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This was originally posted on The Daily Coyote in May 2009; I am reposting here for the sake of continuity & keeping essential Daisy details on this site!

This is Daisy and the orphaned calf (see post below).  When I put them together, Daisy barred the calf from her udder as she had never had a calf on her – at the dairy where Daisy used to live (and I am sure this is the case with all commercial dairies), cows and calves are separated immediately, and while the calves are fed their mother’s milk via bottle, it’s essentially business as usual for the cows.  So, ’twas not surprising that Daisy shooed the calf away whenever he attempted to suckle.  I milked Daisy twice a day and fed the calf her milk with a bottle.

One day, about a week and a half into it, I spotted the calf tentatively suckling Daisy!  He had been persistent enough in his attempts, and Daisy curious and calm enough in her nature, to allow this great step to occur.  And now there is no tentativeness about it.  He ambles up to her side and extends his long curving tongue, which is practically like a finger, and draws her teat into his mouth and absolutely gobbles.  For those who’ve never had an up-close view of a calf drinking off a cow, it’s really quite awesome – in the photo above, you can see the calf’s tongue reaching up and curling around the teat (his tongue is purple on the top and pink on the underside; the pink going into his mouth is the underside of his tongue, not the teat) creating a sort of seal up against the udder.  And they drink so heartily and singlemindedly that frothy milk-slobber is a given.  Daisy stands patiently with – and I may be anthropomorphising here – a look of serene fulfillment as the calf drinks from both front teats.  That’s the deal the calf and I have:  he gets the front two teats, and I get the back two.  I milk the back teats morning and evening and leave the front ones for him; he drinks from the front teats throughout the day and leaves the back ones for me.  It works fantastically.

Daisy is like a really, really, really big dog.  She comes when called and follows me around without a halter, loves to be pet and scratched, walks through the corrals and straight to the milking stall without fail, and lets me use her as a sofa. It is such a decadent yet simple pleasure to lay against Daisy, reading a book, while she herself is laying in the sun chewing her cud.

The calf is gargantuan.  I think he’s quadrupled in size in the past three weeks.  He’s still a bull calf (as opposed to a steer calf, which is a male calf that has been castrated), and he’s probably-very-most-likely going to grow up to be a bull.  One reader emailed me with the advice, “Don’t name food,” but I don’t follow directions all that well and this calf has seven names.

Miss Daisy

This was originally posted on The Daily Coyote in April 2009; I am reposting here for the sake of continuity & keeping essential Daisy details on this site!

If you’ve been following my Twitters, you’re aware I suddenly speak of little other than milk & cream.  I have finally put a long-held dream into action: I got a dairy cow!  Daisy is three years old, a Brown Swiss with a bit of Jersey in her.  She is solid white but for a blond topnotch and blond kneecaps.  And she is amazing.  Sweet, curious, gentle, kind.  To get this photo, I had to run from one end of the corrals to the other and quickly shoot off an image while I could – you can see she’s on her way over to me.  She loves to get her forehead scratched or a good body rub.

I bought Daisy from a small dairy farm (~500 cows) about 150 miles north of here that was selling off a few of their cows due to the dreadful economy; Daisy is considered a low-producer in the dairy world, but that makes her perfect for me.  She was named by one of the girls who works at the farm and everyone was sad to see her go; I love that she was such a beloved cow, and I can already see why.

Daisy was used to being milked by a machine but showed incredible patience as, during our first days together, I fumbled and tugged below her.  Now, less than a week later, milking is a ritual we both look forward to.  Although my hands are so sore.  So, so, so, so sore!  So sore I finally remembered those remarkable little pills designed to take away pain.  I never take pain-relievers, but I will bow to the alter of Advil until my hand strength catches up with my work. (Note! Advil did nothing to relieve the pain but arnica worked wonders!)

Daisy produces 4 – 5 gallons a day, split between morning and evening milkings.  The first few days I swore I could hear her producing milk faster than I could milk it.  But now the milkings take twenty minutes?  Half an hour?  Forty minutes?  I have no idea as time just disappears as I sit beside her and feel her warmth and listen to her eat contentedly.  I get up periodically to rub her head, which she loves, and to rub my face against her cheek, which I love.

Half the milk goes to a calf.  It’s not Daisy’s calf; hers was taken off before I got her.  Recently, a neighbor across the way had a cow who had twins.  The cow took one calf and orphaned the other.  Another cow, who had already calved, adopted the second twin and orphaned her own calf!  So that calf (a black angus) was being bottlefed by the rancher, and so I adopted him.  I still feed him with a bottle several times a day (filled with Daisy’s milk) because, although the calf has tried to suck her, Daisy does not allow it.

I get the other half of the milk!  I share some of it with Charlie, Chloe, Eli, and Jake (Jake is MC’s 20-year-old dog) and they all love it.  {Raw milk and pasteurized milk are completely different substances. It is not recommended that animals be fed pasteurized milk.  Raw milk, however, is generally quite fine for their systems.}

And I love it too.  I milked two gallons from Daisy the other night and when I separated off the cream (I use a turkey baster to do this), I had one gallon of milk and one gallon of cream.  Daisy, you make heaven a place on earth.

I made butter a few days ago and will be making more tonight, along with a huge batch of yogurt.  And her milk is simply divine, warm or chilled, straight out of a Ball jar.  It’s a good thing my life is one continuous workout because I’m about to increase my caloric intake by 400%.