posted 3 years ago
A further question: What are you feeding this animal? Because yes, Jerseys can produce up to 5 gal + per day, but not if they mostly eat grass. A backyard cow is not likely to over-produce.
Personally, I would not use a purebred of either. Jerseys are good animals, but any purebred Jersey available to you will probably be modern dairy genetics, which means she will do best on high-quality, carefully formulated feed, and if she doesn't get that, she is likely to milk off her own back and her health will suffer. Temperamentally, they are usually sweet but they sure do like to get into stuff (read: trouble). They are famously incapable of JUST LEAVING THAT THING ALONE. Jerseys are also prone to certain health problems and weaknesses, such as a high incidence of milk fever or winged shoulders in age. Jersey farmers are very, very good at dealing with milk fever, but unless you know how to insert an IV yourself, it might not be the best idea. By the time the vet gets there, she may have gone downhill. Any cow with ANY Jersey genetics in her definitely needs oral calcium at calving. For a purebred Jersey, that's not always enough.
Dexters, as mentioned, do just fine without the professional services of a nutritionist, but, as others have pointed out, you may not get much milk. I have only met a few Dexters, but every one I have met was more than a little wild, which personally I would find challenging in a backyard cow. Of course there is individual variation in temperament, but overall breed temperament tendencies do exist. Dexters, as I understand it, were originally bred to handle themselves on range and resist the neighbor's efforts to steal them. That makes for an energetic, independent animal, which is to say opinionated, which is to say she might not go along with YOUR ideas one bit. The biggest genetic weakness of Dexters is that some unscrupulous breeders have encouraged dwarfism in the pursuit of a small frame. Dwarfism is a mutation with bad effects on heart health and health overall. So if you buy a Dexter, you definitely want to look for one with normal cow proportions, even if small. No oversized head, no extremely short legs.
My preferred backyard cow is a crossbreed. My present girl, Vivian, is (mostly) a Jersey-Hereford cross. She's small framed without being a bag of bones, intelligent but not an unbearable pest (most days), and keeping her weight reasonably well through peak lactation in a hard winter on about 40 lbs dry hay (fairly good, not the best possible) and 4 lbs 16% grain, plus any apples or pumpkins going bad in the root cellar. I am calf sharing, and I split her calf off for about 12 hours, then let him in to get her started letting down, milk her most the rest the way out, and let him in again to finish. Then they spend the other half the day together, so I'm milking once a day. I get about one gallon daily (no doubt the calf gets much more!), and that's been consistent for the first five months of this lactation, although I suspect she's starting to slow down, which may mean her beef daddy gave her poor milking persistence. That is one of the risks of beef-crossing, but you never know until an individual animal grows up. Sounds like Jt has the same problem with Dexters. It's probably the inevitable result of a more balanced, hardier animal.
I'm getting a reasonable amount of cream but I don't doubt the little boy takes more than his share of those last creamy drops. She is reluctant to let down for me without involving him, and in the past, I have NOT found the nose-flap weaners to work. A determined calf can get around them and a patient cow may even put up with those nasty plastic spikes, if she loves her baby enough. Which is bad for udder health, obviously. Calf sharing may generally cause problems with udder health. They can be bitey little jerks.
Judging temperament in a cow before you buy her:
Go meet her, preferably untied in a roomy stall or small paddock. Approach her quietly, not looking at her straight on, but with your shoulders and head turned a bit to the side. If she starts to back up, stop and wait. Your ideal cow will think about it for a bit, then come over and say hello. She may not want to be petted until she knows you better, but she should come say hi. It's not unusual for her to want a few minutes to decide whether you're secretly a vet with a needle hidden in your sleeve, but a cow that continues to freak out after you've stood quietly with her, not staring straight on, for several minutes, may be too nervous to be good for close handling in the backyard. Conversely, a cow that comes *immediately* over and starts licking you with great enthusiasm and copious slobber is likely to have aforementioned problems JUST LEAVING THAT THING ALONE, especially if she won't stop licking when you ask her to. And if you meet a cow that reacts to strangers by plunging and shaking her head, do NOT bring her home. She is evil. You're going to fight every day, and probably lose.
If you're buying an adult, it also helps a lot in a backyard situation if they have already been trained to lead, although you can work around it if she's not, as long as you have adequate facilities for channeling her where you want. If you plan to do rotational grazing, find out whether she already recognizes polywire. If not, you will need a small, hard-fenced area to train her in. You should always unload into a small, hard-fenced area anyway, because road trips are stressful and a freshly unloaded cow is confused and may bolt. If you don't have one, try to make a temporary chute to send her directly into the barn and keep her inside for a couple days until she settles down and gets a sense for where she is. If you're buying a cow in milk, go for a bred cow in the last third of her lactation, to minimize transition stress. But most commercial farmers don't milk beef crosses, although they often do have them born, so if you go that route, you might wind up needing to raise her yourself.
Breed temperament matters with beef animals too. Hence Vivan's Hereford parentage. I wouldn't try this with range-beef genetics.
I did know one commercial farm milked a Jersey-Hereford cross who regularly gave 6-7% butterfat by the DHIA test, but only for about 9 months at a time. She was brindle, too!
If you can't find the ideal and you want to buy a grown cow, a small framed Jersey-Holstein cross often does better in the backyard than either purebred parent. Mention to the farmer that you want gentle temper and hardiness over production. You *don't* want the maximum production that cross is capable of unless you have a family of about twelve, but again, there's significant individual variation, and a farmer is more likely to be willing to let a lower-producing animal go anyway. A lower-producing animal will also have an easier time transitioning from commercial to backyard feed.
Hope this helps.