January 2025

The story of our sweet Caroline— 

The weeks leading up to us getting married, as any bride would do, I spent any free time I had scrolling Craigslist for the perfect milk cow. I was convinced that this would need to be the first animal that we purchased. I was also—and still am—convinced that raw milk will indeed change your life and is the most nutritious food on planet earth. I read a book called Keeping a Family Milk Cow and was even more convinced that we needed a milk cow, as I learned that she is the queen of any good farm, supplying us with milk that turns into so many kitchen staples, a yearly calf for meat, and extra milk to feed all the animals. She feeds everyone. I also think I wanted her to make this whole starting-a-farm feel real. Wick likes to say I do things in this order: “ready, fire, aim.” He is not wrong.

So, we got married, then went on our honeymoon, and one day on the beach, we Venmoed a nice lady to put a deposit down for a milk cow she was selling. We really thought we had hit gold. She was a six-year-old Jersey A2/A2 milk cow with grass-fed genetics, had already had two calves before, and was bred and due to calve in February. We were buying her from a family who said their seven-year-old hand-milked her; surely, then, we could figure it out.

We went to pick her up about a week after we made it out to the farm. We put out a water tank and rigged up an electric fence around an old barn. We had to rent a cattle trailer too—we were new to this, clearly.

Luckily, they helped us load her. We were pretty wide-eyed, thinking, What did we get ourselves into? On the way home, she wasn’t very happy back there.

We made it back, let her out—bucking—and she hid for a couple of days. Luckily, she was very motivated by food, so she would come up to us to eat her alfalfa pellets. We also learned very soon that she wasn’t going to be the cuddly milk cow you see on social media. She’d rather give you a little buck. Fun.

We had about four months for her to get used to us and our stanchion (the head gate that you milk a cow in) before she would have her calf and her milk would come in. That was a pretty fun time—intimidating at first, but her attitude grew on us.

We were very prepared for her to calve and start milking her, but then February came and went. We called vets and the previous owner—everyone was very confused. There were no signs of imminent birth.

Another month went by. Nothing. We were on milk cow forums, researching, doing everything we could think of. She was acting perfectly healthy. Thankfully, we got her to the vet and received very surprising news.

They said she was about four months pregnant.

We were baffled… but I will say I did have this theory. And I was right.

Back to our fence situation—we were no experts at setting up an electric fence, and it showed. Caroline got out many times, and other cows—and a bull—a couple of times would get in with her. You live and you learn.

It turns out she had lost the first calf pretty early. Then, during one of those escapades with the bull, she became pregnant again. A blessing in disguise.

Her new “due month” was September. Unfortunately, September came and went. Back to the vet—she had lost the calf again. Truly tragic. The vet said that if we were to try to get her pregnant again, she would most likely lose it again.

Lots and lots of lessons learned from her. Ultimately, we learned how to raise a milk cow. We had a couple of stories to tell from it along the way too. One time, I had read that alfalfa hay is the absolute best thing you could feed a milk cow, and that’s all I gave her. She kept having diarrhea, and I kept scratching my head—until a lovely lady on a milk cow forum said, “You know alfalfa is a bean, right? You are just feeding her beans. You need to give her some other hay too.” Got it. Or the time I was cleaning out her water tank, and she came up behind me and bonked me forward into it with her nose. Or the many times she would chase Wick around the paddock, thinking he had some alfalfa pellets in his bucket for her. Or the infamous time we caught her in the act of escaping her paddock to run around with the bull—Wick reacted as if he had caught his teenage daughter past curfew with a boy and proceeded to chase them around the entire property for hours until Caroline was secured and separated from the bull in her paddock.

Farm life is unforgiving and still so beautiful.

Sad we never got to milk her. But we got to feed her and love her and will use her for good. We decided to keep her for a little while until we can find a new family milk cow. Then, we will process her.

So, you might see her on my Instagram. She’s officially our mascot for now. She started this farm and will always be our first queen.

- Kyra