Drying up cow--How long should you take?

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How long should you allow to dry a cow up before she delivers? I'm talking about decreasing the amount milked slowly--not stopping milking cold turkey. She gives about 2 gallons per milking.

-- Janie Dye (jdye_24088@yahoo.com), May 03, 2000

Answers

Janie, you want her dryed up about two months before she calves. So two or three weeks prior to that, cut back to one milking a day for maybe a week or ten days, then go to one milking every other day for about the same. She should be getting pretty low by then. Stop, wait a few days (she'll fill up with milk again) and milk her out one more time. That should do it. At least that's what worked with my goats, except for one stubborn doe that would have kept right on milking -- shouldn't have bred her, should have just milked her through, but I didn't know she was going to do so well. Anyway, hope this works for you.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), May 03, 2000.

We have a small dairy and we just stop milking them when they are 2 months away from freshing. We cut way back on their grain a few days before and during the dry period. their udder will fill with milk and be quite tight for awhile, but that tells the udder to stop producing milk and she will reabsorb it. It sounds like your cow is giving about 32# of milk a day.Try reducing her grain first to get her closer to 20# a day before you stop milking her.

-- Jeanette Springer (jeni@dwave.net), May 07, 2000.

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