the animals…
…on our farm…
NRF - Norwegian Red…
The traditional cow on our farm is purebred NRF - Norwegian Red. This is a relatively high yelding cow, well-suited for traditional dairy farming.
The NRF cow is often red, as the name suggest. She does however come in all variants and mixtures of red, brown, white and black.
At an average 550 kg weight, the NRF is heavy enough to cause damage on our pastures under wet conditions. Apart from that she fits quite well into our way of farming, and she's calm and easy to handle.
Since we don't push for high volumes in milk production, our NRF cows produce from just short of 6000 to around 8000 liter milk a year. This is modest for this breed, but our numbers and volumes are not exceptionally low compared to other Norwegian farms.
Protein and fat percentages are actually slightly higher than average, as a cow tends to produce richer milk when we're not pushing for volume.
Jersey…
This breed is slowly spreading into Norwegian dairy farming, often as a few animals in addition to the traditional NRF. Lower production volume is weighed up by much richer milk, and the small Jersey cow fits perfectly into our way of farming.
A typical Jersey cow weigh in at around 350 kg, and does not do much damage to pastures under any conditions. Being extremely agile, she gets around everywhere and make use of resources the heavier NRF cow may pass.
Extremely gentle and easy to handle, but definitely with a will of her own. You don't tell a Jersey much – she tells you.
All our Jerseys are born and raised on the farm, and is the result of artificial insemination of NRF cows with Jersey sires. There will always be some Jersey calves, as we want all our NRF cows to give easy birth to small Jersey calves first and maybe also second time.
Jersey cows are always inseminated with Jersey seed, so some are quite purebred. We are, as mentioned, not pushing for high production volumes, but rather for overall well-functioning animals.
Our Jersey cows produce from 3000 to around 5500 liter milk a year, which is quite high. When comparing body weight vs. production, the Jersey competes well with our NRF. This is not a point in itself, but it is definitely a factor when we balance our budget. No question about it: the Jersey is the better cow on our dairy farm.
no bulls…
Our farm isn't structured for raising bulls, so we only keep them for 4 to 9 months, depending on breed.
NRF bulls are sold at around 4 to 6 months of age – they grow fast, to be raised on farms that specialize in meet production.
No one has so far wanted to raise our slow-growing Jersey bulls, so we keep them until we can no longer provide for them – when they are around 9 months of age, at which point they are slaughtered.
It's a pity Jerseys are rejected for beef production, and we would have raised them ourselves if we could. The quality of the final product, the meat, is superior to what's produced by any other breed, so Norwegian consumers clearly don't know about or ask for top quality in this respect.
finally…
Being a small farm with limited resources, the number of animals is obviously limited too. This only creates one problem, in that the close contact and relationship with the individual animal inevitable leads to sad moments – none of them can stay here forever.
The whole idea is a real, meaningful and low stress life for both animals and humans, and the good sides far outweighs the bad for all parties involved. Thus, we won't change much on anything in the near future – only improve what we can.
Raising our own calves and see them grow to well-adjusted and confident members of the small herd, is a joy. This kind of life is not something one can find a good substitute for in today's society, so we'll probably keep at it until we can no longer provide what the animals need.
sincerely 
Hageland 29.oct.2007
last rev: 14.dec.2008
the animals…
