The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: GBov on January 22, 2020, 03:07:42 pm
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What are the pros and cons of the two breeds for new cow owners?
Meat and milk would be the goal of cow ownership, two cows at most plus offspring.
A family of 5 plus friends and family, all of which love milk and beef so no problems using it all up.
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Two cows in milk for one family.... you better get a cream separator and some pigs well... and learn cheesemaking. But it's great fun.
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two cows at most plus offspring.
Two cows is a minimum. All cattle should have company of other cattle "of their own age and stage." One cow and her calf is not kind, she needs another mum to share the duty of keeping the children safe! And the calves need another calf to play with.
A Jersey is a high-performance animal and needs proper, knowledgeable care.
Very high butterfat in Jersey milk, not everyone likes it. (I love it, but some don't.)
Jerseys have a very wide pelvis, so calving to a beefy bull is not a problem. A Jersey will have plenty for a calf and plenty to spare. But Rosemary gets plenty out of her Shetlands, too.
I have adored my Jerseys and would find it hard to be without them now. But if I was starting it all again I would definitely look at animals which are a little less high performance. And Shetlands would be one breed I would look at, for sure. (Whitebred Shorthorn would be on my shortlist too.)
As Anke indicates, the milk from two Jerseys - every single day - can soon become a millstone unless you have more outlets than just home use and the occasional cheese. We have a community of over 20 adults here, and more than 10 children, and because we haven't yet got ourselves set up for making hard cheese, we can't always manage to make enough product and drink enough milk from one Jersey! (She has another cow for company, but that one is a cross and much lower performing; we have not had milk from two at the same time yet.) It takes real commitment : we have a team of milkers, a team of skimmers (although you will probably get a separator), and in order to keep on top of it, we need another team making yoghurt twice a week, soft cheese every day, (get pigs to eat the whey!), butter, ice cream... We have folks making white sauce and cheese sauce to freeze to use up surpluses, the pigs get loads when we can't process it all but we only have pigs March to October....
They eat a huge amount too! Which means more acres than you might have anticipated... And buying in or having even more acres to make your own hay and haylage for winter.... And straw for winter too, they can't be outside when it's wet and muddy... Then there's keeping them clean when they are indoors, and dealing with the mastitis when you didn't...
If you are rearing your own meat then you have two options. Send 'em off at less than twelve months, get less meat per calf but need way less land and housing as you aren't overwintering youngstock and don't have three or even four pairs in spring and summer... Or keep them on to whatever you decide between 18 and 30 months, get more meat per animal but need significantly more land and housing.
Bringing in and rearing extra calves can be a good way of using up all the milk - but you need to know what you are doing, buying in young calves and rearing them. And if you are in a bTB area, as I am now, you may decide it is not worth the risk and prefer to keep a closed herd.
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Ditto what Sally said. We like our Shetlands - fantastic beef, enough milk, cheap to run.
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Bringing in and rearing extra calves can be a good way of using up all the milk - but you need to know what you are doing, buying in young calves and rearing them. And if you are in a bTB area, as I am now, you may decide it is not worth the risk and prefer to keep a closed herd.
But if you do this make sure it’s from a herd free of BVD, johnes, bTB, that has good colostrum management too
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I thought the reason to have two milk cows was to have one in milk and one pregnant (and to keep each other company) so as to always have milk but not too much?
Good to know about the high maintenance/costs of Jerseys v Shetlands.
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I thought the reason to have two milk cows was to have one in milk and one pregnant (and to keep each other company) so as to always have milk but not too much?
Good to know about the high maintenance/costs of Jerseys v Shetlands.
gestation is 9 months, their natural cycle is to reproduce approx once a year, they need approx 60 days dry between calves.
So even if you successfully stagger calvings (and believe me, even when you know what you are doing, nature has a way of not playing ball with your preferred service dates!!), you will have two cows in milk for 8 months of the year.
A Jersey has too much milk for one calf, so you will have to milk her, at least in the early months of the lactation. if she has a beefy (greedy!) enough calf, and you are very good at managing your grazing for the production you want, you may be able to organise yourself to have the calf on her, taking all she gives, from maybe 5 months onwards. (She will reduce output down to demand to an extent, but a less specialised animal will do this better.)
Or if you want more milk, spean the calf at 5 months and keep all the next 5 months' milk for yourself.
On organising staggered calvings, it is mind-bogglingly tricky with two! You can't dry them off when they have too much good grass; they need to be together really; it's not a great idea to house cattle when the weather is warm; the one in mid-lactation needs lots of good food because she will "milk off her back" (ie., lose flesh to produce milk) if you don't,...
So, if that is the way you are thinking, then I would say go not Jersey. Probably much easier for first time dairy farmers to manage.
Oh, and another tip, from my own experience... plan to milk heifers every single day throughout their first lactation, whether the calf could keep them comfortable or not and whether you need the milk or not. Cows are creatures of routine, and giving her a very steady routine in her first lactation will stand you in very good stead when you want to stop and start milking her to suit your own needs and the conditions later on. Milking her for the first few months, then treating her like a suckler cow (so not milking her) for some months, or until she next calves, will set you up for a difficult relationship ;). Once she's had her second calf it will all get much easier on you both :hugcow:
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SallyintNorth, your post is exactly why forums beat books every time!!!
Books are good but real-time experience is truly priceless.
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I guess taht's why we like the Shetlands - we milk once a day and leave the calves on. If we want a day off or there's a crisis, I can safely not milk and the calf just gets a double dose of milk.
Shetland ARE used for multisuckling though, but I've never tried it.
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I actually do this too, even with my Jersey, except for the first month or two when she really does have to be milked... but I've been doing this a while now, and have learned a lot about how to manage it all over the years! So for beginners, I think a less highly-specialised cow is a better choice.
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Rosemary, how much milk does a Shetland give? If you removed the calf and reared it separately so needed milk for that but also were looking for an entire household supply i.e.cooking, drinking, butter, cream, cheese, ice cream and then wanted to rear hens, lambs, pigs, puppies and so on with it too- would a Shetland do that?
Or would say a Dairy Shorthorn be better? Or possibly a Red Poll?
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I'm sure a Shetland cow would give oodles of milk! Mine feeds her own calves and has allowed other calves (of over 6 months) to suckle her as well without any difficulty or losing any condition...… biggest issue I have is stopping them getting too fat between calves.
Biggest difference is going to be in housing needs …. Jersey's need more TLC because they originate from further south.
I have worked with and love both breeds ……
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Our oldest cow, Blizzard, had a dead calf in 2018 :'( . Rosemary milked her twice a day and at peak, was getting 20 litres a day. She milked for about 6 months before drying her off and she was down to about 10 litres a day.
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Rosemary says that Shetlands are more variable than Jerseys - although originally a dairy breed, thay have been sucklers for generations, so some strains are more milky than others and there's not a lot of tangible evidence on milking ability in the breed since not many folk milk. Does that make sense?
Size of udder isn't a definite correlation to milk yield ([member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] will know more)
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Given the milk yields how realistic is it to keep a ‘house’ cow(s) for home consumption of its milk, including cheese making, with any breed?
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Given the milk yields how realistic is it to keep a ‘house’ cow(s) for home consumption of its milk, including cheese making, with any breed?
Frankly, it can be tough to manage the output of a pukka dairy cow unless you have additional outlets/uses for the milk. So, pigs, or extra calves, or a community (as we are here) or large extended family - or go the whole hog and sell milk, yoghurt, butter and cheese.
Anyone on here milking Dexters? That would seem to be the best fit for a household. Separate the calves overnight when you want milk in the morning. Maybe accept having to buy in milk for two months or so when they're dry, and save yourself all the angst of trying to stagger calvings.
Maybe something like Galloways or Blue Greys would work similarly? I'm sure I've heard of people doing it with original population Herefords too.
But, I can't help thinking that the best milking animals for a small setup is a couple of goats ;)
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When I started crossing the Red Devon onto the Jersey, before I (a) knew about Shetlands and (b) knew I would be living in a cohousing community of 24 adults!, it was with the thought that a Red Devon x Jersey should make an adaptable animal, a suckler cow who could run with the herd but also be able to give a bit of milk for the house if managed that way. Flare is that animal, I think. I don't yet know if I've managed her to be able to produce enough milk for us here. We have milked her through her first lactation, without taking the calf off, just to train her, and now that Luther is gone she is behaving perfectly - but not giving a great deal of milk at this point, from winter forage. So for us, I really want to be having her the earlier calver and the Jersey the later, so that when we need Flare's milk because the Jersey is dry, she is early on in her lactation and has it to spare.
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Size of udder isn't a definite correlation to milk yield ([member=10673]SallyintNorth[/member] will know more)
It is true that some suckler cows can have a tidy little udder and produce plenty to rear a cracking calf, or even two. And that some big-uddered dairy cows give less than another similar animal with a less bulky udder. Many, many factors affect yield, including day by day input (which is a factor of how much and type of grass, how much sun, the time of year, as well as what supplemental feed you give.)
Hillie's pure Jersey daughter Plenty had an udder a fraction of the size of Hillie's, and gave as much milk as I wanted from her - but I think if I needed to be up in the 20L-30L a day regular yield, I'd expect to see an udder at least like this pre-calving
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Are Shetlands bigger or smaller than Jerseys?
Have pretty much decided to go with something more multi-purposed and lower maintenance than a Jersey - despite how sweet their faces are - but smaller would be good as well.
Chickens love milk as do pigs as do four of the five of us so I think we could use up one cows worth. Not sure about two but by gum, we would be willing to give it a try! ;D
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Sorry, forgot to say about goats, been there, done that, tried three different breeds at three different times and hate them! Sooooo not my animal. lol
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Are Shetlands bigger or smaller than Jerseys?
I think they are about the same - 450-550kg - at leaast that's what the breed society page says. I put a weight tape on mine and it said they were 670kg. Ours steers are 350-360kg dw at 28 months or so, so I think the tape is probably close. But the Shetlands arequite variable from lighter dairy types to big girls like mine :innocent:
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Hmmm.... I did think your Shetlands might be bigger than some Jerseys, Rosemary!
Jerseys vary too, some are nearly as big as Guernseys these days, but ones closer to the island type will be smaller.
Smaller than either, you've got Dexters or Kerrys. Not sure how easy it would be to source Kerrys. Dexters are plentiful but make sure you buy the right type for what you want. They won't all take kindly to being milked! :o
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Chickens love milk as do pigs as do four of the five of us so I think we could use up one cows worth. Not sure about two but by gum, we would be willing to give it a try! ;D
If you have surplus, I suspect you would be able to find folks locally very happy to do swapsies. ;) I am forever saying, "No, sorry, we don't have any to spare."
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I bought Kerry's with the idea of milking but after calving they became devils, and remained a little bit feral, whether this was because they had not been handled much but after 18months I still didn't trust them and they were handy with their back legs.
I swopped them for Red Polls, which although a larger cow actually are a lot nicer to handle. I was ill over the summer so they calved outside, so again no chance to milk. One cow had twins and has so much milk that they can not keep up, the other although a good mum is not as milky. They are both hopefully in calf to a Lincoln Red, so perhaps third year lucky.
I had some Dexter lodgers and I thought them too small, and really the bigger cows do not take much more keeping, and when it comes to sending them off for beef the slaughter costs are the same. They live on mainly straw, with just a bit of hay.
I think with all animals where they have come from and how they have been handled makes a huge difference.
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I think with all animals where they have come from and how they have been handled makes a huge difference.
Ain't dat de troot!
I would't fancy trying to milk a heifer that didn't know me well and wasn't already completely comfortable and confident with me handling her all over.
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I had some Dexter lodgers and I thought them too small, and really the bigger cows do not take much more keeping
You must live in the land of milk and honey!
There were Dexters here when I came. It was a challenge trying to manage them and the Jerseys together. In the end the Dexters had to go because we couldn't milk those, we couldn't manage them all together, and we don't have enough ground here to keep two separate herds.
The Dexters were very hardy, the Jersey not,
The Dexters, being smaller, are very light on the ground. If you are in a wet place, as we are, the physical weight of your beasts makes a huge difference to keeping them over winter. And if your ground tends to mud, bigger beasts will poach the ground much more quickly and deeply.
The Dexters make good use of shorter grass, which the Jerseys wouldn't attempt to graze.
when it comes to sending them off for beef the slaughter costs are the same.
Slaughter fee yes, is per head. But butchery costs are mostly per kilo.
I have found that crosses out of the Jersey are a good size by 10 months, so for us, it works well to send the calves off in November, so we don't have to winter them. The meat is fantastic. A Dexter at 10 months is no size at all, I think you would want to take them through a second summer. But the calves are hairy, tough little creatures and can outwinter down here as long as there is good natural shelter. So if your ground can take it - and you have enough of it for followers over the summer, plus for making enough hay for stirks through the winter - and your winters aren't too vicious, needing two summers might not be a problem.
I should mention that our cows rear their own calves up to 5 months at least. I don't know if I would get such fit animals by 10 months if I took the calves off and reared them on a bucket, even on their own mum's milk. And I have found that weaning them before 5 months gives them such a setback that again, I think they wouldn't be ready by 10 months.