One-cow Family Meets the One-family Cow
(Page 7 of 14)
May/June 1972
By Hank Rate
Slacken the pace of milking as Bossy's flow weakens. Then individually "strip" each teat by exaggerating the upward motion before every squeeze as you simultaneously massage that section of the bag with the other hand. You can ever final-strip (it's a combination stretch and traveling squeeze each teat from top to bottom several times with a thumb an forefinger. Some cows require considerable stripping, others parctically none.
RELATED CONTENT
DRYING YOUR COW
Contrary to the extension service "rules", many family cows never dry up and don't seem to suffer for it . . . although I'm sure their total production is a little less than it would otherwise be and some folks claim that the calves from suet mothers are not as vigorous. When you buy a bred cow, then, you should learn her impending calving date so you'll know when to begin tapering off her flow of milk.
Start drying your cow approximately 60 days before she's due to calve. If you milk with your shoulder against Bossy's right flank, you may even receive a reminder about that time (in the form of a short, sharp kick) from the coming baby.
Vets have varying ideas about how to slacken a cow's milk flow but (especially with a high-production animal) I prefer to do it gently. At the outset, stop stripping ole Bossy and start cutting down on her grain. Within fifteen days you can probably drop your milking schedule from twice to once-a-day. Ten days later you can hold your expectant mama off pasture and put her on dry feed with limited water and no grain . . . and shortly after that, just stop milking.
This gives the cow a 30-day dry period, which is a good compromise between family needs and optimum commercial dairy conditions. Drying a cow completely only one month before calving has another advantage: if she should abort early and not freshen normally, you can often continue milking her for some time and, thus, not lose a full year's production.
The gestation period for cattle is 283 days—give or take a week—and a surprising number will be right on the money. My limited experience indicates that you should figure on at least a week longer if your cow has been bred to a bull of one of the large exotic breeds. Logic says the bull shouldn't have a dang thing to do with the length of time a cow carries her calf . . . but my observations are beginning to receive considerable confirmation.
CALVING
Dairy cattle have few calving problems, both because the cows have ample pelvises and the calves are long and stringy. With luck, all you'll ever do while Bossy delivers is worry a lot. Odds are that you'll see many normal presentations before you encounter a problem . . . and that's far and away the best education to prepare you for seeking help when and if the need arises.
If you're inexperienced and suspect that your cow is having delivery troubles, find an experienced hand or call the vet. Most improper presentations can be solved by repositioning the calf and—when the new arrival is too large or the cow's labor insufficient—the calf may have to be extracted. Such an extraction may usually be accomplished in well-developed dairy cattle with the obstetrical chain and hand hook mentioned earlier. A really difficult birth may even call for hooking a fence stretcher (which generally works quite as well as an expensive "puller") between the obstetrical chain and a solid post or stall.
Page:
<< Previous 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
Next >>
