A Jersey Cow To The Rescue!

Jersey cow milk is a beautiful golden-ivory shade!

Some friends have a Jersey cow that just gave birth.  The cow, apparently, is producing an amazing amount of milk.  So, we were able to acquire some to help supplement our not-nearly-enough goats milk supply for our baby goats. We prefer raw, fresh milk; we believe pasteurization destroys some of the nutrition of milk.  Of course, when I brought it home I had to try it and it is gorgeous!  It's a yellow cream colour, much more golden than goats milk.  It's rich and buttery and thick.

So as not to upset any little tummies, I started by just adding a splash, then over the course of a week upped the ratio until the cows milk was about a third of the bottle for each kid.  As the kids are already on to a small portion of grain and have hay to nibble, the over-all quantity of milk they are getting is being reduced a bit each week.  The transition was not a problem (animal owners have to get used to examining poop: it just comes with the territory).  So, our baby goats are growing big and strong with every passing day and 'the milk crisis' is lessening.  Mind you me, there is only a couple of bags of frozen goats milk in our freezer, so we may have to buy some commercial goat milk to get us through to weaning, which will be in about three weeks.  Maybe the mommies will produce enough: time will tell!

Now, having a nice haul of fresh milk in the house, and wanting to have a nice 'thank you' to our cow-owning friends, I did set a little aside to make some soap.  I felt a little guilty sneaking milk but.....It seems to have made a lovely soap!  Used it just like I would goats milk, freezing the milk in cubes.  Used our 'Simple Soap' recipe of nothing but Jersey milk, olive oil and coconut oil.  The soap, fresh out of the mold, is ivory but a little darker than goats milk soap.  It will probably darken a bit more during the curing process.  Can hardly wait to try a bar in our shower!

If you'd like to catch pictures of baby goats cavorting check out our Facebook page!  We share probably too many baby goat pictures!