Romano and Frie d'Or

A few months ago I bought two young Guernsey heifers. I don't know a lot about guernsey's but I think that one might have more guernsey in her than the other. If you'd seen my dairy herd, you would wonder why I would want more milkers, especially as I don't actually have a dairy. I do however like to milk cows and my existing milkers don't have a lot of volume. For example these two new heifers are milking more than my previous three cows. Time is money they say!

I've bred most of my own milkers for the last few years and breaking the heifers in hasn't been too hard. I milked their mothers so they have been familiar with me and the yards and so when it came time to milk them, for the most part they were fairly easy to break in. I would feed them in the yard, in the milking bale for them to get used to how things work. I would occasionally have to rope them and drag them in, but not with a great deal of difficulty.

These two were a little different and needed a little more encouragement. They haven't spent much time around the yards or me and I didn't really have the time to encourage them either. Kim and Edmund and I have all worked with these and tomorrow when I milk I am pretty sure they will come into the bale without to much trouble, but it might still take three people to get them there. Me on my own will just encourage them to run around the yard and not go into the bale. Luckily they are pretty quiet, even though they aren't people friendly.

I've started a habit of naming my cows after cheeses. Frie d'Or is a cheese that comes from the Guernsey Dairy and is translated as "Meadow of Gold" or "Golden Meadow". I think that's an appropriate  name for my yellow cow. But I will shorten it to Freda. The red cow is Romano - she is my new favourite milker - absolutely soft as to milk and lots of it.

The other good news is that one of the calves is a heifer - another milker for me!

Romano's milk.

And they seemed to give a lot more cream than my other cows......yum....guernsey cream!