Robin Downing

I've never made yogurt, but was raised churning butter. No, you do not add old butter to the fresh cream. Cream contains two ingredients - butter and buttermilk. We always put the cream into a gallon jar and rocked the jar. The cream should be about 65 degrees F. to make the job go quicker. As the jar is rocked, the butter particles bump together and stick. When the butter has formed into a clump, the job of churning is done. The buttermilk is then stained off and the butter is placed into a bowl. We always "washed" our butter. Run cold water into the bowl and work the butter, drain, and work again. when the water drains off clear, work all the remaining water out of the butter. We then added salt and packaged. This thread is the first I have ever heard of boiling the cream. I would think that if the cow is healthy, the milk handled properly and everything used is clean, there would be no need to boil. To me, that would be just like "store bought" lol.

Hello everyone. I have two old butter molds and one butter churn. The wood on all these has a rancid smell. Is there any way to make these tools usable again? Any and all help is appreciated.

Hello everyone. We are considering getting Dexter cattle to raise beef and for milk. Once the calf is born, how does one manage to share the milk with the calf and the family without bottle feeding? I have done this successfully with goats before, but goats are weaned at 2 months old (about) and I did not keep the kids around as the goats were strictly for milk. I don't know what kind of time table to use for the cattle. Leave the calf in with Momma full time for how many days? still milk her twice a day? When to seperate them for part of the day? Day or night seperation? When is the calf weaned? Could I teach the calf to drink from a bucket (not one with a nipple) and just pour it's share in the bucket? Any help here would be greatly appreciated.

I, too, am new and confused. lol. 1000 sq. ft. per chicken would be a 20'x50' pen. If that were divided into 4 paddocks, they would be 20' x 12.5' in size. I'm thinking that if this paddock were well planted and diversified enough, it should support one chicken for seven days. I read somewhere that the chicken should be off the paddock - rotating on the other paddocks - for 28 days. Wouldn't that neccessitate 5 paddocks? If so, then dividing this 1000 sq ft per bird by 5 would mean a 20' x 10' space per week. That's for ONE chicken. I'm thinking I will need at least 3 to supply eggs for the family, or two hens and a rooster. Raising meat birds would be totally different and since they would need to be on pasture only about 2 weeks before slaughter, having permanent paddocks for them would not be a very feasible idea, as I won't be raising meat birds year round.