Meet the A2/A2 Girls
The last few months on the homestead were hectic with changes, planned and unplanned. We sold some cows, had some cows butchered, bought a new cow and then our lovely Miss Lilly died unexpectedly on us a month or so after she calved. This left me with a calf to feed and no milk for him or many of our customers over the holidays.
We did some soul searching and business evaluation during the enforced two week break over the holidays. In the end we decided to continue with the business.
Since we had to purchase a new cow because of Lilly's death, we decided to purchase A2/A2 cows and have our own cows tested for the A2/A2 beta casein protein. We contacted our friends north of Spokane, Washington and asked if they had any A2 cows available. They did in fact and she had two that she wanted us to buy. We only needed one cow, but she made us a good deal on two cows and two bulls calves to start training as oxen and consume the extra milk. So we scrounged around and found enough money for them and then made the trip north.
We left the boys with the grandparents and took baby VAR and headed north. The morning we left it snowed a couple of inches, but when we got down in the canyon there was only rain. We ended up having completely dry roads all the way north, and very minimal snow along the sides of the road.
We finally made it up there and they showed us all around their dairy and their gorgeous Jersey girls. We loaded the little bull calves under the topper on the back of our truck into a nice bed of straw, so they would stay warm. And then we loaded the girls into the trailer. They loaded easy. Nice quiet girls.
So here's a list of our new girls:
This is Shelley, we actually got her a month or so ago, but we just have been so busy I haven't been able to get her story on here. She is three years old, on her second lactation, and is A2/A2.
Here is Lacey at three and a half years old. She is also on her second lactation, and is A2/A2.
This is Callie, also three and a half years old, she is on her second lactation, and is A2/A2.
We bought two bull calves as an investment project. These boys are for sale, and we will train them as oxen until they are sold. They can be sold any time at whatever level of training they have at that time.
Here is Diesel at three weeks old.
And this is Caterpillar or Cat for short, at one week old.
So we are now officially the home of raw A2/A2 milk, cheese, butter, ice cream and oxen power!