2/24/23 Please welcome Decade Lissa to our farm. We call her Lissa for short. Lissa was purchased from a local dairy here in the Upstate of SC who have about an 75% grass based operation. They do grain their cattle and before making a purchase I discussed with the genetics manager of the dairy about converting Lissa to full grass. I was assured that Lissa should make the transition without difficulty. We provide all the necessary essentials for Lissa to thrive but when animals are raised from generation to generation with these grain based supplements the transition can be very hard. We will monitor Lissa and if the decision needs to be made to give an organic cattle dairy ration we will notify all customers prior to that happening.
One of Lissa’s strong points is that she is DNA proven Purebred A2/A2 Jersey cow. Lissa calved on 4/11 and gave us a sweet little Red Angus/Jersey heifer. Lissa came bred but when we decide to breed her again we will be artificially inseminated with a more grass based standard Jersey bull’s sperm. Our goal is to reduce the need for grain in future offspring and as well reduce the stature without sacrificing the milk quality in future cows born here. Lissa is currently 100% grass fed and our desire is to be able to maintain her on grass and produce offspring who can be fully managed on grass without any need for grain.
Lissa is producing about 2 gallons of delicious milk per day currently. Please see our milk share page for details on purchasing milk from our farm.
Update 2/8/24: We did finally AI Lissa and hopefully before long we will have a confirmed pregnancy. Lissa’s milk production is winding down and she is not maintaining her condition as well as I would like even after all of our efforts so the decision has been made to start adding some New Country Organics Dairy cattle rations to her milking time. My monthly feed order will be around the 28th of this month so starting in March we will add the supplemental feeding.
We will be most likely be selling Lissa to a family who does not mind the grain but not until she is confirmed pregnant and we can get here condition better. We will probably set her price in the $3500 range. We are on several lists for another Jersey dairy cow so we are not giving up just yet.