Longhorn Cow Milk
Milking a Texas LegendAmi is a pure Texas Longhorn, registered with the CTLR. I think everyone was laughing a bit when I told them I would milk her. Everyone we have told either shakes their heads like I am crazy, or tells me to get a Jersey cow. But why not milk the cow you have? If Longhorn meat is so far superior to other commercial cows, what about the milk? Surely it must be good too, to produce such lively, long-lived, healthy and strong cattle. So we have been milking Ami for a couple weeks now, and I can tell you that it has been a pleasure and a learning experience. I feel more satisfied in this than I could possibly have imagined.
No one else must have imagined it. I did a Google search on the task:
Search Terms:
1. "Longhorn Cow Milk" - Zero Results
2. "Milking a Longhorn Cow" - Zero Results
3. "Milk a Longhorn Cow" - Zero Results
Well, maybe anybody looking into this in the future will find this post and read that it CAN be done.
Today we drank our first cold glass of Longhorn milk, and it was sweet, tasty and refreshing. I'm not a milk drinker, but I can tell you I enjoyed that glass of milk. Next week, Lord willing, I will make some soft cheese to spread on some crackers.
You know, the world really doesn't understand why we do what we do, and why we want to live a simple, homesteading, separatist life and provide for ourselves by God's Grace. They will not understand the pure pleasure in getting milk from a cow that no one thought you could milk. The world wants us to go to a grocery store to get pastuerized milk in cartons, and to be two or more steps removed from our food. But since we here believe that the Longhorn Cow is the most perfect small homesteading animal God has created, it only makes sense that we would milk her and enjoy the product of His goodness. Sure we may never get 2-3 gallons a day, but you know what? We don't need 2-3 gallons a day, and not many people do.
Michael Bunker
posted by Michael Bunker at 1:49 PM
2 Comments:
I think it's great, I've had some experience with longhorns, unfortunately they were our neighbors and they were in our fields, so it was less than amicable, but I must say getting them out of our fields was an interesting experience, I couldn't chase them out, they wre too tame for that, and I couldn't lead them out because there was nothing on the other side of the fence. I would think they are hard to milk, just because the teats are hard to hold on to. We have a herd of shorthorn/saler crosses, and the shorthorns are fantastic cows as well, yes, I have some that I milk, though not on a regular basis, come the need, it is possible
Efrem,
We have found that Longhorns lead great with just a small bucket of range cubes. We have had "cattle drives" where we lead all of our herd to new fields just by walking in front of them with range cubes. This is also a dynamite way to isolate and get a single (or several) Longhorns into a pen or trailer. The other day, our friend Frank Sharp came by to pick up his Longhorn Bull named Quitachon. He backed his trailer up to a fence that had a perpenicular fence line about 8 feet from the truck. Then he opened the gate to close off the escape from the rear. We called in the Longhorns with a bucket of range cubes and lured Quitachon and one cow into the makeshift pen. Then we let the cow out, and Frank led Quitachon right into the trailer. No horses, no roping, nothing. Worked great. I learn more and more watching the experts deal with Longhorns each time I see them.
They are certainly not perfect for milking, but they have so many other attributes that no other cattle have, that milking what you have may be the perfect answer for a homesteader or small family.
Michael
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