What Is The Dry Period?

Did you know that dairy cows, if they are well looked after, experience something called a dry period?  And it’s something that can affect you directly as a consumer.

“What is a dry period?” you may ask.

A dry period is a window of time when the cow is not producing milk. This directly corresponds with the birthing of a calf.  The dry period takes place a few months before the cow is expecting her calf to be born.

Dry periods are important for the health, fertility and productivity of the cow.  It gives the udders time to rest and heal.  It also gives time for the teat canal to seal. This helps prevent bacteria and disease.

Research has found that cows with no dry period produce 25 to 30% less milk during the next lactation.

How does the dry period impact you as a consumer?

There are at least of a couple of ways that the dry period impacts you.

One of the ways is for our Colostrum customers.  Dry periods have a direct impact on our supply of colostrum.  Some of our colostrum customers notice that it goes in and out of stock quite a bit.  This is because colostrum is the first stage of the cow’s lactation.  It is only produced for a short amount of time and has a limited quantity.  We often freeze it because it helps us manage the inventory without wasting it.  When the colostrum gets bought up, it’s gone. (Until next time 😊).

Our Water Buffalo Dairy customers are the other group that is impacted.

It can cause delays in shipping.  For instance, if we do not have enough water buffalo milk to fulfill orders, we will delay some 1-Day and 2-Day shipping orders by one day if necessary. 

We would rather delay and ship your entire order rather than send it incomplete.  If for any reason you need your order shipped on time due to travel or a planned event, please leave us a note in the comment section stating that the order must be shipped on time. That way we can make your order a priority whenever possible.

Why are Water Buffalo customers impacted and not regular cows customers?

The reason is because each cow produces a lot more milk than our Water Buffalo cows.  That is also the reason for the price difference.

What are we doing as a farm to minimize the impact of the dry period?

In order to try and keep a steady supply of milk year-round, our farmer strategically plans the calving of the herd.  In other words, the farmer keeps his cows on a birthing rotation so that he always has a good supply of milk.  It may not work out perfectly because nature often times has other plans.

It would certainly not benefit any of us if all of our cows were on a dry period at the same time!

I hope you learned something new about how we raise our dairy cows.  I hope it also gave you a look into some of the processes behind the scenes. 

Stay well and God Bless!

Amanda and the Buffalo Valley Pastures Team

P.S. If there is anything you would like to find out more about, please send us an email with your requested topic!