Post by lstein on Feb 25, 2019 17:01:45 GMT -5
Hello everyone my name is Levi, thanks for having me.
My wife and I are thinking about keeping a family cow sometime in the future. Right now we are still very much in the exploratory phase and would probably be looking at next year, if we decided to keep one.
I have experience with cows, from my parents beef cattle farm, but not so much with the milking side of things. We live on a small farmstead where we have 2 horses, chickens, turkeys, and until recently large herd of boer goats. This winter we decided to get out of the goat business, and we've sold most of our 40 head herd. We still have four that will be having kids in a few weeks, but they will also be finding new homes this summer. Basically we got burnt out, we had too many for it to be enjoyable (we both also have full time jobs) but not enough to pay their bills; and were just costing us money.
So now we find ourselves with a large empty barn and 20 acres of pasture! Looking to learn as much as we can, so we can make an informed decision.
I do have one quick question though.
I'm really interested in the nurse cow side of keeping a milk cow. Or mainly keeping the cow's calf with the cow (and maybe another, if we are lucky enough to get one that will accept another). At the moment with just the two of us, we don't really go through enough milk to possibly hope to keep up with a cow (we do plan on starting a family in the future though) nor do we have the ability to milk a cow everyday, twice a day, rain or shine, etc etc. but would still like to have access to fresh farm milk.
Is this a viable option? Milking the cow a couple times a week (or as needed) while letting her raise a calf(s)?
Thanks again for having me and for any advice you have!
Levi
My wife and I are thinking about keeping a family cow sometime in the future. Right now we are still very much in the exploratory phase and would probably be looking at next year, if we decided to keep one.
I have experience with cows, from my parents beef cattle farm, but not so much with the milking side of things. We live on a small farmstead where we have 2 horses, chickens, turkeys, and until recently large herd of boer goats. This winter we decided to get out of the goat business, and we've sold most of our 40 head herd. We still have four that will be having kids in a few weeks, but they will also be finding new homes this summer. Basically we got burnt out, we had too many for it to be enjoyable (we both also have full time jobs) but not enough to pay their bills; and were just costing us money.
So now we find ourselves with a large empty barn and 20 acres of pasture! Looking to learn as much as we can, so we can make an informed decision.
I do have one quick question though.
I'm really interested in the nurse cow side of keeping a milk cow. Or mainly keeping the cow's calf with the cow (and maybe another, if we are lucky enough to get one that will accept another). At the moment with just the two of us, we don't really go through enough milk to possibly hope to keep up with a cow (we do plan on starting a family in the future though) nor do we have the ability to milk a cow everyday, twice a day, rain or shine, etc etc. but would still like to have access to fresh farm milk.
Is this a viable option? Milking the cow a couple times a week (or as needed) while letting her raise a calf(s)?
Thanks again for having me and for any advice you have!
Levi