When the Cows Come Home

“So, where are the cows?” is a common question during farm tours at North Star Homestead.

“Sorry, no cows on this farm. We raise sheep for meat, milk, and wool, as well as poultry, pigs for diversity.”

To many folks who visit, a Wisconsin farm without cows seems inconceivable. We’ve even been accused of not being a “real” farm because of the lack of bovines! Funny, I don’t think they’d tell a corn and soybean farmer that their operation was not a “real” farm. But there’s something in the world of livestock that sets cows and horses a cut above the rest.

But since Grandma and Grandpa bought the farm in 1968, cows haven’t been a part of the landscape except for many years back during a drought when the neighbor Mr. Metcalf was permitted to graze his beef cattle in the woodlands. The Fullingtons (who homesteaded our farm in 1915) had Jersey milk cows and later some beef stock, but there hasn’t been a resident bovine population in at least 50 years.

But that’s going to change this November. My sister Kara, the lover of all four-legged things, looked into Dexter cattle back in our early sheep-raising days, but decided against this miniature beef breed. They were still large for us petit ladies, and now with Kara’s dairying interest, she wanted to find a cow that could serve much like her sheep—good for meat and for milk, hearty in northern climates, small enough to handle, and with good temperament.

As Kara developed her flock of milking sheep, it took a while to build up the right genetics, as well as jump the myriad of hoops for licensing and building facilities to milk, store, and process product. In the meantime, the flock was diverse enough to leave the lambs with their mothers until the stage was set to become a dairy farm.

It turns out that there is a breed of cow that can meet all these requirements—a breed Kara discovered this year: the Irish Jersey. A small cow (weighing approx. 600 pounds full grown and standing 40 inches high), they are a hearty dual-purpose breed, offering good milk and good meat without leaning too heavily in one direction or the other. Calves can be left with the mothers or weaned for milk production. A good hoof-to-body size ratio means that this breed won’t be as likely to cause soil erosion issues with our sandy subsoil as larger and heavier breeds. And they come in a fun mix of colors, from dark chocolate to milk white to brown or combinations.

If Kara’s gotta have a cow, the Irish Jersey appears to be the one. But where to find these lovely animals? That became the next piece of the puzzle.

After much online searching (how ever did small-scale livestock breeders find each other before the internet…must have been tricky), she found a farm in New Hampshire’s hilly country that breeds this line.

“Now, I don’t sell them to just anybody, but I like the sounds of your place,” Daren, the owner of White Mountain Miniature Cattle, commented on the phone to Kara. “I think we’ll have some nice cows for you here.”

Sam Harrington, last summer’s intern from Vermont, served as Kara’s eyes and ears by taking a trip out to the New Hampshire cow residence. A veteran of Jersey and Ayrshire dairy farming, Sam was the perfect fit for a snoop about the Irish Jersey farm to check out the health of the stock and learn more about Daren’s operation.

“So, what do you think!!!???” Kara texted Sam the afternoon of the bovine visit.

“Well, I do like my Ayrshires, but these are really growing on me, just the perfect size for you.”

A flurry of pictures ensued, including photos of udders. In the end, Kara settled on two individuals to be her starter herd, a white heifer with brown ears and boots that she promptly named “Suzie” (Sam’s nickname last summer), and a deep chocolate brown bull calf who was dubbed “Winston.” And then the planning ensued for the arrival of the cows.

Anyone who’s had a diversified farm knows that it’s never easy to get away. Spring is impossible, with all the baby animals. Summer is hectic and busy with customers and butchering meat chickens. Fall is a buzz with harvesting, preserving, and putting things away for winter, and winter is rather cold and miserable for animal transport. The fact that our heritage Kunekune pigs have litters twice a year each and for four sows it makes for interesting birthing dates popping up at different times of the year as well.

So we laid out all the schedules to find the gap in the forest of activities that would allow us to take the trip to retrieve the cows. That gap became the week of deer hunting season in November.

So Mom and Kara will load up the stock trailer and head over the top of Michigan and then down and east to New Hampshire. Sam will have enough of a break from school to help load Suzie and Winston into the trailer before the crew heads back to bring the cows home.

I haven’t spent much time with cows…I’m sure there’s material there for another story. See you down on the farm sometime.