loved to hand milk, it seems so romantic and in touch with nature, but we have tried to hand milk Bella a couple of times, just to see if we could and that made me very glad to have a milking machine instead!  Bella has VERY small teats, you can only wrap a couple of fingers around them, instead of your whole hand, so it makes hand milking very slow (apparently cows are being bred to have smaller teats to suit milking machines, rather than hand milking which is better with longer teats, just another frustrating consequence of industrial farming).  Its also interesting how much dirt and hair ends up in your hand milking bucket.  When we'd finished, I wasn't too confident that the milk was clean, whereas if it g...