Eight Acres

Dairy cows are naturally skinnier than beef cows . They are bred to produce milk, not meat! But it can be tricky to know whether your cow is too skinny, or too fat, as both can cause serious problems. Bella a few weeks of calving and Molly inspecting my boot A useful method for assessing cow condition is the “body condition score”, which is basically a method of ranking how boney a cow looks ( more details with lots of photos of different cows here , see a chart for cow, horse, sheep and dog body condition here ). Look at your cow and how many ribs and spine bones you can see, and how her tail sits, and give her an average score. A diary cow should be around 2.5-3, ideally you will see the back three ribs, but not the front ones. Every cow is different though, and a cow’s body condition will change over time, early in her lactation when your cow is giving the most milk she will lose condition (get skinnier). Some cows seem to just give everything they’ve got to make more ...

Dairy cows are naturally skinnier than beef cows. They are bred to produce milk, not meat! But it can be tricky to know whether your cow is too skinny, or too fat, as both can cause serious problems. If you are new to cows, you might not know if your cow is too skinny or too fat, or what her coat should look like if she's healthy.  Read more on my house cow ebook blog . 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 fro...

Recently our poor little steer Monty suffered from "three-day sickness", which is like a severe cattle man-flu.  He was depressed and didn't want to get up, but he was better after three days, which was a huge relief for us!   Read more about it on my house cow ebook blog here . 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 C...

Recently our little steer Monty was unwell.  He had the classic symptoms that we have learnt to recognise as "three-day sickness" or bovine ephemeral fever .  Just think of it as a really bad man flu. Here's Monty when he was sick, he looks depressed, doesn't he? Three-day sickness is caused by a virus that is spread my mosquitoes and midges, so it is common in late summer, particularly following rain.  It occurs in eastern Australia (mainly QLD, NSW and NT), Asia and Africa.  The cattle show the following symptoms: Depression Fever Lameness, muscle stiffness, reluctance to stand Drooling saliva, watery eyes, runny nose Reduced water and food intake Don't ask me to explain how you can tell if a bovine is depressed, but you really can, they look so unhappy when they are sick.  We know its three-day sickness when we find an animal lying down when the others are eating, reluctant to stand when we approach, running nose and looking unhappy.  We...

You can barely read a blog these days without coming across information about essential oils.  If anyone has somehow managed to miss the essential oil buzz, it seems to be generated by two companies that produce essential oils and sell via Multi Level Marketing schemes (i.e. pyramid schemes) in which people can earn money by selling essential oils through these companies.  Hence all the hype on blogs about how to use (and buy) essential oils. Bella's udder I have been paying attention mainly because my neighbour is very enthusiastic about oils (although she doesn't sell them), and for the past few years has told me how she uses them in her home and with her family.  From what I have seen, they are very effective as a natural therapy and potentially safers and cheaper than conventional medicine, which has caught my interest.  I have been slow to take the step to use them myself because we don't tend to get sick anyway!  But then I started to wonder if we ...