We have been busy lately, and not just because we’ve been preparing to launch this website. Over the past couple of weeks, we have found three cows to join us here on the farmlet. Their names are Rosie, Coco, and Esmerelda. Esmerelda is a four-year-old Friesian (the big black and white girl), and Rosie and Coco are Jersey heifers — both two years old. Rosie is tan-coloured like a typical Jersey, while Coco is the colour of cocoa, due to a bit of mixed blood in her lineage. We think they are all beautiful!
Apart from the charming company they provide, our three cows are important to us for a number of reasons:
- They will keep the grass down in our paddocks and driveway.
- They will turn the grass into high-quality manure that we can use in our garden.
- They will provide us with lovely fresh milk. Dairy products are one of our biggest grocery expenses, so this is a big deal. Of course, the cows will have to have calves before we can milk them, so a visit from a neighbour’s bull is scheduled for the next few days. We will also have to learn to milk our cows!
- They will raise calves that we can sell or fatten for the freezer.
We feel very lucky to have found three healthy cows who are so quiet and friendly, and we are determined to give them the best care we possibly can. Esmerelda likes treats of kiwifruit and citrus peels, and enjoys being petted and scratched. Coco is so quiet that we can go right up and give her a hug. Rosie is warier, and won’t let us touch her much, yet. Sometimes she comes over and sniffs me and bunts me with her nose, before scampering off. Perhaps she is teasing, or maybe she just isn’t used to us yet. After all, Rosie and Coco have only been here a few days.
Buying cows was a big move for us, since neither of us has owned or cared for livestock before (unless you count a couple of orphan lambs that I helped bottle-feed as a little girl). We’re very lucky to have a whole council of family, friends and neighbours, who know more than we do about cows, and have given us no end of help and advice.
We are learning quite fast! Our plan is to “strip graze.” For those who don’t know, this means that you keep the cattle in one area of the pasture until they have grazed it down, then move them on to the next area. This has the advantage of allowing the grass to be eaten down more fully in a given area, which speeds regrowth. It also allows each area time to recover and re-grow before the cows return. Finally, any pathogens and parasites will have had time to die off, and will not reinfect the animals on their return. To execute this plan, we purchased a roll of electric fencing tape, and a set of standards, and made a movable barrier around our little herd. So far, so good, except that a) we forgot to turn on the fence, and b) we became hopelessly tangled in the tape when trying to move the fence. Just as well the fence was off when it got tangled. Just as well we have nice sweet cows, who don’t try to charge through the fence just because it is turned off! Also (just as well!) we discovered a cunning anti-tangle mechanism that some agricultural genius has built into the tape roll. Like I said, we are learning quite fast!
Thanks for the info! Two questions:
What else you have to feed the cows other than the grass?
How many square feet of grass do they eat per day?
Our cows eat only pasture. How well this will nourish them will depend on the quality of our pasture, which in turn depends on the soil quality. At this stage, our pasture and soil still need a lot of work, so it’s especially important for us to supplement the cows’ diet with salt and minerals. We have already left some seaweed next to their water trough to meet some of these needs, and we see them licking and nibbling at it from time to time. We are planning to leave another kind of supplement out for them in the near future, also. Keep an eye on the website for news about that. We’ve also been finding out about giving animals apple cider vinegar, aloe vera, and tansy to strengthen their immune systems. This is especially important, since we want to farm organically. If conditions are unfavourable (drought or prolonged cold), we may have to bring in hay to feed our animals, but the climate here is generally fairly kind, and we are hoping we will not have to do that.
We don’t know the exact figures regarding how much a cow eats per day. We actually sought this kind of information ourselves before buying the animals. It’s hard to find reliable estimates because the quantity they need varies widely depending on the type and quality of the pasture. Also, a bigger cow like Esmerelda will eat more than little Rosie and Coco. Finally, the nutritional needs of our cows will change throughout the year. They need extra nourishment right after they calve, and generally eat more during lactation.
Thanks for your interest. Please stay tuned for more news and info about raising cows. We’ll continue to post more as we learn.
I envy you for being able to make your own unpasturized butter, cheese and yoghurt!!!
I have been busy so haven’t read the later posts (so pls excuse me if this has already been addressed), but I was wondering if you are already handmilking or do you need to wait until after calving time?
Also, I think you should be able to find info on dry-matter-equivalent typical feed intake by cows in relation to bodyweight and adjusted for season. NZ is the dairying centre of the universe after all;-)
If I get any spare time, I’ll have a look around myself.
Also, are you going to run ducks/chooks in the paddocks being rested from the cows?
cheers!
We’ll have to wait until after the cows calve to milk them. We are certainly looking forward to that, but the gestation period for cows is about nine months, so we still have a while to wait.
We’d be interested to hear about any figures you can find about how much the cows are supposed to be eating. Another interesting point: When we were asking some farmers about this, one of them told us that kikuyu grass(which is a chief component of our pasture here) only gives cows a very small net energy gain for every kilo they consume. In other words, they use up nearly all the energy they gain from it simply in digesting it. That comment really fascinated me. . . and makes me want to work at increasing the diversity of our pasture, especially with species that are richer fodder for our cows.
Kevin and I have read/heard about running chooks on the paddocks after the cows have been on them. We love that idea! We hope to try doing that in due course.