We started into our cow adventure with Hope, a full sized Jersey, as a family milk cow since we wanted to have raw milk without constantly buying it. We had her for almost three years, and then she died from a perforated ulcer in her fourth stomach. That was both heart shattering and eye opening. It got us talking with our vet and he shared a lot of insights about the problems he sees with dairy cows. In his experience, they've been bred to produce more milk than their bodies can really support healthfully and so they develop lots of organ problems over time. Hope had been producing nearly seven gallons a day at freshening, which was a lot for her body, and was actually more milk then we needed. After doing some research, we decided to try Miniature Jerseys. That way we got to keep the lovely Jerseys, but didn't have to have as much milk, and they weren't as big. Enter Danny and Bessie. We stayed the course with Mini Jerseys up until two years ago without any issues beyond managing pretty consistent milk fever with Bessie. Then we had a run of multiple tragedies that decimated our herd, many of which were tied to the more delicate nature of milk cows in general and jerseys in particular. Back down to two, and planning on selling one of them, we got down on our knees and prayed. We had no idea what we were supposed to do. We knew that we were lead to the cows that we got, and it felt confusing that we were back to square one (ish). But the Lord has a hand in our flocks and herds, and we've learned over time to trust that. After spending a lot of time on our knees, doing a bunch of research, and having lots of family meetings, we decided to stay in cows. This time though, we felt directed to build on what we've been doing with our goals with goats and chickens, and add the cows to our list of Wyoming landrace farm animals. We're going to be breeding in several other breeds to create a hardy, sturdy, thrifty, and feed efficient dairy cow who can handle the tough environment of Wyoming. Our target breeds include Mini Jersey, Mini White Park, Mini Highland, Dexter, and Aubrac, with potential additions of Ayrshire, Canadienne, Milking Short Horn, and Belted Galloway. We now have pure Mini Jerseys and White-Park/Mini Jersey/Lowline in our herd, with a Dexter/Mini Highland heifer scheduled to join us soon. We are exited to see how our herd changes now that our goals have shifted