We are adding to our herd! In March we brought home our future family milk cow, Lorelai. She is a jersey heifer (meaning she hasn’t had a baby before) due with a calf in July. She is a beautiful girl used previously in fairs, which means she is halter trained and good mannered. She is doing great with us and the kids. She is a heifer though, think “teenager”, and does like to test limits. Thankfully Ryan has some experience with large animals and has been a great trainer.

Lorelai has been living in our barn while we waited for snow to melt and pasture to begin growing. She has spent the last couple weeks getting short field trips out to pasture and is now able to stay out overnight. She still eats some hay from bales, which will help her gut adjust. She is loving the sunshine and fresh grass.

Lorelai was bred through AI (artificial insemination) to select specific traits and is expected to have a heifer calf. We look forward to meeting her little calf and getting a chance to milk her and expand into a home dairy. I will be making all of the things! Milk, butter, buttermilk, cream, cheese, yogurt, and of course ice cream are all on my list of things to try.

We plan to calf share, meaning we can eventually go down to milking once a day. This involves only separating mom and baby at night, milking early morning, and putting them out to pasture together for the day. Since jerseys can be quite high producers we aren’t necessarily going to need as much milk as we will get with twice a day milking. Calf sharing also gives a bit more freedom if we need to be away for a day or so. In that case we can choose to leave baby in with mom overnight.

Of course, we are aware that things can go wrong and don’t always work out just as planned, so we are keeping that in mind while making plans. So far things are looking great though and we are so excited for this adventure.

Stay tuned…because we are expanding our herd even more! Follow along to see all of Lorelai’s friends.