Four months old

Honey is now over four months old and has grown so big! She is coping well with being gently weaned and loves to graze alongside Lucy and chew her cud in the shade. She still has the back quarters (and strips out the front) each afternoon, but in the coming couple of weeks will be completely weaned from Lucy's milk. Lucy is due to calf on March 22nd and needs time to rest.

I've been using diatomaceous earth to deter flies and other parasites - it is mixed with their other supplements into their daily feed, used as a dusting powder and sprinkled onto their bedding area. So far, I think it really is making a difference!

After much deliberation, Honey hasn't been de-horned. Yet. Apparently I don't need to decide immediately, though this is the optimum time to remove her horn buds. Because she will always be in a small herd, and has been handled from when she came here, I'm leaning toward letting her keep her horns.


I'm about to start reading The Family Cow by Dirk van Loon. I picked it up from Fishpond for under $25 and it looks to be a fairly comprehensive addition to the farm bookshelf.

This isn't the greatest photo, but it does show how huge Lucy's belly is (with still 3 months to go) and how tall Honey has become compared to Lucy.

We're still getting between 4-5L of milk each day from the front quarters, and leaving the back quarters to Honey. I have loads of milk in the fridge and freezer and numerous yoghurt and cheese experiments going on! It will be such a shock to have no homegrown milk for 2+ months.

We're always reflecting how far the girls have come in 3.5 months. They're easy to catch now, and Lucy is easy to lead. Honey isn't as well-trained to the halter as she could be. They're affectionate and curious farm-pets who have really fit into our family and routine nicely.

Weaning begins

Curious

It seems like no time since Lucy and Honey arrived, but already Honey is over 3 months old. It is time to begin to wean her from Lucy as we prepare for when she dries off to have her own calf around March 22nd.

Honey loves to lick my hands. I'm not that keen!

So, much to Honey's disappointment, she is having only one milk feed a day and eating grass, hay and a tiny amount of Lucy's grain and mineral mix (when Lucy's not looking)! We've been doing it this way for over a week now, and both are doing well with the new routine. Honey still tries to get Lucy to feed her occasionally (she never accepted her as her own calf and only allows Honey to feed at "bucket time").

Scratching Honey's chin

In a few weeks I will have to cut out Honey's afternoon feed, and as demand drops, so will Lucy's supply, and then when I stop milking once a day as well it will be time for her to rest and eat grass and concentrate on growing a healthy calf.

And so the cycle goes...

Meanwhile, we are learning about:
* strip grazing through using electric fence
* getting the mineral/supplement mix and Neem spray applications right for deterring flies
* de-horning (dis-budding) calves (still researching)
* making cheeses
* handling a calf that weighs more than I do!

Lucy, 6 months gestation, enjoying the green grass after our first summer rains.

Preparing for The Wet

We always seem to have a lull in the garden in Spring, which is our dry season (and often hotter than our Summer). But now it has begun to rain, so we're finishing off preparations for planting our warm season crops.

Firstly I prune, weed and cull the last of the winter plants. Some go directly into the beds to be mulched over, a lot go to the chickens and ducks, and a bit goes into my attempt at compost-making.

Next I add manure I've collected, and animal bedding material, as well as some fresh sugar cane mulch on top.


Now everything is ready to sit for awhile and be soaked by the rain. Whenever I have time I poke in plants I've propagated or bought, cuttings, seeds, tubers, sprouting things from the kitchen. I have a basket in the shed where I gather all of these things, so they're handy when I'm pottering in the garden. In Spring and Autumn I order seeds I don't have through saving my own, or the local Seed Savers Network.

And then the real rain comes. And when it's raining every day and night for weeks on end, we reap the rewards of our work - the perennial plants flourish. Asian greens, tropical tubers, and pumpkins abound. Regular European vegetables often can't withstand our wet season, so varieties need to be carefully chosen.


Whilst it's raining we also plant our trees for the year. They get a few weeks of good solid rain and thrive without much care or attention. We try to plant a variety of trees - native food and timber trees, native trees and shrubs for birds and other animals, unusual fruit trees selected for our climate and tradition fruit trees such as oranges, lemons and the like. We also try to plant vines each year - various passionfruit and choko seem to like it here. I've also planted grapes, berries, dragonfruit and other non-tree plants in the wet season.


And next we mow. And mow! But now with more gardens (less lawn) and two cows, we're hoping to mow less and dance in the rain some more...

Update - Two Months

We've learned so much in the almost two months we've had a house cow! Some of the main lessons are:

* it's not easy
* it's not cheap
* nothing ever stays the same

If I knew what a challenge a house cow would be, would I do it again? YES! The milk is fantastic, the manure is abundant, and the cows are really a joy to work with, especially Honey the calf.

We're still milking out once a day, but we take our share first in the afternoon as we were barely getting 1.5L for awhile. Honey is eating a variety of other foods (mainly grass and lucerne hay tops) and growing amazingly fast and well, so we thought it was time to take the first step to weaning. Hopefully each further step toward weaning will go as smoothly.

We are using diluted Neem oil for buffalo fly at the moment, which appeared once the rain came back. I'm playing with dilutions so I don't have to re-apply all the time, but it certainly seems to make a difference. I check both cows daily for ticks, and remove them manually. Luckily, both animals are quite used to me touching them now.

We're spending less on feed now that there's more pasture for the cows - for awhile there their food budget rivaled ours! Lucy is happy to eat more homegrown foods, especially pigeon pea, and she is hand-fed snacks of these most days. Sometimes I'll lead her to a lush part of another paddock and stand whilst she munches away, or tie her to a post whilst I do something else.

From the milk I've made yoghurt, panir, quark, sour cream (didn't work out), cottage cheese and cream cheese so far. Mostly, though we only milk out what we can use fresh and in cooking. The Home Creamery has been an invaluable resource (and inspiration) in creating products from excess milk.


This was also published as Our House Cow Journey Part Two, to follow Our House Cow Journey Part One, written for the Simple Green Frugal Co-op Blog.

Food We Grow

Bushfoods and Wild Foods:
Davidson's Plum
Lemon Aspen
Lemon Myrtle
Native Raspberry
Black Wattle
Yellow Guava (not native)
Red Cherry Guava (not native)
Bush Lemon
Loquat (not native)
Macadamia
Woolly Pear
Millaa Vine
Passionfruit (not native)
Avocado (not native)
Blue Quandong
Atherton Oak
Banana Fig
Cluster Fig
Lillipillies
Fish

That's what we've found so far - there's heaps of other things out there you can eat, apparently, but I'm not so keen on the flavour and texture, and/or haven't discovered them yet!

In the Orchard areas and Food Forest:
Abiu
Apple (tropical, dwarf)
Avocado (a few varieties)
Bamboo (some edible, all useful, all clumping)
Bananas
Bay Tree
Black Sapote
Blackberry Jam Fruit
Boysenberries
Brazillian Cherry
Calamondin
Carambola
Carob
Cedar Bay Cherry
Chilean Guava
Choko
Citron
Coconut
Coffee
Cumquat (a few)
Custard Apple
Dragonfruit (3 varieties)
Davidson's Plum (2 varieties)
Elderberry
Fig - White Genoa
Green Sapote
Grapefruit - Red
Grumichama
Guava
Hog Plum
Icecream Bean (2 varieties)
Jaboticaba
Jackfruit
Kaffir Lime
Lemon (4 varieties)
Lemon Myrtle
Lillypillies
Longan
Loquat
Macadamia (40+ trees, mostly 20+ yrs old)
Mandarins (3 varieties)
Mulberry (3 varieties)
Native Olive
Nectarine (tropical 2 each of 2 varieties)
Neem
Orange (3 varieties)
Passionfruit (many vines of different varieties)
Paw Paw
Peach (7 total, 4 varieties)
Peachcot
Peanut Butter Tree
Persimmon
Pigeon Pea (lots and lots)
Pineapple Guava (feijoa)
Pineapples
Pomegranate (2 varieties)
Plum (tropical 2 each of 2 varieties)
Pummelo
Raspberry
Rollinia Deliciosa
Rose Apple
Sea Grape
Star Apple
Sweet Leaf
Tamarillo
Tangello
Tahitian Lime
White Sapote
Yellow Sapote
Youngberries

Animal Products:
eggs from chickens of all shapes and sizes
eggs from muscovy ducks
roosters excess to our needs
milk from our house cow
honey from bee hives someone keeps here
fish (as mentioned above in wild food list) in the creek

...and that's outside the garden!

We have 3 large garden areas - 2 greenhouses under mostly shadecloth and 1 fenced with chicken wire. We have lots of pets and wildlife and farm animals, so a lot of vegies are locked away...

In the Gardens:
Aerial Potatoes
Aloe Vera
Arrowroot (2 types)
Asian Greens - mixture
Asparagus
Basil
Beans - several varieties
Broad Beans
Broccoli
Cabbage - 2 varieties
Cape Gooseberries
Capsicums
Carrots (only a few, but they're sweet)
Cassava
Cauliflower
Celery - 2 varieties
Ceylon Spinach
Chinese Artichoke
Chilli
Choko - 2 varieties
Comfrey
Coriander - Mexican
Eggplant - 2 varieties
Garlic Chives
Garlic - 3 varieties
Ginger - 3 varieties
Land Cress
Leeks - 2 varieties
Lemongrass - 2 varieties
Lettuce - many varieties
Mint - 2 varieties
Mizuna
Mushroom plant
Nasturtiums
Oka
Onions
Parsley - 2 varieties
Peas (almost done)
Pepinos
Pineapples - smooth and rough
Potatoes - few varieties
Pumpkins - couple of varieties
Rhubarb
Rice
Rocket
Shallots - lots
Silverbeet
Spinach - several types
Strawberries
Sweet Potato - 2 varieties
Tatsoi
Tahitian Spinach
Tomatoes - mostly cherry right now
Warrigal Greens
Water Chestnuts
Water Cress
Winged Beans
Yacon
Yam - 2 varieties
Zucchini - yellow

There's probably more. I know I've forgotten some herbs. And I have a heap of seedlings to plant out, another 30+ trees waiting for the rainy season and oodles of seeds to plant into the newest bed especially...

Three and a half Weeks

Lucy in her favourite corner of the paddock, looking for her herd.

Honey, resting by the fence in the sun. She licks her lips when I approach her! She is 5 weeks old.

This is the little paddock they are being kept in, it's pretty dry and sparse.

How time flies! We've had Lucy and Honey for 26 days now. It keeps getting better. I take care of the cows on my own most of the time now, and still enjoy it. I am getting used to Lucy's behaviour and learning what signals she's giving me. I've never really had to communicate with cows before!

Lucy's favourite - lucerne

We've had virtually no rain for ages and have the cows in a smaller paddock within the house paddock. We're supplementing their feed a lot. In the morning Lucy gets a bucket whilst feeding Honey which contains a mixture of dairy pellets, copra, cracked corn, calf crumble, molasses, water, dolomite, seaweed powder, sulfur and water. Almost all of it is pre-mixed in a big bin - I only add the water, molasses and minerals and combine. Then I fill a big tub with top quality lucerne mixed with a little rhodes grass and refill two water containers. During the day sometime I usually throw in another hunk of lucerne and check the water. In the afternoon Lucy has another bucket with the same mix - half whilst she feeds Honey in the pen and half in her tub in the bails for when she's being milked. Then a little more lucerne to keep her busy and I top up the water containers again. Honey has the fluffy green tops from the lucerne hay, grass in the paddock and a tiny bit of calf crumble to supplement her two feeds each day from Lucy. She also nibbles at some of the mixed feed Lucy drops on the ground but I think it's too rich for her.

I've also given Lucy some pigeon pea branches, carrots, apple cut into quarters, corn cob husks and ends and lettuce and cabbage outer leaves from the garden. I think it's all new to her so it's funny to watch her taste and feel the new foods before eating them. Oh, she didn't eat the pigeon pea much, only nibbled a few leaves and pushed it aside.

We're getting a bit more milk lately so I'm going to start making some cheese. So far I've only frozen some (in ice-cubes for smoothies and the like) and made custards and yoghurt. I have a couple of recipe, so hopefully tomorrow will allow me some time in the kitchen... Stay tuned!

This is the pen where I feed the cows and Lucy feeds Honey, they were locked here all the time for a couple of days then every night for two weeks as well. The fencing is portable panels, the shelter is a silver tarp and the bedding is sugar cane mulch hay. They sleep in here on the hay most of the time - the gate to this pen is always open now.

This is Lucy feeding Honey in the afternoon. Notice the back quarters of her udder are very full! This is after we began to feed her a fair amount of lucerne each day. I only milk out in the afternoons and that day got over 4L from the back teats.

Honey feeding in the afternoon. She feeds from Lucy twice a day at 'bucket time'. I love the froth - it gets everywhere! She normally drinks from only the front quarters but has begun to suck one back teat at most feeds as well. She still leaves us plenty of milk each day.

Two Weeks!

It seems like longer that we've had Lucy and Honey with us, but it's just over two weeks. We've had our ups and downs, but it has generally gotten easier. There's so, so much to learn about - the milking part is relatively easy compared to knowing knots, fencing, building, feed mix (% protein), etc.

A wonderful resource from our local library

Overall, I'm rapt that we got a cow and calf. Getting a herd cow and foster calf is probably the hardest way to go about it, but it's near-impossible to go out and buy a house cow with her own calf at foot.

We're currently still putting the calf to feed from Lucy twice a day at bucket time. Now that Honey is stronger and knows what's going on, this doesn't take much intervention at all. Whilst they're both filling their bellies I can shovel manure, refill water troughs, rake hay and mix feed. In the morning I let them both into the paddock to graze.

In the afternoon I bring them both in for another bucket time. Honey has less milk in the afternoon, and never bothers with the back teats at all. So once she's done (usually collapsing onto the hay with milk froth at her lips and glassy eyes!) I lead Lucy from the pen, out of the paddock and into the milking shed. I clip her halter on a short rope near her feed bucket to hold her still and so she can't turn around in the bails, tie a rope around her hind end so she can't walk backwards, and tie a rope to one leg so she can't kick me. Really, three ropes - and three gates!


Then I wash the udder and squirt a little milk from each teat to flush them out. I wash my hands, put the bucket in place and start milking. At first the milk went in many directions, but by now we're getting almost every drop into the bucket. I keep a second bucket behind me, and tip the milk in every few minutes so that if she should kick or step in the milking bucket, we don't lose the whole lot.Whilst we're milking (my husband helps me) Lucy is quiet. She sniffs and nibbles at her feed, but doesn't eat - just stands there and sighs a lot. We normally take about 3L of milk. If we wanted more milk, we'd feed Lucy more grain mix etc, but for now 3L is enough for our family to drink and make yoghurt and custard.

Once the udder feel nice and empty we move the milk to a safe place and start to untie ropes. We then open the back door to the shed and lead Lucy with the feed bucket back to the pen to be locked up with Honey overnight. They have some mulch hay for bedding, water, and shelter in there.

Then it's time to hose out the milking shed if necessary, roll up all the ropes and open or shut gates ready for the next day. Sometimes I mix and cover the morning feed if I am going to be in a hurry the next day. Finally it's time to put my gumboots away in the shed!
I wash my hands and strain the milk into glass bottles. These go straight to the back of the fridge, behind the previous days' milk. All buckets, strainer, funnel, etc are then washed in very hot soapy water and put away for the next day. All rags (for cleaning udder and wiping up milk spills) go into the wash.

So far I love my routines with the cows. The weather has been mostly fine and everyone normally leaves me in peace to get on with the work. We've all learned a lot and of course, the milk is fantastic!