The Bianca Milking: Day Two

After researching yesterday, I found that I needed to "enter my cows' emotional state" and be more relaxed and happy when milking, that I should massage her udder with warm water to encourage let down, and that I could hobble her leg if needed.

All things I faithfully carried out this morning. It still took an hour. Phil hobbled her, but then had to stand on the headgate, because at one point she lunged, and pulled the whole thing off the ground. So I was on the bottom on the stool, had the cow pressing on me, and the gate pressing on her. (It wasn't imminent death or anything, more like lots of pressure in a crowded space.)

When she wasn't dancing, backing, or kicking, she milked out very easily and nicely. My clothes stayed relatively clean, despite a drizzle falling, and a rainfall in the night. I didn't cry once, and remained cheerful throughout.

Only one problem. After 24 hours, she gave 6 pounds of milk. Three-quarters of a gallon. About as much as a mediocre goat.

And this may be her peak flow!?

How depressing!

It is extremely rich and good, though, and we polished off all six pounds today without difficulty.

In other news, the captured chickens remain penned (glory be!), and they showed their hand this morning, when we gathered five eggs from their pen. All previous days we've gathered two or three, but now we know what they are capable of producing, and we know that those chickens are slacking off!

They better watch out, because otherwise: processing time comes soon.

We tried to train Beatrice to a halter. She's probably well over 100 pounds at this point, and quite strong, but we managed to capture her and put the calf halter on. It was still too big, and she was quite stubborn. After playing tug-of-war for some time, I finally tied her to the fence, and let her pull against that. (I'm already sore from the milking!)

Sadly, after what felt like a ridiculous amount of time spent in needless stubbornness, she managed to worm her way out of the halter (it was too big for her).

I know that Milking Devons are brilliant, and that they remember everything, and that, even more than children, you don't ever want them to win an argument. So this is quite distressing.

Phil brought the chicken litter from their cattle-trailer pen up to the area for the new garlic bed. He also brought up some of the compost. You can see the normal red Virginia clay, the white wood chip/chicken litter, and the black compost from our dry lot last year.

Phil realized that the compost was rather mucky, without good tilth, so he's spent some time turning it. By hand.