# How much milk should our Jersey be giving 5 days after calving?



## rootsong (Jun 22, 2008)

Help, we are clueless and brand new to calving. We'd milked this particular cow before but have never experienced a calf born on our farm before.

Our Jersey is said to be around 4 years old and this is her second calf. We've had her just a handful of months and don't know a lot about her history. We milked her up until 6 weeks before calving (we didn't know exactly when her due date was).

She gave birth to a little Jersey female 5 days ago, on the 17th. Uneventful birth (thank goodness!), and we keep the calf on her at all times. Today we milked her once in the morning and once in the evening. She gave around 3/4 of a gallon each time. 

Any advice at all would be much appreciated- Does this sound normal for a cow 5 days post calving that has a calf on her? Could she be "holding back" for her calf? Her milk flows out like normal, up until we reach the 1/2 - 3/4 of a gallon mark, then her teats feel very floppy and no amount of milking brings more. However, her bag still feels very taut, heavy and full. Does that sound normal? Should we expect her production to go up soon?

*Thank you so much*! I have about 40zillion questions about all this new calf business, but this one is the most pressing at the moment. 


Ps. My second most pressing question is if it really is okay to milk all 4 of her quarters out completely twice a day and her calf will be all right?? This is what I read online, but I'm so fearful of depriving the calf.


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## nduetime (Dec 15, 2005)

I am not going to be much help as I always leave the calf on and milk out once a day. But then I do milk out completely, all four quarters. My girls bag is very loose and will even have folds from emptying at that point so I would guess yours is holding back. You might tery placing the calf in front of her while milking to encourage her to let it all down.

Honestly, there are a lot of others here with a ton more experience than I. myersfarm, springvalley, judyinIN to just name a couple. Hang in there, somebody will be along with more help. They have all helped me out a awful lot. GREAT PEOPLE.


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## DJ in WA (Jan 28, 2005)

Assuming she doesn't have some problem like chronic mastitis, most likely holding back, since you are stealing milk from her baby! 

I start milking until there is no more, then bring the calf to her to nurse for under a minute to stimulate letdown, then pull the calf away and take the rest of the milk.

Of course, for the calf to want to nurse, it needs to be alittle hungry, so you would need to separate it 3 to 4 hours or so beforehand.

I halter train calves right away using a llama halter if calf halter's too big. Makes it easy to pull them to and away from the cow, then hook the rope on something just out of cow's reach while you're milking.

And if the calf is with cow most of the day, shouldn't be starving. I'm rusty on bottle feeding, but at this age, I believe the calf needs less than a gallon a day. Too much and it can scour.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

Wellyour cow has edema in her udder, it is just a swelling of the tissue. It will go away over a period of time, and they are all different on the time period. Messaging it would help, and some ointment rubbed on will help. Just keep an eye on her to see how she comes along. You are doing just fine, with your cow, good luck. > Marc


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## SimpleAcres (Jan 14, 2013)

My Jersey took 3 days after her second calf was born before she would let her milk down for me.
I like to milk out 3 completely and leave one for the calf. He would drain that one instead of just getting a little of the first, thin, sweet milk from each teat and not getting that cream that comes out last. My cow is not a big producer so the calf was soon drinking everything and growing like a weed and I was left high and dry until i sold him.


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## Tad (Apr 2, 2003)

At 5 days fresh there is likely to be some edema still, this should go away in a few more days and the udder should become softer when she is milked out.


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## linn (Jul 19, 2005)

Some milk cows will hold back their milk for the calf, it is a natural reaction. Separate the cow and calf overnight, wash her udder with warm water and dry thoroughly. This should stimulate let down. If that doesn't work, separate cow & calf overnight and turn the calf in just long enough to get her let down started, pull of the calf and milk out what you want.


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## Jersey/guernsey (Nov 12, 2012)

Rub her udder that will help her to let down, I like udder comfort for edema (the blue is easy to see when you have it all off for milking) I get it at farm&fleet.
You can also try milking more often, the milk sometimes takes awhile to perk down through the swelling and frequent milkings help.


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## rootsong (Jun 22, 2008)

Thank you! I love this site. Every time I've asked a question, folks here are so, so helpful!

I am thinking it must be edema, which I hadn't heard of before, thank you for giving me something to Google!  Unfortunately we don't have anywhere to put the calf apart from mom as of yet. I did try to get the calf to help me with letdown twice, but she wasn't hungry & wouldn't latch on!

Strangely enough, yesterday morning (6 days post birth) the cow gave 1 gallon + 5 cups, but then last night gave a mere 9 cups. However, last night for the first time, her back quarters felt very floppy and empty. 

We are still confused about the whole entire thing :shrug: (will she give more milk eventually?? Are we causing her to produce less because we're not milking her correctly? Is this all normal???? LOL) but I'm feeling a little less overhwhelmed knowing that it's *probably* edema up in there.

There has been a brand new baffling development that I'm going to go post about next though. There is some fluid leaking directly through her udder skin & dripping into our milk. I can find absolutely nothing when I google it. We have customers waiting to buy our milk again. I'd prefer to not have bizarre mystery fluid dripping into it! I'm wondering if it's related to edema, but find nothing online about that......


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## bigmudder77 (Jun 9, 2008)

Get some utter cream for her that helps with swelling some times the rubbing on the utter will let milk down but 5 days after the calf being born and not even a gallon sounds not so good

How good of a milker was she before? Where did you get her at? Any chunks in the milk? Do you know for sure the calf is drinking off her? 

We measure it by pounds not by gallons and I'm not sure what a gallon weighs but out of 3 that we are dumping were getting 10 gallons 2 had calves 1 was treated


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## RoyalValley (Apr 29, 2009)

Production peaks at around 4-6 weeks, but you should be getting more than what you are. The calf will eat somewhere around a gallon a day, maybe not quite yet though. 

The best thing would be to see if there is anywhere you can separate the calf for a couple hours, let her start eating until let down and then milk her all the way out. See what you get so you have a reference point. 

With most cows after a few days of that, she'll start letting down without the calf pulling, but it's hard to tell how each cow will respond. 

We are waiting on our calf anyday, so we may very well have plenty of these same problems as this is our girl's first calf.


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