Long Lactations and Milk without pregnancy

This area of milk production I find extremely interesting and demonstrates a different way of milk production.

Long lactations. This means you don’t annually impregnate your cows but rather you let the milking lactation run as long as possible. The reason for this is because we are promoting a protected herd farm model where all the cows and bulls/oxen will live a full life and at the same time we want to make as many members of the herd to be productive of milk as possible without excessive breeding.

Practically all farmers control their herd numbers by killing or selling (eventually killing) but a protected farm controls the herd number by increasing at a steady rate until the balanced herd number is reached. For every calf born per year I would multiply it by 16.25 (based on 20 years of records) to give the estimated balanced herd number of roughly equal deaths and births. For example if you are impregnating 4 calves per year then your herd ceiling will be about 65 cows/males.

When you continue milking the cows for as long as they give you milk it is found that the lactation can run from 1.5 years to 10 years from one calf. I have a figure of 4 years average that I use based on records I have kept.

The amount of milk a cow gives over that period will vary widely however I use a figure of 10,000 litres as an average for calculation purposes. Remember in my calculations and practice I have given 25% of the milk to the calf until it is 6 months old. The amount of milk given to the calf in this period is about 800 to 900 litres.  This is about 7% of the total milk production (calf gets 800 litres and humans get 10,000 litres)

Lengthening the lactation of a Zebu type cows does not seem to be so viable from what I have learned from a few Indian dairys. The Zebu cows need the calf to be suckling in order to release their milk. This is an area that would benefit from wider research to find farms that have extended lactations from zebu cows.

Milk without having a calf. There are a lot of cases within ISKCON farms and other similarly maintained farms where cows or heifers give milk without having a calf. In a lot of cases the cow or heifer shows some slight swelling in the udder and when this cow is milked and her udders massaged the liquid she gives gradually turns into milk and at a greater quantity.

Some  examples:  a heifer in Belgium was giving 8 litres a day with out having had a calf, a cow in Watford gave 8 litres a day for 10 years without having a calf, a cow in leicester is giving 6 litres a day, other cows in germany, Czech, and spain have been reported.

There is more development of this type of milk production that could be done. I don’t have a statistic about how many cows we can induce to give milk this way and especially if they are not already showing some slight swelling in the udder.

Case report-Bhaktivedanta Manor. Holstein Friesen cow. Watford, England

I personally witnessed the cow giving milk. The cows herdsman informed me that this cow (her name was Kalindi) had been impregnated using AI but had not actually got pregnant. At some point they noticed that her udder was slightly swollen and so they started extract from her teats in the normal milking way.  Initially it was a whitish liquid but it changed quite quickly. By this process of extracting from her udder the liquid changed gradually into proper milk. I dont know at this time how quick her milk yield developed but I heard from her main herds person that she gave 8 litres of milk each day for 10 years.

Case Report – Black and white cow, Simhacalam Farm -Baveria, Germany

Having heard of many cases where cows gave milk without having a calf I was always mindful to remind any farms I travelled to of that possibility for their cows. On a visit to the farm in baveria I noticed that one of the two cows they were keeping had a slight swelling in the udder. This cow was fully grown and had never had a calf. She was quite docile and did not mind me shuflling up to her to groom her. As she was settled I tried to pull on her teat and a small stream of liquid was extracted. I informed the cow carer of what had happened and encouraged them to continue to try to extract milk. I did not stay long at the farm and left them to it. Some time later when I visited the farm again I was told that the cow was giving 7 litres of milk each day.

Case Report – Jersey heifer – Radhadesh Farm, Ardennes, Belgium

A pregnant jersey cow was bought by the Radhadesh farm. The calf that was born was a heifer. When this heifer was about 16 months old the cow herder thought he would see if she would give milk if he tried to induce her. He had heard about other farms and their cows giving milk without a calf and so thought to give it a try. This heifer was not showing any signs of swelling in the udder. At first there were a few drops with each session, gradually this increased along with the quality of the milk. eventually this heifer was giving 9 litres of milk each day.