I didn't do much farming this weekend. Friday morning I went for my regular chiropractic adjustment and then took the boys to the first showing of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The movie was good but it seems like each one deviates a bit further from the book. I'm afraid I may not like the Deathly Hallows movie. Saturday we had an all day celebration of my mom's birthday at our house. I was the grill master. Eat your heart out Bobby Flay!
Jennifer overestimated the amount of milk she was getting from Sugar back when we had to dump it last week. Now that she's filtering and bottling, we realize that we're getting 1.5-2 gallons a day. I had hoped for more but she is nursing two calves and we really have no idea how much they're taking. We do know that she's holding back her cream because we're getting an inch or less on a half-gallon jar and it should be 3-4 inches (I hope). I guess we'll make our butter this fall after the calves are weaned. And speaking of dumping milk, the mastitis seems to have cleared up without us having to resort to a systemic antibiotic. The milk is clear with no flakes, clumps, etc. and the test cards are good with just a slightly darker spot on the suspect quarter. The milk tastes sweet, which is the best test of all.
We're about 90% sure that we're not going to band (castrate) our bull calf. Instead, we plan to keep him intact and use him to breed Sugar next summer. Everyone we talk to, from all over the country, seems to never manage to get their cow bred on the first try with AI. Cows come into heat about every 3 weeks so two heat cycles can easily mean the difference between calving at the beginning of the spring flush and calving when the spring flush is over. Of course, there's no guarantee that natural breeding will take the first time but the odds sure seem a lot better than with AI. If we put the bull in with her on July 1st, we should get an April calf even if she doesn't settle on the first heat and comes in again. Just like with most things in farming, nature usually trumps modern science.
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