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Village Squire, 1977-07, Page 19Daisy would again be gone from our lives. They were mistaken though, for neither Toni nor I are known to give up easily on something we have started. On Sunday Night Toni was ready. On Monday night she proved it. On Tuesday morn she felt it. She could hardly move her hands because of sore and stiff wrists. These days there are many dairy farmers who have never milked a cow by hand. but it is an excellent way of developing strong wrist muscles. 1 know, for now it was my turn to squeeze the milk out of our new girl. Luckily, we still had the calf, so when we had all the milk needed for our family, the calf took over. Before we got this far, however, we had to straighten our Daisy out, for she didn't take kindly to strangers pulling on her milk factory. When first Toni touched her, the milk pail went flying. She could kick better than a place kicker in a Grey Cup game. When Toni almost went flying, it was enough, and she had to be taught who was the boss. Once that was settled, with the help of a broom handle. we had no more trouble. What we hadn't counted on, because we didn't know any better. was the amount of milk that beast gave us. Remember. she had a small calf at her side. The dairy man says: "She's fresh." That means that she is at the peak of her milk production. We had all the milk our family. with three small children, needed. The calf had all the milk she needed. We still had a sea of milk left over. We gave to neighbours and to friends and still we had left over. As I said before, we are thrifty people, so we decided to biiy a butter churn. In the Eaton catalogue we found just what we wanted, a one gallon glass churn. That gave us all the butter for our family we needed, but Daisy kept increasing her production. Looking back now, I suggest that we were possibly too generous with the dairy ration. In any case. we bought another calf from a neighbour and let him also drink his fill. We paid $12. for that week old Holstein calf, and that is more than the farmer gets today. Now she had two calves to feed, plus a family of five, plus milk for our butter supply. She did magnificiently. After about two months of this we sold her calf to J.M. Schneider's packers at Kitchener for top price. This repaid us almost half the original purchase price of mother and son. We replaced him with another Holstein calf. After that, a regular flow of veal calves, as they are called, went to Schneider's. We had Daisy bred through artificial insemination, and when this came to friction, we had to give her two more calves, besides h,tr own, to absorb the flow of milk. Now, don't go out and try to emulate us. We were extremely lucky. The right way to go about this would be to study your venture first. We had our losses, too. We lost two calves, because we didn't know anything about scours. Once Daisy strayed into the top part of the barn, when someone had left the doors open. When we found her, she had fallen through the floor and was hanging with all fours out in space and her belly balanced on a beam. Twice she had pneumonia, because one cow can't keep a Targe barn warm enough. Twice she had mastitis. By the way. did you know that a cow can't kick when you hold her tail straight up? That's what we had to do, when she had this mastitis. One held the tail while the other treated the infected quarter. In the end we had to move out of our rented place and we sold Daisy to a friend for half again as much as we paid for her and her calf in the first place. I don't know how much money we made out of her, but I know that it was a good profit. that I'm sure of. Of course, we didn't have any overhead. All our cost was the purchase price and feed and bedding. This little adventure eventually led us to become full time farmers, but that is another story, which I will tell some other time. • FINE FURNITURE • PAINTS CARPETS • WALLCOVERINGS Robert L. Plumsteel Interiors DECORATING PHONE 527-0902 SEAFORTH We have over 10 years experience in interior design. We will decorate your room, or home to suit you Give us a call and we will come to your home with our free decorating service. We can co-ordinate to your special needs We have a large selection of furniture, floor covering, wallcovering and paints VILLAGE SQUIRE/JULY 1977. PG. 17.