We can all fall in love with our farm creatures: chickens, cows and pigs. Farm animals are a source of food that can sustain your family. Every day Alison milks our cow, who we think is in calf (more food). If that calf is a heifer she will likely live a long life grazing and […]
Jersey House Cow
It’s been a week since our first Jersey cow arrived with her little heifer calf. With the promise of some large quantities of milk we have weaned off all our Dexter’s to streamline things. Our morning milking has been yielding us from 2 L up to our 15 L take this morning. Have a look. […]
Another Milking Machine
Four Dexter Stud is getting ready to ramp up its milk production in a few months when our girls start dropping calves. Here is a picture of our ‘new’ well it’s actually pretty old milking machine. Right now our new big little milker is just outside Sydney and Pa (also known to our girls as […]
Beefing up our Dexter Stud
Things have been busier then usual on the Cromwell Farm on Sheaffes Road the last couple of months: boundary fencing, pasture improvement, cattle grids and building a milking bales are some of the highlights. During all this we have managed to sell our first cows, well a Heifer and Steer to be specific. We are […]
Tail End of Milking Training Video
One of the challenges of having milking cows is that you need to milk them everyday and most often twice a day. That makes going away a bit of a challenge. If you are lucky like we are you have friends who are enthusiastic about helping you out. When we went away to visit Alison’s […]
How Now House Cow
The article titled “How Now House Cow” is a wonderful story about a family and their experience raising and milking Dexter Cows for both milk and meat. Don’t miss out on the full story on the Grit website which requires you to click through to 3 different pages. http://www.grit.com/Animals/How-Now-House-Cow.aspx Complements to the author Patrice Lewis […]
New Home for our House Cows
Over the past year our house cows have had several homes and we have milked our girls in several different places–all out in the elements. With the recent addition of a single milking machine and two more Milking cows we knew it was time for some shelter. The timing could not have been better for […]
Our Disappearing Heritage
Here is an excerpt from a great article in The Permacultivator – Journal of Cool Climate Permaculture written by Jill Cockram who alerts us to the problems of shrinking biodiversity and how to help. Larger Livestock Minority Breeds Rare and minority breeds of farm livestock and the value in preserving them where possible on small […]
Dexter Cow with Calf wanted
With our first milking girl Condamine coming to her anniversary of milking and now in calf we will be relying on our Milking Cross to keep us in Dairy for the next few months. After that though we will be without a Dexter to milk and provide us (and our friends) with milk, cream, butter, […]