Our cow, Zarzamora, is about 5 years old. She is our family milk cow and is pregnant with her 4th calf. She is due in April, and we're getting ready to dry her out so she can give more nutrients to the (hopefully female) calf.
The process of milking her isn't too bad. We have a milk station set up where she gets her feed while the milking is taking place.
She usually happily runs up the hill to get to her milk station. She's ready to have a tasty treat.
She immediately starts eating her feed and she usually has a second bucket with some veggie scraps, lemon peels, or other pieces of fruits in it. She loves this treat as well!
My 16 year old has taken over the job of milking her. He does a great job - I would say that even if he did a terrible job, because I don't want to be in charge of milking her! Ha! The first step is to spray her udder to clean it up.
The whole milking process takes about 20 minutes. We use a Surge milker from the 1960s. It works well, but it gets really heavy when it's full of milk!
Zarzamora has given us three male calves! We are hopeful this will be a female, even though we paid for the last one to be sexed as well, but it was a male. We should find out soon!
For the last 2 months before a cow gives birth, they are dried out to prepare for the baby. Zarzamora is currently only giving us a gallon of milk, so she's getting ready! After she gives birth, she usually gives 3-4 gallons and it slowly tapers off. She has some really rich milk with great cream!
Can you see how big she is? At the end, she looks like a barrel. She almost touches both sides of the milk station right now! I can't imagine how big she would be with twins! We can't wait to welcome her calf in April!
