Eight Acres

I just updated our house cows' story over on my house cow ebook blog.   You can check it out here . Bella with Molly in the background future house cow Charlotte 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 If you want to know more about house cows, my eBook is now available, for details see my  house cow eBook blog .

I don't have a proper post to write today.   At the moment we are just a bit stunned.  Pete found Molly dead on Monday when he heard her calf bawling.  We don't know what happened to her.  She had starting losing condition due to feeding her calf (we haven't been milking) and we had just put out hay to make sure that everyone was getting enough to eat.   We don't know if there was an underlying condition, or that something else affected her while she was already weak, but she didn't seem deathly ill to me when I chatted to her on Sunday afternoon.  I googled it and there are over 200 causes of sudden death in cattle , so we will probably never know for sure. Her absence is still sinking in.  I've stopped looking for the cow with horns when I do the herd check.  Her calf is, fortunately for us, about 3 months old, so can be weaned as long as he gets enough hay.  He is wild and there is no way to catch him at the moment without making ever...

This is an article that I submitted to Grass Roots magazine a few years ago.   With my recent post on Instagram/Facebook showing Molly with her calf, and my tale of finding her with the calf and going to get Pete and both of us coming back, but Molly had already hid the calve and we did not see it again for two days.... I few people have asked about cows hiding their calves and this article covers that and other weird things that cows and calves do!   Also we haven't milked yet - trying something new to see if we can get away with not milking all the time, which has been successful so far, will write more when we have fully tested this method. Molly with her new calf  If you haven’t spent time observing a cow with a new calf, you might be surprised to learn how cows go about their mothering. I have heard of people who are used to sheep who get quite a shock with the apparently blasé attitude of a new mother cow. Unlike ewes, who keep their newborn lambs wi...

For several years I made yoghurt using my Esiyo thermos and the Esiyo packets .  Then I started using powdered milk instead , which was cheaper and just as easy.  And then we got Bella our house cow , so I started using real milk, not as easy, but more nutritious and just as tasty.  Bella won't give us milk all year, so when she is dry I think I will use organic milk or maybe milk powder again.  This is a summary of what I've learnt from all my yoghurt experiments to far. What is yoghurt? Yoghurt is the result of fermenting milk using bacteria ( Lactobacillus delbrueckii  subsp.  bulgaricus  and  Streptococcus salivarius  subsp.  thermophilus  bacteria. Lactobacillus acidophilus ,  bifidobacteria  and  Lactobacillus casei  are also used for some yoghurts).  The bacteria convert the lactose in milk to lactic acid, making it tangy, and also act on the proteins in milk, which causes it to thicken. Ing...

I don't know many people in real life who have house cows.  A few acquaintances, but no good friends with whom I can talk regularly about cows.  Like many of my interests, I turn to blogs to find like-minded people who are happy to talk non-stop about cows, manure, hay, minerals, pasture, milking schedule and bottle-feeding calves!  As well as enjoying the topic of conversation, I also learn so much from these blogs, even though they are in different locations.  It seems like you can always learn more about house cows (aka family cows, dairy cows or milk cows).  I want to share my favourite house cow blogs with you today and I hope you can tell me about other sources of house cow information.   Read the rest over at my house cow ebook blog . Bella and Molly working on pulling that hay bale apart Buy my ebook "Our Experience with House Cows" on  Etsy ,  Lulu  and  Amazon , or email on eight.acres.liz at gmail.com to arrange del...

I don't know many people in real life who have house cows.  A few acquaintances, but no good friends with whom I can talk regularly about cows.  Like many of my interests, I turn to blogs to find like-minded people who are happy to talk non-stop about cows, manure, hay, minerals, pasture, milking schedule and bottle-feeding calves!  As well as enjoying the topic of conversation, I also learn so much from these blogs, even though they are in different locations.  It seems like you can always learn more about house cows (aka family cows, dairy cows or milk cows).  I want to share my favourite house cow blogs with you today and I hope you can tell me about other sources of house cow information. Jembella Farm Sally writes from 16 A in South Australia's Barossa Valley, where she has " 2 dogs, 7 cows, 2 alpacas, 5 geese, 35 chickens, 78 sheep and a few bee hives".  Among the cows are  three special house cows , Daisy, Bella and Lavender.  Sally rais...

I wish we had luscious green grass for our cow year round, but like most places, we only have green grass for short periods.  In winter, we don't get much rain at all, and our sub-tropical grass species die off with the cooler weather.  This is when we need to feed our house cow extra hay and grain to supplement the meager offerings in our pasture.  Understanding how much to feed is important, as you don't want a fat (or a skinny) house cow ( see my post on house cow body condition here ). Fortunately there is some great information available.  I found the book   Keeping a Family Cow: The Complete Guide for Home-Scale, Holistic Dairy Producers  (affiliate link), by Joann S. Grohman to be particularly helpful.  I first reviewed Keeping a Family Cow back here , when I borrowed it from the Brisbane library.  I've since bought a copy because I hadn't been able to read it all in detail the first time.  Now I can go through each chapter and take ...

I wish we had luscious green grass for our cow year round, but like most places, we only have green grass for short periods.  In winter, we don't get much rain at all, and our sub-tropical grass species die off with the cooler weather.  This is when we need to feed our house cow extra hay and grain to supplement the meager offerings in our pasture.   Read the rest over at my house cow ebook blog. 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 information on my  house cow ebook blog . Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Cheese  (and The Greening of Gavin)

Its mid-autumn and our nine angus-cross heifers are currently calving.  This may seem an odd time of the year to have calves, and certainly in the temperate areas you would expect to see baby calves and lambs in spring, but in the sub-tropics we can do things a bit differently as we don't have a cold winter.  The problem is that cow gestation is around 9 months, so you really don't know what conditions are going to be like by the time the calves arrive. Ideally you want your cows to have their calves at a time when they are going to have plenty of grass to eat to make lots of milk to feed their calves.  In temperate climates, springtime is ideal as spring rains will bring grass and the calves will grow fat over summer.  For us, spring can often be the driest time of year, and summer brings drought, heatwaves, or flooding rain and paralysis ticks . Sometimes we have lots of green grass in summer, but its not reliable. In the sub-tropics, autumn is cooler, but...

Our first house cow Bella came to us from a dairy farm and had already had two calves. She came with her second calf, Molly, who is also a full Jersey cow. We raised Molly to be our second house cow. With Bella now having an uncertain future after having difficulty with her last calf, we decided to raise some future house cows.  I think they two most important inputs are human interaction (to ensure the cow is tame enough to be milked) and good nutrition (to raise a healthy robust cow). While Bella is extremely tame, from what I know of her early life I don't think she had good nutrition and she now has health problems that prevent us using her as a house cow. Molly is extremely robust AND tame. Can we produce another good house cow? Read the rest over at my house cow ebook blog . 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 ...

A couple of times now I've heard people say that only bulls have horns.  The second time it was a radio announcer.  I thought I better write a post to explain that some cows have horns.... and some bulls don't!   Read more about why some cattle have horns over on my house cow ebook blog. Polled Angus steers - no horns Miss Molly cow - definitely has horns, but her calf Chubby had a polled sire, so she doesn't have horns 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 information on my  house cow ebook blog . Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Cheese  (and The Greening of Gavin)

I know there is a bit of confusion around cattle and horns.  I've heard a few people say that they thought only bulls had horns.  I suppose that makes sense... but its wrong! Most cattle are born with horns.  Both male and female.  You might not see many cattle with horns because they are usually removed at a young age.  There are two reasons for this, firstly the horns can grow back into the animal's skull, and cause problems.  Bella had horns like this and we had to remove them when she was an adult, causing her considerable distress.  The other reason is that cattle with horns can injure other cattle when they are loaded onto trucks, so any cattle that are destined for feedlots and/or abattoirs are generally dehorned, as are dairy cows who have to stand next to each other to be milked.  They also have the potential to harm humans. You might have noticed that our beautiful Molly cow does have horns.  We chose not to remove her horns bec...

At this time of year I like to summarise my posts on various topics.  See my posts about cattle and cows over on my  house cow ebook blog .  I'll leave you with a series of cute calf photos... 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 information on my  house cow ebook blog . Reviews of "Our Experience with House Cows" Kim from the Little Black Cow Blog Fiona from Live at Arbordale Farm Marie from Go Milk the Cow Renata from Sunnyside Farm Fun Gavin from Little Green Chees...