Who Milks?

[lsg]

How many of you milk a Dexter. I am currently milking our three-year-old. She has cut back on her milk yield since the grass is about gone; but the cream content is way up. YUM!

[liz]

You are exactly right Gene, the cream is in the strippings, heaviest at the beginning and end of the lactation time. Dexter milk has smaller fat globules and even if you get the strippings, my experience is that it takes a couple of days to completely separate. I also have a problem with my hands, but I use a bucket milker, Serge, and I milk 4 of my Dexters and a Jersey. Lots of cheese! Liz

[anthony]

We were working with one of our Dexters to milk but decided to get a Guernsey instead.. Thinking of breeding her to a Dexter and hope for a heifer.. Either that or get the equipment and milk about 4 or 5 Dexters for the amount of butter, cheese., cream and milk that our friends and family keeps asking about.. I swear that we are at 50% cream right now at day 300 or so of this lactation. Have a couple Dexter heifers we are working on to milk, we shall see.

[gene]

anthony,
please keep records on how much, % of cream, age, feed, etc for me. we need to put all of this together and let people know that actual numbers.

thanks

gene

[rdoubled]

Whenever I am milking my Dexter's, several of my friends always start to drop off milk jars for me to fill. They love to make butter with the cream. I personally love to make yogurt with the milk. So it is a win win for everyone.

Right now all my cows calve about February and March so after I am done with all my showing, most of them are so late in lactation that it hardly makes for much milk. I have just started to try and get a few fall calvers so that I can have a milk cow for the winter months when I am around to enjoy the milk.

I agree about needing more data on the volumes of milk that they produce and well and percentages of cream. I have notice that my cows produce more cream when they are on a diet that has more grains in it or even alfalfa seems to help allot unless they are on spring grass. I think that the reason they produce so much more milk and cream on spring grass is because the sugar content is much higher. What does everyone else think?

[anthony]

Green forage is always better for production of anything than stored forage... If you had haylage or something similar to it you can get it too. Most of the Dairys that I visited with around her had cream produciton go up during the winter on a herd wide basis by about 1% without loss of volume. they attributed it to the cows feeling less stress in the cold than in the heat. Probably right....

We shall see Gene. I kind of think the hiefers born this year show more potential as far as future milkers than the ones last year. Better blood lines for it IMO. I don't know how much we truely need and I would hate to have so much that I started making a mash out of the extra for the chickens and pigs to eat.. I suppose it would be "free" protein supplement and that is how they do prosciotto ham in Italy.

[jessica]

We have two cows we are milking presently, one has been seperated from her calf and the other we milk only at nite and seperate during the day. It hard on my hands too but I really milking plus at the cost of milk these days why not use what you have. Our newest dun heifer just had her first and she will be trained for milking shortly.
We also have friends that drop off empty jugs and I love to share the bounty.

[Melody]

I milked one of my dexters a few years ago when she lost she calf. She only has 3 good quarters but was still producing oover 2 gallons a day. I love fresh cows milk and I am planning on milking 2 this next fall.

[Olga]

I'm milking Maxine twice a day. Once every two days I milk for human consumption and the rest of the time for the pigs. I add mostly cracked corn and some all-grain ground mix to the milk and let it soak for about 24 hours before giving it to the pigs. I still have lots of butter from last year that I need to use up before it goes bad, so we're only using the milk for drinking.

[liz]

yummm...guess what I am making for dinner tonight..pork chops from ours that just came back from the butcher. There is nothing better than milk/whey fed pork. What about that mozzarella, Olga? It freezes really well. L

[Olga]

Last time I tried to make Mozarella, it looked like I finally got it right. I got to the middle of the recipe - I put the cheese into the fridge to cool and "age" before putting it into heated water. Unfortunatly, schedule got in the way, and by the time I discovered my mozarella-atempt it was molded. I haven't retried since. But I have made a russian type sweet butter-cheese w/raisins and that went fast, it was so good!

[anthony]

Wife was trying to make chedder a while back and it just wouldn't press right so we just broke apart the wheel and made curds out of it.. Oh hot dang where those good and I generally hate those when you see them at a store.. But mmmmmmmm...

[freeholdfarms]

We are milking two 2 year olds with their first calf. Sharing with the calves. Separating for about 8 hours, then milking once a day. Milking by hand. Averaging two quarts to a gallon a day total combined from both. Calves are 1 month and the other 2 months.

[liz]

boy you're lucky to get that much milk with the calves still on them...my cows regulate MY milk and maybe give me a liter/quart at a time and save the rest for their calves! I have to take the calves off and bottle feed them in order to get milk! Olga, the mozzarella that I do and sent the recipe to you, has to sit after the curd is drained so that the acidity gets high enough to 'stretch' the cheese. You can either leave it at room temp for about 4 or 5 hours or in the fridge overnight. Even if it is stuck and one big lump, just pull it off like bread dough and put it in the hot water until it starts to stretch. When it does then pull lots of small bits and knead them together until you make your shape, refresh it in cool water and then brine it for a couple of hours in heavy brine......light brine if you are keeping it as bocaccinni! Anthony if the curd doesn't 'knit' tell your wife to 'redress' or flip it in the press more often, maybe a couple or few times in the first two hours and then after 8 hours, 24 etc. that usually helps. L

[lsg]

My family likes this Velveeta-like cheese.

This is one you can make without a cheese press.I let my milk really clabber well. I used live-culture plain yogurt to culture my fresh warm milk.

1 1/2 gallons clabbered milk
4 TBSP. butter
3/4 teasp. baking soda
2/3 cup soured cream
1 1/2 teasp. salt
1/2 teasp. cheese coloring (if desired)
Heat clabbered milk for 30 minutes at a temperature of 110 - 115 degrees farenheit. Strain and squeeze curd until fairly dry. Place curd in mixing bowl and stir in soft butter and soda until well mixed. Let stand covered for 2 1/2 hours. Put on stove in double boiler, adding soured cream, salt and cheese coloring. Cook until it looks like melted cheese. It will take a little while for the curds to melt into the cream. Stir constantly during this process. Turn into a buttered mold. I use a rectangle plastic container. Chill until set and slice to serve.
Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do.

The live culture yogurt clabbers the milk. I strain my fresh milk and stir in the yogurt. My oven has a bread proofing setting that I use in cold weather to keep the milk at the right temp. In warm weather just cover the container and let set until the milk clabbers. It usually takes about 12 hours. This is a good Velveeta substitute. I use it to make maccaroni and cheese, with salsa to make a hot dip, and we love it on crackers.