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Our February Storm

February 06, 2010

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Not All Butter Churns are Created Equal

Although I don't have exhausted experience with butter churns, it has come to my attention that they just are not all created equal.

While the old fashioned hand crank butter churns are beautiful and nostalgic, I prefer to use an electric butter churn. When all the cows are in milk, it is not unheard of for me to churn as much as ten gallons of cream a week. I would spend a lot of time making butter if I had to do it all by hand!

When I first began looking for an electric churn I found reproductions available at Lehmans and at Hoeggers. However, I could not see spending $280+ for an electric churn if I could find another solution!

I began to look at antique stores and it was not long until I found a 1940-50's era electric churn. I paid $65 for it. The store owner was more than willing for me to plug it in and check it out to make sure that it ran. He was fascinated by the idea that someone would actually make butter from their own raw milk in today's society.

The original el…

How Do I Train a Cow to Milk?

I am often asked if it's better to purchase a trained cow or buy a heifer calf to raise and train as a family milk cow. It seems that most people are persuaded to get a cute little calf with the idea they can bond with it and then train it more easily. While this is true on some levels, the process can be a lot more difficult and involved than what many family cow owners have considered. Sometimes we tend to forget that animals are not human and while human/animal relationships can and are formed, bovines are bovines and process accordingly. We rely on their instinctive nature to birth and nurture a calf, but we often times get frustrated with them when they don't understand what we are asking of them. For this reason, I always recommend to start out with a healthy, well trained family cow. Starting a home dairy is hard enough without adding the stress of teaching a newly freshened heifer how to be a milk cow.

With that said, there will be those who can't resist t…

That's "NO BULL"

I can remember watching clips of Disney's Ferdinand the Bull as a child when I as growing up. This Oscar-winning short tells of a bull who preferred to sit under trees and smell flowers to clashing horns with his fellow animals. While Disney's version of a bull might lead us to believe that bulls can be sweet and love able, common sense dictates that bulls are dangerous creatures that have the potential to seriously injure and even kill. Every bull has this potential. There are ways, however, to increase the odds of raising a bull to be respectful. Temple Grandin, an expert in animal behavior and an advocate for animal welfare, has written an excellent article on raising and handling bulls in such a manner that will give these magnificent animals a chance to live as they were born to do and thus increase the chances that they will remain non-aggressive.

Preventing Bull Accidents
(Updated June 2006)
by Temple Grandin, Colorado State University

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