Alright -- here goes.
From the vet's wife. . . .
Do y'all know about "easy keepers and hard keepers"?
I learned about this when my husband took his first dairy science course.
 First of all cows must have a calf to have milk!  I know YOU know that, but
some folks I've talked to recently amazingly don't.
Now, dairy farmers classify their cows as "easy keepers or hard keepers".
 The easy keeper has her calf and then makes plenty of milk.  The farmer
feeds her the usual amount of food and sells all the milk.  Over the course
of a year her milk supply slowly dwindles, so he breeds her.  She has a new
calf in the spring and "freshens" that is begins making lots of milk again.
The "hard keeper" on the other hand has her calf, goes into milk production,
BUT if the farmer doesn't feed her a lot more food and more of the expensive
grain etc., her milk production drops.  Guess what happens to the "hard
keeper".  . . .  Your guessed it----she doesn't stay around very long.   Too
much of an economic liability.  A big truck comes to ship her off to -----
gasp!!!!
Arn't you glad our families don't do that to us?
Anyway, I figured out I am a "hard keeper".  I ate like a horse while nursing
my babies and lost, at one point, a over pound a week and got really skinny.
(wish I could give away a little milk now and loose a few middle - aged
pounds) When my 1st baby was 5 months old he was almost 20 # and I hit "the
wall".  Not enough milk.  Luckily my counselor and friend knew what to tell
me when I complained of the baby nurisng all night long, not enough milk, and
being sooooo tired.
Rest, rest, rest, eat, eat, eat, vitamins( I doubled mine), nurse, nurse,
nurse.   Don't expect results for 2 weeks.  In 2 weeks I was a new person.
Jane

Louise, you are an "easy keeper".  Good for times of starvation, you and your
baby would have lived and we would have starved.