Howdy! So you want to buy a milk cow?
Buying our first milk cow was
a true exercise in acting first,
thinking later. We knew we
wanted to jump into owning a
milk cow, and figured it was
now or never. We had no special
feed, stanchion, supplies, or experience;
neither of us had ever even milked a cow! We brought Betsy home, threw together a ten-minute stanchion, and collected what we figured were the necessities: A stock pot, paper towel, a container of hot soapy water, and a stool. We’ve become a bit more sophisticated since then, but the mindset is the same; keep it simple and don’t overthink it!
The Essentials
Here’s a comprehensive list of what we use and how we use it for milking our cow. There will be trial and error to make sure your setup is right for you, so don’t get discouraged by missteps along the way. And no crying over spilled milk!
Grabbing my stock pot (with handles and lid that all fits in my dishwasher!) and a small container of hot soapy water, I head out to the barn. There I’ll grab my roll of paper towels, container of Bag Balm, metal spring comb, and a bottle of iodine and set it all beside my milking stool at the stanchion. I lure my Jersey girl into the stanchion with a splash of dairy ration in her trough and get to work brushing her down, washing her lower bag and teats clean (never reusing a dirty towel so the water stays clean), and moisturizing her teats with a bit of Bag Balm. I swipe iodine on each teat before the Bag Balm if I am calf-sharing. I then strip each teat by wasting the first four squirts from each quarter onto the ground. After dumping the rest of the dairy ration into the stanchion trough, it’s milking time!
After milking, I make it a priority to get the milk inside, filtered, and cooling down in the milk fridge as soon as possible. For this, you’ll need your favourite milk vessels, a funnel, and milk filters. Once you get tired of rearranging all of the food in your fridge to accommodate the milk, you may optionally purchase a milk fridge. (It took us a year of once-a-day milking to finally get to that point)
A cattle stick for stubborn heifers or ornery bulls, a stock water heater, a heat lamp (for those fragile jersey calves), a total mineral block, a calf pill syringe and scour pills (again for those sensitive calves), a bottle of Koppersol and a toothbrush as an antifungal for treating footrot and ringworm, and a fly spray to help your girl out in the summer.
After you have the basics, you can collect these as you need.
An average-sized, adjustable horse halter from Peavey Mart.
A lead rope.
A rope halter for halter training heifers that are small enough and determined enough to wiggle out of a horse halter.
These photos show the simple steps of assembling a milk filter. To filter, I’ve used tea towels, a reusable stainless steel coffee filter, and disposable milk filters but the disposables are far superior to get the cleanest glass of milk. I keep stocked up on these as I never want to accidentally run out of them.
Some stanchion inspiration!
Now go and make all the delicious butters and cheeses!