[gego]

You will have a calf if you have a cow about to produce milk.

You can let the calf stay with your cow when you don't want to milk her yourself. Just pen up the cow away from the calf if you want to milk her. A good way to do it is to lure her into a pen with a bucket of feed in the morning and then leave her there with some hay during the day and them milk her in the evening, after which you turn her out with the rest of the cows and her calf for overnight.

If you have too much milk you can mix it up with corn and feed to your pigs; they will love it. Feed some of it to your chickens. Your dogs and cats should love the creamy milk. You can skim off the cream and make butter. Make yogurt. Make cheese. Make some soups that use milk and/or cream.

Trade or give some of the excess to neighbors/friends.

Don't cry over spilled milk. We had a Jersey cow we loved, but if we didn't milk her quickly enough (before she finished the her feed, which she ate while we milked) she would deliberately kick over the bucket.

[pip]

I realize the cow must be milked twice a day with no exceptions. I was hoping there would be some way people use the calf to keep the cow milked, and it looks like that is something people do.

Killjoy, I’d be interested to know how it goes for you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you get more than 1 gallon a day. I’ve raised bottle calves, and they will eat a gallon a day and still want more. I would think a dairy cow would produce more. I’m not familiar with Devons though, they’re a pretty rare breed.

[countrysidegirl]

Most milk cows produce more than the calf will drink and would still need some relief other than just the calf drinking.

My mother always milked from day one and then just bottle fed it back to the calf until the colestrum (sp?) was gone. If you have extra of that then pigs like it too.

My dad used to run a bread route and we fed the pigs a slop of stale bread and soured milk.

[frankthetank]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')alving at eight years and two months, Shatzi completed her 365-day record with 53,460 pounds of milk, 2,766 pounds of fat and 1,903 pounds of protein.

[privatetartanarmy]

i wonder if the poor cow has been given the recombinant bovine growth hormone posilac?

[frankthetank]

She hasn't ...here is more, stupid link above is dead...local newspaper isn't up to par!

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd Shatzi has done it under the best conditions as she hasn’t been treated with BST (Bovine Growth Hormone) or been on a TMR (Total Mixed Ration) program.

With the program that Shatzi’s been on, her top single-day production has been 201 pounds of milk. She’s run a streak of 15 months where each day she had milk production above 135 poun

[Eli]

If we could find away to burn milk in an ICE we just might be saved.

135 pounds a day wow!

[Heineken]

. . . along with higher fossil-fuel costs:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070330/ap_ ... rm_scene_4

Almost every time I go to the grocery store I see higher prices across the board. For example, I've watched canned peaches increase from about $1 for a 15-ounce can to about $1.39 just in the past year or so. People are grumbling but keep whipping out the ol' credit card. How long can the consumer---the economy---absorb this?

Soon the food-cost issue will get not just irritating but scary, and deeply personal.

[Windmills]

My best friend, who drives a biofuel car, says he doesn't feel that bad about its effects because it's not that big of a deal yet. He's an otherwise brilliant individual, but I am just stunned by that type of thinking coming from him. The more support there is for biofuels, the more entrenched and powerful the industry will become, and the more difficult the struggle against it will be once people begin fighting against high food prices. It's much easier to manage a problem when it's small. It's like a disease that would be best wiped out early before it's allowed to spread and cause major havoc. I am just hoping that ethanol will choke itself on its own feedback loop of higher agricultural prices.

[kmann]

I did some rough calculations on the price increase of corn affecting milk. Dairies feed about 1 lb. of grain per 3 to 3.5 lbs. of milk. It works out to about 2.5 lbs. grain per gallon of milk. If corn goes up from 3.00 per bushel to 4.00 per bushel (50 lbs. per bushel), the cost increase in corn is going to add about 5 cents to a gallon of milk. My guess is that increased energy costs outweigh corn price increases (so far).

edit: math error

[FoxV]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Windmills', ' ')The more support there is for biofuels, the more entrenched and powerful the industry will become, and the more difficult the struggle against it will be once people been fighting against high food prices.

[Pops]

I’ve worried for a while that using a larger portion of the corn crop for ethanol and less for feed will have the biggest impact on small farmers (<$100k gross) who have little ability to cope with the wide fluctuations in commodity prices we are seeing – let alone the input cost increases.

The loss of the little guy won’t affect the milk price to consumers much – the days of most every farm milking a few head and selling a couple milk cans a day is long gone. The same is true of the small time hog farmer and chicken rancher although the big guys might be able to negotiate better deals with Tyson and Swift to cover some of their costs which will certainly be passed along.

But there are still lots of little cow calf operators around whos income is dictated by what the feedlot will eventually pay for his steers, which of course is governed by the cost of feed – which is corn.

Corn futures are down already today on news that farmers plan to plant more corn this year than any time since WWII and so calf prices are up a little --- but I wonder how many marginal cow calf operations will be swirling the drain before the next crop comes in?

When the producers are forced to quit producing is when you will really see Big Mac prices go up.

[frankthetank]

This doesn't make sense.

I was in the store looking @ applesauce (me likes!). The unsweetened (no corn syrup) is 6cents MORE then the sweetened. You would think the opposite. Must be a volume thing.

I've also noticed the peaches. I'm stuck buying these crappy tasting cheapies (no named brand). I'm sticking in more peach trees, cause i'm sick of crappy fruit in the stores (apples are usually good, cheap).

[smallpoxgirl]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'T')he unsweetened (no corn syrup) is 6cents MORE then the sweetened. You would think the opposite. Must be a volume thing.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'T')he unsweetened (no corn syrup) is 6cents MORE then the sweetened. You would think the opposite. Must be a volume thing.

[sjn]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kmann', 'I') did some rough calculations on the price increase of corn affecting milk. Dairies feed about 1 lb. of grain per 3 to 3.5 lbs. of milk. It works out to about 2.5 lbs. grain per gallon of milk. If corn goes up from 3.00 per bushel to 4.00 per bushel (50 lbs. per bushel), the cost increase in corn is going to add about 5 cents to a gallon of milk. My guess is that increased energy costs outweigh corn price increases (so far).

[Heineken]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'T')he unsweetened (no corn syrup) is 6cents MORE then the sweetened. You would think the opposite. Must be a volume thing.

[steam_cannon]

Some Thoughts on Corn Syrup in Food

What smallpoxgirl wrote on peanut butter, reminds me of what Coca Cola did with Kavas, a brewed soda like drink. After the fall of Soviet Union many factories closed and Coca Cola brought in their soda factories. After a few years the local factories started coming back and Kavas tastes better then Coke IMO. So Coke has been trying to muscle back in by making Kavas, but the Coca Cola Kavas is made with corn syrup and unnatural flavors. The brewed kavas is made with bread, fruit, sugar and yeast...

* Brewed Kavas
Contains: Sugar, Vitamin B, Vitamin C
Vitamin B, specificity B6 is highly preventative against heart disease, enhancing the effect of vitamin C...

* Coca Cola Kavas
Contains: Corn Syrup(fructose), some Vitamin C and Industrial flavoring junk...

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dr Juan Carlos Laguna', '
')The researchers, led by Dr Juan Carlos Laguna, investigated the effects of feeding lab rats a fructose- or glucose-sweetened liquid (10 per cent), and found that the animals drinking the fructose-sweetened liquid altered how the liver metabolized the syrup and, according to the authors, represented a calorie overload to which the body's metabolism was unable to adapt.
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/result ... ticle=4648

"The fructose in fruit has nothing to do with this study," stresses Professor Laguna. "Fruit is healthy and its consumption is strongly recommended. Our study focuses on liquid fructose intake as an addition to the ordinary diet."
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medical ... wsid=65470

[Dreamtwister]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', 'S')tuff about high fructose corn syrup