How we clean, prepare and milk our Belfair cow with our Surge Belly milker.
What is a Belfair cow? It is a Jersey crossed with a Dexter. In this case Freyja's (our cow) mom (Dam) was a pure bred Jersey and her dad (sire) was a pure bred Dexter. The resulting breed is called a Belfair. Freyja is 4 years old and on her second calf. She has never been milked before coming to our farm. A week after purchasing her and bringing her home she gave birth to Kalipso. Prior to the birth we were putting her on the milking stand for her to get use to it.
Once she gave birth we left the calf with her. We milked out a little of her colustrum to give her some relief and to freeze it in case we needed it in the future for any other animal. The next morning it was straight to milking. Her calf stays with her 24/7 and has access to her milk when ever it would like. We simply milk her twice a day as well as having the calf on her. She produces way more milk then the calf can drink and if we dont milk her she will gets mastitis.
Somewhere abouts the 6-8 week mark we will separate the calf from her at night and then milk her out and then reunite her with her calf for the entire day. This is called calf sharing and/or once a day milking. The beauty of using this method is that if we ever have to go away we simply leave the calf with her all night relieving us of the morning milk. That said, it is not something you would do super often simply becuase the calf still can not drink her dry and she could get mastitis. But once in awhile it is ok to do it.
If you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments.

#Ontario #Canada #homestead #connerty_meadows_farm #surge #milker

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