We had been wanting a dairy cow for a while but the problem was, we live in southern California. You can probably imagine there aren’t an abundant amount of dairy cows for sale here. So we looked for a few months, we found plenty of cows but they were either too old, too young, not in milk, or we had a feeling there was a sketchy deal going on. We really wanted to get a nice family cow that was already in milk, meaning she was milking and wasn’t dry, because we were new at this and didn’t want to train one…. we honestly really needed a cow to train us! But luckily in June 2023, a wonderful family in Le Grand CA was selling their family milk cow who was in milk, perfect age, mellow, and trained to do machine milking (which was a big deal to me because we’re busy and I need fast and efficient!). We finally found our cow! But of course that wasn’t the end of that story. First hurdle, she was 7 hours away! Again, slim pickins here in southern California. Second hurdle, we had no trailer or way to get her home. You’re probably thinking, wow you sound unprepared. We had all the tools but we just figured, if it’s meant to be everything would fall into place and it will work out! And it did (obviously because we have her in our yard!) We had met a nice homesteading family through other friends and they had a horse trailer they rented out to us, it was perfect. We were so grateful they trusted us to drive 7 hours with it, they didn’t know us, but i really think God had His hand in all of this to make it all go so smoothly. So the day came to go get our new family member, my mom watching the kids and we were gone from sun up to way passed sundown. It was quite the adventure!
We were nervous, we trusted this random lady on craigslist and hoped when we got there we would like her and she was what we were looking for. We of course asked questions and saw pictures beforehand but you never know if its real until you get there and see in person. But there she was, our sweet Dolly (that was her name and we loved it so we kept it) she loaded up right into the trailer and on we went back home with our jersey girl! Side note: we were originally going to name her snooki because she’s a jersey girl with big udders… I think Dolly was definitely a better choice! We got her home late that night and we had no idea what we were doing. I had a few horses when I was growing up, so i figured how different can it be? Turns out quite a bit of a difference! Dolly had never walked on a lead rope, so that was a learning curve. But we were able to get her out into her pasture and we were up milking the next morning! She has been absolutely amazing, she has been patient with us learning, and patient with all of the excited visitors that have come and had their first experience with a cow. Dolly has been an absolute blessing to our family and we are so thankful for her.
We have learned so much having her. It’s not been perfect but we have grown so much. I have learned how to make butter, yogurt, and cheese! We’ve also learned a lot about taking care of a cow, and a lot of what not to do. Like make sure you give enough grass with alfalfa or else they can bloat (which can be deadly for cows) we learned that the hard way. We have also now learned how to treat bloat on our own. We learned how to properly and improperly load a cow into a trailer(that’s a pretty funny story let me know if you want to hear about that one). And now we are learning all about a cow going into labor because Dolly is pregnant, she is due any day now! We’ll keep everyone updated as soon as she calfs so stay tuned.
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