WHY WE DO THIS EVERYDAY...

oh look at my buddy you're so cute hi buddy we are getting ready to go with John to Milk The Cow it occurred to us that quite a few people didn't actually hi Rosie didn't actually even know that we have a cow and so we thought we would take you along share a little bit about her um a little bit about why we have her and what it takes to take care of her oh hey guys what's up you caught me right in the middle of milking a cow not quite but you almost caught me milking a cow so as I'm heading down to the cow I've got my bucket with soapy water few towels in there clean her uters um or her UD and her teeths the teeths need cleaning okay uh then I got the milk bucket here for the milk and this is the feed bucket right here careful there's some holes behind you I got it babe don't you worry about me I'm a professional so in that bucket is uh their Al Alpha pellets beet pulp pellets we've got some apple cider vinegar usually molasses black oil sunflower seeds what else goes in there oats some oats just different things to make her happy help keep her in condition um because she's making a lot of milk we have a jersey dairy cow and her name is Eden and you're going to see her in just a minute she is the most precious thing and one of the best additions to our little mini Farm Homestead micro Farm is what I'll call it so before we get in there I do want to say she's going to look different than the cows you've probably seen out in the fields and I'm saying this because most people don't realize that when they see cows on pasture they are seeing beef cows which are completely different than dairy cows beef cows are are made to get beefy to get fat to get muscular um to provide meat so they bulk up dairy cows all of their energy and the nutrition that they get goes into making milk they make so much milk and so they are leaner and bonier and that is their structure here's our girl is it almost yeah can you hold this down oh no I guess you can't she going to follow you hi Eden hi girl hi she knows what he's got it's her favorite thing her feed bucket there's her baby his name is brisket her baby's over there I will show you him in a minute first you're going to brush St don't even do that she loves that so here she is this is Eden good girl hi sweet girl hi you want me to brush her look she's ready she's ready for her beet tell what this is yeah okay so that is a cow can't kick bar bar and it sits on her pelvis so that she can't lift her legs up and kick the bucket which has happened too many times for us to take chances on she's an ornery cow all jerseys are kind of known for their feisty moods they're a little bit sassy um she stands really good most of the time but sometimes she will like kick and it's enough for John especially to be like I'm not taking any chances she can't move her leg with the bar on so it's easier for him to just come down milk her quick and not worry cuz if she does kick she can knock over the bucket and spill all the milk or she can get dirt or poop in the bucket from her hubs there's Israel he's outside butt naked um anyway Tyler take him in take him inside anyway so that's why he uses that this milked I bought or I bought I bought I didn't buy it I build it I actually Drew up the plans for it and John and I built it last summer right no longer than that it was in the winter time it was in the winter it was December last December two Decembers ago oh my goodness wow time passes so that doesn't really it's not tight against her neck but it keeps her from like backing her head out and like leaving while he's trying to milk it just easier to deal with that way but it's also got shelter and then all these little blue things have different minerals that she needs so there's like kelp selenium salt all those things just help balance out her diet and make sure she's getting all the minerals and all the nutrition she needs so the rags he used do you already cleaner yeah yeah use the water to kind of my hand John is a pro squeezing those things you know does Toney always bark like that when you're doing it it so this is like a you want to show them how you do it so the milk goes into the udder or the teeth from the udder fills up the whole thing blocking fills up the whole thing and so you just want to squeeze kind of pinch it off of the top and you use the rest of your fingers to squeeze it down so you're going to like pinch it squeeze it and then to kind of bump it a little bit let the milk go in there pinch it and squeeze it [Music] down what do you think Buddy you see your cow what do you think say hi we got a dairy cow one because it was highly romanticized just kidding what did you say because it was highly romanticized online um Our intention in moving to acreage was to just start working with our own hands to provide more for our family and not rely so much on like grocery stores for every single thing I think we all saw a few times in the last several years where you'd go to the store and there was no milk no eggs no bread no you know just things um that we rely on to like feed our family so part of us wanted to wanted to stop relying on those things obviously we can't completely um but just taking small steps to be a little bit more self-sufficient and on top of that raw milk has so many benefits you guys can do your own research decide for yourself whether it's something that you want but for us we were like all about the gut healing um benefits of it and then the the nutrients in it raw milk is full of just protein and minerals and vitamins that once they pasteurize it and heat it up to a certain temperature you are starting to lose a lot of that um and a lot of the like good bacteria in it and the things that are so beneficial for our bodies and then it becomes like really sugary and it's just not as great once it's been processed and pasturized she's also an A2 A2 cow which means she has the original like dairy milk protein they name them there's an A1 A1 A1 A2 A2 A2 and so that protein is the most easily digested milk protein and JN is super sensitive to Dairy but we have found that A2 A2 milk does not affect him in the same way so having our own A2 A2 cow to get raw milk from has been just like the biggest blessing not just to us but to people in our community and so we we've loved it we've loved having her it is work isn't it John huh it's a little bit of work isn't it a little bit it is a commitment because she needs to be milked uh up until recently we had her calf in with her and so he would nurse on her throughout the day and then we'd separate them at night and just milk her first thing in the morning and then put them back together and he would nurse her through the day but he is 7 months old and old enough to be weaned and so we we' got them together but separated with a line of fence so he can't nurse but they're still near each other um the goal would be hopefully to put a weaning ring on him after having them separate for a couple of months and be able to put them in back together without him nursing again but through this time John's milking morning and night and then hopefully we'll slowly spread those milkings apart to where he's only milking once a day again yeah that's a little bit about Eden our dairy cow and why we have her what it takes to to milk her to care for her I will say it is probably a lot cheaper to just buy raw milk from someone I know we're going to get questions about brisket his name kind of answers those questions he is a steer calf hi buddy he will not turn into a bll hi honey this is honey she's our guard dog it's a good girl you a good girl girl hi Honey hi honey good girl come here biscuit come here come on good boy all right so her gates open she can get out whenever she wants whenever she's done I just stepped in poop and almost fell you need help do you need me to grab that if you'll carry the milk I'll um go get him some of that hay real quick and we can get done down here turn the fence yeah we got our milk you got it are you sure going to turn on the fence all right so we keep our milk jars at the top yeah we got to get the jars down just start with three three I need to wash my hands he washes his hands then we have these milk filters up in here that go into that big funnel the purpose of those is to filter out any like dust dirt hair just hay whatever anything that kind of could fall into the milk bucket um those filter filter all those specks out filters go in and let it so that on a small scale is where your milk comes from right yeah when you are buying milk at the store though they're usually not hand milking those cows they are hooking them up to machines but with one cow having machine is just like a lot more to clean you have to sanitize all of the parts every single time probably take just as much time longer so this our bucket fits in our dishwasher so we can just run it through the dishwasher each time yeah there it is there it is you're delicious extra creamy because jerseys produce so much thick cream um raw milk is it worth it John no do you love it John is a labor of love all right that's it that is a little bit on Eden our dairy cow why we as just the family even own a dairy cow what we do with all the milk and how we get it clean yeah I hope you learned something or inspired or at very least have decided this is never something that you ever want to do still remember