The Dexter Family Milk Cow
Dexter cattle are the perfect choice for our family homestead! While meeting both our needs for beef and milk, both are on a more manageable scale that fits our family best!
Among Dexter cattle, some are more suited for beef production, while others have more developed milk lines. Managment of cattle also plays an important role in milk production.
During the first lactations of my milk cows, I made a lot of mistakes that led to low milk production. With continued education, I am working hard to correct my errors so we can enjoy the full benefit of owning a family milk cow.
This page is dedicated to sharing the real data when it comes to our Dexter cattle milk production. Here I share the daily milk logs of each of our Dexter cows to give a realistic picture of owning a Dexter Milk cow.
While I know this is a tiny sample of the milk production of Dexter milk cows, this is real data, not an estimation, but actual measured milk production.
Meet our Dexter Milk Cows
Nutty Meg
Meg is our primary milk cow. Born in October of 2021, Meg is in her second lactation. She’s an excellent mother, though she can be a bit moody. Overall she is cooperative and easy to handle.
Prior to the birth of Meg’s first calf we had done absolutely no milk cow training. Those early days were challenging! Dealing with a hormonal new momma who I affectionately called Mom-Zilla!
Thankfully with persistance and a lot of hard work, Meg has become an excellent milk cow and my favorite (most of the time)!
Meg has a slender build, making it difficult to keep weight on her. She is A2N, meaning she carries one copy of the A2 beta-casein gene and one copy of a non-A2 gene.
While calf sharing, she is stingy with her cream line, but provides excellent cream early in her lactation and after her calves are weaned.
At peak production, Meg gives around 2 gallons a day. However, she consistently gives about 1 gallon a day while calf sharing.
Eleanor Odessa- “Ellie”
We have only recently begun to milk Ellie. Born in August of 2021, a little older than Meg, she had her first calf in January of 2025. While Meg was bred to an outside bull, we wanted to breed Ellie to our bull, Prince. However, due to his age and stature, that took much longer than anticipated. This made Ellie a much older first-time mom at 3 years old. (Typically, heifers are bred to have their first calf at 2 years old.)
Ellie’s build is more typical of the beefy lines of a Dexter. She is a hefty momma and a bit overweight. While we knew Ellie was bred, we had no idea when her calf would be born. She surprised us on a very cold day in January, delivering her calf in the back of the field. Her udder had developed but she never bagged up.
We had spent months training Ellie as a family milk cow which allowed us some freedom when it came to milking. However in those early days, her milk production was so low, I bottle fed her calf for a few weeks until he consistently refused his bottles. Born in the coldest part of winter, I needed to know he went to bed each night with a full belly! Eventually Ellie was able to produce enough milk for her calf, Jack Frost, but we were unable to milk her for the family.
Ellie is A2A2 milk producer with a beautiful udder. Ellie doesn’t give a lot of milk, though she is whooing me with her beautiful cream line! My hope is that with persistence and better management that she will become a productive milk cow for our homestead.
Ellie was dried off in early October 2025 in anticipation of her next calf.
