Cow's Milk, Raw - Mastitis Discussion (Starts With Accidental Chicken Feed)

[ConnieG]

My last two cheeses have been failures (both attempts at Provolone).  Up until this point things have been going pretty much according to recipe - I get a nice firm curd in a very short period of time and a good cut.  However the last two cheese attempts the cheese have fallen apart.  The first one fell apart after a long slow heating with milk that may have been a little old. 

This next one fell apart at the point of adding the rennet.  I was stirring in the rennet and then the milk started to separate.  I stopped stirring and came back to it in 20 minutes and the curd was shrunken down and when I attempted to cut, the curds got flaky and grainy.  Does this sound familiar to anyone? 

With making so many cheeses, I haven't boiled things in a while - perhaps there is a wild culture lurking in my kitchen?

I have enough accidental cheese - I think this one is going to be called chicken feed. 

[Brentsbox]

Thats the great thing about having chickens around.  They love to eat your mistakes.  I live in the city and have 7 well fed girls. 

[ConnieG]

I think that's great that chickens are starting to be allowed in the city.  We live in town but the town is still connected to its rural heritage.

[MrsKK]

Is this milk from one cow?  Is it possible that she might have early or subclinical mastitis?

[ConnieG]

Karen, it is from one cow.  That is a good question - I'll have to test.  I home not.   She had a calf on her and milked twice a day so she is really kept cleaned out but I guess she could get a germ in there all the same. 

[MrsKK]

My cow had mastitis about 10 days after she freshened the first time.  She had her calf on her, too, but I was such a newbie at it that I forgot to strip her out at the end of milking.  Thankfully, I was able to get it turned around by milking her frequently, using warm packs and cayenne pepper, peppermint and lard as an ointment on her bag to heat it up and get the circulation going.

How far into her lactation is she?  Or could she be eating something that might affect the milk?

Good luck with the detective work and let us know if you figure anything out.

[ConnieG]

Karen, she is in her first lactation ... about 7 weeks. 

I did finally have a provolone success last night!  Yeah!

[MrsKK]

With the two cheeses that fell apart on you, were they made within a short period of time, such as when she might have been in heat?  I know that can affect the quality of the milk.

My guess, though, would be that she was eating something for that short period of time that was affecting the milk.

I'm sure glad you are having success once again.  Wow, only 7 weeks into her first lactation - did you train her to milk?  I've got either 4 weeks or 7 weeks until my cow freshens and I can't wait.  I did find raw milk for drinking and for my cheesemaking class, but can't justify it for making cheese in general.  It doesn't taste as good as my cow's does, though.  It is Holstein milk and I suspect it is skimmed because there is only about a half inch of cream on a half gallon.  Even when my cow is holding back the cream for her calf I get at least an inch and a half.

BTW, I love your avatar...I'm assuming it is a found photo and not something you own, although I'm envious of the owner!

[ConnieG]

Karen,

It could have been heat - she's quiet about that as compared to my Jersey (who is down right dangerous in heat).  But it could have been hat she is getting over a touch of mastitus as the calf rejected a quarter for a while and I could see some particles in the milk.  I forced him on to that quarter and used peppermint oil and got it cleaned out.  But, I also learned that a nice little lady across the fence was feeding her marigold and calendula flowers  .

I have a friend who is experienced in cows and we work together on projects.  (She helped me pull at birthing but the calf was in a bad presentation and was over due - 125 lbs and died).  She came and helped me train 'Ms Delilah Moo' with Moo's head tied at the fence and a lariat around the kicking ends.  That was for a few days and then all I  had to do was show her the lariat and keep it hanging on the fence as a reinforcement.  (She is a Guernsey and wasn't interested in putting up much of a fight).  We're still building a milking stanchion and winter quarters and I can't seem to get the hang of my expensive milk machine that is sitting on the porch so it's just me and the calf and the cow out in the field.  I don't grain her or feed her while milking - I expect her to hold still and I sit on her feed bucket and now she puts her leg back when she sees me sitting down.  One day I'm going to take a camera around my neck and get a photo of her with her head turned around watching me 'back there'.  Her expression is unsettling!   

I came across that picture while reading about stone walls on the Internet one day (going down rabbit holes).  It is an ancient stone wall in England with this cheese press built into it.   I remembered the picture and went to find it again for the avatar and found it on this different article in Wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Gilmour with pictures of other primitive cheese presses.

How exciting your cow is freshening soon!!!  I hear there are delicacy cheeses to made from the colostrum too.  I think that is just Holstein milk.  Someone once commented that the Holstein was bred to give skim milk - blech!  I know that the cow keeping is expensive (and expensive to get into) but somehow ending up with a dairy animal that produces and feeds everyone from the chickens on up, seems like a better deal ~  Especially if you have a nice one...

[ConnieG]

I was thinking I should ad that the reason the cow has a calf is that on the same day the calf died I went to the dairy that is about an hour from here and bought a Holstein bull calf born the same day and grafted him on.  It was important to me to get a relief milker for when I have to be out of town.  They are pretty cute with her brown and white and his black and white markings.

[MrsKK]

Sounds like she might have had some mastitis in that quarter.  We dealt with it pretty much the same way, except I couldn't get her calf to take from that quarter - I was pretty new at it (ten days milking!) and I'm pretty sure I'd be able to enforce it better now that I've got a couple of years under my belt.

I always keep a calf on my cow for all but the last couple of months of her lactation, too.  I'm the only one here who milks, so I need the relief milker.  Once the calf is big enough to take half of her milk, I only milk once a day.  I don't need more milk than that and I sure don't need to be working that hard.

I'm sorry you lost the calf, but wow!  that's a big one!  Buttercup's calves have been 45 & 35 lbs (the small one was a bull calf), so no problems with birthing at all.  Very healthy and vigorous, too.

Butter was really quiet about her heats last winter, too, and I had a heck of a time catching her at the right time.  I used her bull calf to detect when she was in standing heat and I'm hoping that the January AI is the one that took, as the semen was Red Angus.  I'm try to get some beef into the mix, as that's what we raise her calves for.  If it is the February breeding, it would be by her bull calf, as we never saw her standing for him, but there were signs that he'd completed the act.  Nothing wrong with linebreeding, but I really did want half beef.  Oh, well!

The neighbors said I can run her with their heifers this winter when the time comes - their beef bull will be here then and I can take her in their barn to milk.  They don't milk anymore, but the stanchions are still there.  I just need a place to throw some grain down for her and a chain to clip her collar to and we're good to go.

Again, I'm glad you got the mastitis cleared up.  My guess would be that was the problem.  I doubt calendula flowers would have bothered anything, as they are quite healing.  Maybe the marigold, though?

[ConnieG]

Is butter a Jersey?  No nothing wrong with linebreeding - I raise show rabbits (and the extras are meat) and the generations turn over quickly.  It's easy to see your breeding plan with them.  If the beef cross results in a heifer I've been hearing (on the family cow forum) that the milk from beef crosses is still very good - good butterfat and they are easier to keep the weight on.  The only thing is if you have a small cow and the bull is large, he can hurt her hips and back.

How nice you can use their milking facilities!  I don't own the land where my cows are - just seriously motivated to keep a cow.  I wish there was more small dairy activity around here.  There are the two large commercial dairies that I know of - tucked way away out of view.  When you visit one of those you know why pasteurization is so necessary!

Yeah, the steer calf will be dinner - his name is Chicken.  He is a bruiser, too- big boned. 

I've spent a fortune this summer trying to get my well-bred (All American) Jersey AI'd.  She's a first calf heifer and it just isn't working for her.  I've finally found a mini Jersey bull just down the street.  I'm pretty sure the last AI didn't take and so will use him and hope for a late season calf. 

[MrsKK]

Buttercup is 3/4 Jersey, 1/4 Holstein.  She's a pretty big girl on stubby legs, as she weighs over 1,000 lbs, but is probably somewhere around 50" tall.  Her second lactation, she topped out at 5 gallons/day.  Their bull isn't huge, but is a nice size and they've used him to breed their heifers, both Holstein and full Jersey, with no trouble.  He throws nice little calves, too.

I had a tough time telling when she should be bred the first time around and ended up taking her to the neighbor that had a Jersey bull - we tied her to the tractor and pulled her up there.  By the time she came home, she was pretty good at being led! The following year, she took on the first AI.  I'll let you know what the father is this time when I get it figured out.