We are sold on having a milk cow. It’s amazing how much it has impacted our lives. In weighing the pros and cons, owning and milking a cow is by far the winner in the equation. I never could have known this until we jumped off the cliff and bought one.
Buying a milk cow is a huge investment and very scary for people to even think about. What if you get a cow, and realize you just don’t like milking? Can you afford the hay? What if the cow is too aggressive? Is there help if a cow gets sick?
There are so many questions and so many things to be worried about. But as a mom with three small children and a newborn, I think that if I can do it, anyone can!
Note: we thought we would buy another milk cow by now. At least, I did. But we haven’t and we might not. I’ll share the pros and cons of a milk cow and then tell you why we are not replacing our milk cow for a while.
Pros of owning a family milk cow:
The Abundance of Milk
This is probably the biggest selling point to me. You can get gallons of food every day. You know where it comes from, you know how it’s kept clean, and you intimately know the health of the animal that gave you that food. Unlike growing a pig for meat, where you feed them for months and months and then you get a one-time reward of a finite amount of meat and fat, cows faithfully provide, day after day, year after year.
Milk provides in a number of ways:
- It provides food for you.
- It is a sellable resource.
- Milk waste is food for animals.
- Manure from the cow is good for the soil, which improves the garden and the grasses, making the land more abundant to feed you and your animals in a beautiful natural cycle.
A cow is the key to regenerative agriculture
You can’t heal the land without a ruminant. Cows eat grass, but properly managed they only eat the grass necessary to help the plants grow back stronger next year.
The cows feed the soil through the rich biome in their manure. Without it, it’s very difficult to heal the land.
We learned this firsthand. We saw what rotating pigs and chickens could do to the soil, but we didn’t expect the sheer amount of manure a cow will put out, or the incredible results we could see in just one season of properly managing one cow’s grazing.
A rotationally grazed cow on your land right now is an investment into future land fertility. That is something of great value.
Milk cow health benefits
I could write a book on the benefits of raw milk. So I won’t list them hear. But raw milk is one of the greatest sources of nutrition for man. The microbiome from the cow is in the milk, keeping it safe and healthy to consume. There are very few sources of good biome as powerful as a cow’s stomach. And that’s something to take into consideration as a huge factor when thinking about how much healthier you will be with a milk cow.
Read more on bacteria and dairy in my yogurt for probiotics post.
The health benefits of owning a milk cow really hit me the first time I milked our cow. Walking up from the shed with a bucketful of still-warm milk, I realized that in my hands was food for our family that hadn’t been touched by chemicals, additives, or shipped in from another country. I didn’t have to play the food label game (grass-fed vs. pasture-raised vs. organic vs. cage free.) I just had, in my hands, a real food. A food that was completely natural and took just an hour to get. Which, by the way, takes much less time as you learn how to milk.
If you think about cow’s milk in comparison to cultivating a garden, you can think about how much time you put in to make one zucchini plant provide you with food. Zucchini plants are abundant, but they still require you to water them, tend to them as seedlings, feed them compost, and protect them from pests. In the end, yes, you get an abundant harvest, but it really is nothing like a milk cow. Especially considering the time you put in.
Milk cow cost benefits
It doesn’t take much to make some delicious dairy products. Butter is simple. Yogurt is simple. Mozzarella is simple. And other cheese, while time-consuming, is delicious and full of nutrients and probiotics.
When I have a cow, I can feed my kids yogurt for breakfast every morning. That cuts out the cost of breakfast. I can feed hungry kids kefir smoothies or more yogurt or mozzarella throughout the day. I can elevate the simplest meals with some heavy cream, homemade cheese, or fried paneer instantly.
If I were to buy even half of the milk products I am able to get from our cow, we would blow our grocery budget. And the stuff in the store is incomparable to the quality of the milk from my own cow.
The milk from your family cow replaces many food items that you would otherwise spend money on, and replaces the luxury dairy products that are normally considered treats. (Gouda, anyone?)
Cons of Owning a Family Milk Cow:
The abundance of milk can be hard to manage
I find abundance to be more of a pro than a con, but it was actually the most stressful and time-consuming part of owning a cow at first. It gets easier as you settle into a routine, but knowing what to do with all the milk is a huge mental load. You have to organize your fridge, you have to always be rotating the jars of milk, you have to be really on top of selling the milk shares if you do that, and it all gets so overwhelming that it sometimes feels like just too much.
But then, you sit down and drink a cup of coffee with your own fresh heavy cream, and remember why it’s worthwhile to keep the fridge clean.
Owning a milk cow doesn’t make you money.
We really didn’t know this when we started out. Granted, our situation might be unique, but owning a cow costs a lot of money where we are, and the milk, as expensive as it is, usually just barely covers the cost of feed. There were a few months there where we had a little extra cash to carry over to the next month. But not always.
And we really thought we could make a business out of selling milk from our cow.
I know people make it work, but they have to have six cows to make it worthwhile, and if they do, they have to find cheaper hay than we are able to find.
The reason we don’t want to have a micro-dairy is because it would take up more time than I’m willing to put in. Right now, I can milk a cow out in five minutes if she’s only producing a gallon, or ten if it’s closer to two. It takes me fifteen minutes to wash up, filter and bottle the milk, and record everything, and maybe ten minutes to go out to the cow and come back. All in all, I spend around 45 minutes with the milking routine. (Per milking.) I might be interested in one more cow, but probably not. I just don’t have the time to spend.
Owning a milk cow is very demanding on your time.
What I said about a milk cow not making you very much money goes right into this point. I’m a fast milker. And yet it still takes 45 minutes per milking from start to finish. That’s an hour and a half long chore for a very fast milker.
Granted, there are some things that make this easier. The only time I’m actually out of the house is about 15-25 minutes, which isn’t much when you think about dedicated time away from little kids. I can wash up and filter and bottle the milk with a baby on my hip, and the washing can even wait until I tend to some little person’s needs first.
Now if you are selling milk shares, the time commitment suddenly multiplies. You have to keep track of jars. You have to keep track of what milk is yours and what is claimed by your customers. There’s also the added weight to your mind about how much milk to give per jar, how clean the milk will be (sometimes a speck of dirt or hay will sneak through the filter. Which is why I double filter. I know that that speck is not harmful but if I were buying milk that had an unknown contaminant I would be grossed out).
Arranging who comes what day and how much to give each person is also a time commitment. Often people hang around and visit, which is great. But if it’s unexpected that’s another tax on this time.
It’s lots of work to chase the grass
Chasing the grass means rotational grazing a cow to best benefit the soil and give the cow as much food as possible. Putting a cow in a twenty-by-twenty-foot paddock made of electric wire gives a cow plenty to eat (if there is grass) and yet forces them to eat what is there without wasting and while concentrating the manure on that one spot.
If you don’t want to spend as much money on feeding your cow, you are going to want to chase the grass. But while this doesn’t add much time into your day, it is another addition to the needs and cost of keeping a milk cow. It takes less time to milk than to rotate a cow.
The daily grind:
You can’t quit. It just happens every day, no matter what. Like there will always be people to feed dinner, there will always be a cow to milk. Unless you calf share, you can’t just quit milking one day.
Sometimes it’s just really hard to get up early every morning, or to have dinner ready on time to go out and milk at the dinner hour. You can’t go on vacation unless you have a backup milker. Or sleep in if you milk in the morning. You can’t stay late at a friend’s house if you milk in the evening. It anchors you to your home. (I don’t necessarily consider this a con, but more on that later).
In any case, there are no extenuating circumstances that would supersede the need to milk your cow. You can’t ever stop. And that’s a daunting commitment. Especially when you don’t have anyone to help you milk in case of an emergency. Thankfully for us, we have some very kind neighbors who help us milk and are always there for us in a pinch.
The financial risk:
Cows are really expensive. If you decide you don’t like being a cow person, there is risk involved. While there is a demand for milk cows, it is always a scary thing to spend that kind of money. What if the cow dies? Hopefully, you can always eat your cow if things go south, like we did. But maybe that isn’t possible. You just lost thousands of dollars.
Not to mention the cost of hay. Depending on where you live, it is really expensive to even feed your cow. Hopefully the food they give you either being butchered or by giving milk would make up for that price tag.
What if the cow isn’t pregnant and you dry her off?
Through inexperience, we did this. And we ended up butchering our cow because we made this mistake. Now I know that there are much better ways to know if your cow is pregnant than what we did.
But if you have a cow, you dry her off, and she isn’t pregnant, then you have a mouth to feed that won’t give you anything for another ten months at least. That’s a risk as well.
It’s hard if you don’t have backup milkers
We were very fortunate to have wonderful neighbors who would very happily help us out whenever we needed it. I’m not really sure what we would have done without them sometimes. For instance, coming back home from out of town and getting stuck in doctor’s appointments or being late because of traffic. They have bailed us out so many times, it’s definitely a big factor to consider.
The learning curve is steep
It can really be hard to get past. But once you are on the other side, you’ve made it. You won’t have to learn it that way ever again.
But the intimidation factor of that learning curve is a huge deterrent to just jumping in.
Milking is not always a pleasant experience
It’s either cold and dark, or buggy and hot. It’s either raining or too sunny. No matter what, it’s always a little physically uncomfortable. I find it to be like going on a run outside. It’s still extremely rewarding, but some runs are better than others.
It’s hard to milk with a baby in the carrier
Ben and I have a good system for when we have a milk cow. Either we do two milkings or one, and either way we make sure that we milk when he is most likely to be home to either milk or help with the kids.
But life is never predictable and there are often times where he has to work late.
It ends up being that I have to take all the kids outside with me to milk because they are still too little to be left alone. That means the baby is in the carrier and the kids are playing near me. It’s way slower and can really burn me out. I need the kids to stay close enough that I know they are safe, but not too close to annoy the cow. I need the baby to not wiggle in the carrier and not be frustrated with my sitting still for fifteen to twenty minutes.
It means a lot of breaks to make sure baby stays happy, and make sure the kids are close but not too close. It feels like a circus. But it’s just an extra challenge, not impossible.
However, on top of the circus, having a baby in the carrier requires more muscle work than milking without a baby. It tires my arms out and my balance is off. So it’s physically harder as well.
It’s hard to milk with kids outside in winter
Things are always easier up here on the mountain in summer time! Winter is hard, and winter is hard with babies, and winter is hard with milking a cow. So milking a cow, with babies, in winter, is just really hard.
That’s why having the best husband ever who helps with everything is essential!
Pros and cons weighed together and more details:
If you count up the pros and cons above, there are a lot more cons than pros! But I think the pros weigh more, and many of the cons are actually just pros in disguise.
Pros:
Summed up, a milk cow gives you an abundance of reliable, healthy food and nutrition to the soil.
Cons:
Summed up, a milk cow is a life-changing commitment, a huge financial investment, and guaranteed hard work.
Why we want a milk cow in spite of our many small children and busy life
- While owning a milk cow is a life changing commitment, this doesn’t mean it can’t change your life for good. I mentioned earlier in this post that having a milk cow anchors you to your home, and I think this can be a very good thing. Depending on your life and circumstances, having a reason to simplify your life and center it around family time is I think a wonderful descision. (Read my post on a simple life here).
- Although a milk cow is a huge time suck and guaranteed hard work, I think it can still be so beneficial. It becomes a lifestyle choice. An intentional decision to simplify. You choose to spend your time doing whatever things you do, why not spend your time with a cow outside in nature? Ben and I love this part. Ben will come home and set up the next fence while I milk. And the kids play in the woods with us. It’s such a perfect family activity, and I think people are starving for natural things to do with the people they love these days.
- It may be a huge financial investment, but we lost in all the ways you can with a milk cow, and we are still so happy we bought her. For three reasons. First, because a milk cow is still lots of very high quality delicious meat in the freezer if something goes wrong. Second, because experience is more valuable than you think. And third, because good quality food is more valuable than you think.
A few notes on how we fed our milk cow and how that could affect circumstances
Grain fed cows vs. pure grass fed
We didn’t give our milk cow grain. We follow the method the Dougherty family has discovered, and we think it makes a lot of sense. However, you lose a lot in production without the addition of grain. We think it may be better for the cow and her digestive system, something we want to be in the best shape to feed us and the soil proper nutrition.
I think, however, that it can be cheaper to supplement with grain. To have more milk for less feed definitely makes more financial sense. Since we didn’t do this, I won’t speak to it, but I do think there’s a reason every dairy I know feeds grain. It is meant to boost production.
Feed lot cows vs. chasing the grass with rotational grazing
We like to rotational graze as much as possible. This is as much for the soil as it is for the cow, maybe even more for the soil. But it does help cut costs. The more the cow is feeding herself off the land, the better.
(Note: I haven’t mentioned this yet, but I did in my post on how to buy a cow. We don’t have great grass where we live. We live in the high desert of New Mexico. Our dream is to heal the land by using regenerative agriculture, but it will take some time and investment. That is always at least part of the reason to have a milk cow.)
A note on selling milk
In an ideal situation, we would have enough grass to feed a cow most of the year. If hay were as cheap as it is back east, we would probably not sell any milk at all. Or if we did, we would sell maybe a gallon or two.
The key to a zero-inputs farm is the cow. If you haven’t heard this term, read or listen to something from the Dougherty’s. They have an excellent book about how to accomplish this.
A zero-inputs farm is our goal, and the way to achieve that goal is to heal the soil of desertification through rotational grazing. (Post on this coming soon.)
The reason a cow is key is because most places have grass. Grass is a food that is in abundance most of the time. If you feed a cow off of your property by managing the cow’s grazing, then you will have an abundance of milk that was sourced from your own native plants, and you will have manure to make those plants healthier and stronger for the next season. It is this beautiful cycle that just gets better the more you do it.
A cow creates its own abundance of milk, which is food for all the rest of the farm. This milk is so valuable. It creates a positive cycle of abundance by its very existence. What I mean by this is that if you are getting gallons of milk every day, you need a pig or lots of chickens. And suddenly, by feeding a cow the grass that was just sitting there on your property to begin with, you get daily milk, meat from a pig, and eggs. Not to mention the calves that the cow gives you every year, bringing you meat, more milk, or cash. Suddenly, that grass becomes really important.
It really is the best way to farm, and it is the way it was done pre-industrial revolution. I’m so passionate about getting our grass to a point where this zero-inputs cycle can work. We are far from it, but every year we have a better looking, healthier yard.
Our cost breakdown: selling milk shares to offset the costs
For you to get a better understanding of the risk factor of buying a cow, I’ve recorded all our expenses on Margot, our cow. Keep in mind that we lost probably as much money as we could have on a cow by what happened with her. So, this is really worst-case scenario. We butchered her and got milk from her, so she still fed us even though we lost money. In the end, it was a very practical decision and makes me think we need to just buy another cow, even though it’s a financial investment.
The details:
- Milk shares. We sold milk shares at $12/ gallon. We would sell on average 5-8 gallons per week. Some weeks we made more money, and most weeks we made less. In total, we earned $1,502 for the 25 weeks Margot was in milk. Which comes out to $60/week.
- Hay cost. The cost of hay varies in price depending on the year and quality. We also learned that good hay is worth the price, but at first, we started with the cheapest hay we could find. The cost of hay averaged about $8/day or $56/week. If we sold 5 gallons of milk per week, we would profit $60/week. We would break even with four dollars to spare.
- Cost of cow. We spent $3,500 on Margot. I would say this is about average for a cow, maybe on the lower end because packaged into that price was delivery from Oklahoma all the way to New Mexico.
- Extra expenses. Ben would have to travel to Albuquerque until we switched hay, and we had to buy a couple $50 tarps to protect the hay. Albuquerque is almost 2 1/2 hours away, and we had to pay for the gas money. Often Ben would end up spending $100 on gas and food per trip. I’m averaging that we spent around $500 on extra expenses.
- Milking supplies. We spent $187.23 on milking supplies. It could have been much more expensive if we chose to buy a milking machine, but we decided not to, and we are really happy with the hand-milking route.
- Freeloader cow. We stopped milking the last week of September and Margot went to butcher in the middle of January. We thought she was pregnant but she wasn’t. (Long story, read here). We had leftover cash for the first hay purchase after we dried her up from all the milk we sold, but then paid for the rest. Which came to $504 for 9 weeks freeloader cow.
- Butcher cost. We paid to have Margot butchered. We could have done it ourselves, but we decided to pay to have it done. It cost $571.
- Milk and meat. In total, we got milk from Margot for 25 weeks. She produced on average 2 1/2 gallons per day, which is 455 gallons in total. We sold a portion of that, which came to 325 gallons that went to our family and farm. We got 381 pounds of meat from Margot.
So here’s the cost breakdown. I’m splitting up the expenses between meat and milk.
What we spent in total: $5,262.23.
What we gained in total: 381 pounds of meat and 325 gallons of milk. No financial profit. (don’t forget that the bones, meat, fat, and milk have all fed not only us but our pigs and chickens and dogs. I haven’t calculated how much money we have saved by that food, but I do know that it filled our table with food at every meal, and we never bought dairy products such as half-and-half and butter while we had milk.)
| Costs | Profit | Net |
| Hay: $56/ week | Milk shares: $60/ week | Around $0 |
| Hay after Margot dried up: $504 Milking supplies: 262.23 | Milk: 325 gallons to our family (valued at $3900 for $12/ gal) | We spent $2.35/ gallon. (we would have spent 50 cents per gallon had we not dried Margot up) |
| Cow: $3,500 Butcher: $571 Extra Expenses: $500 | Meat: 381 lb. (valued at $4953 for $13/pound) | We spent $11.99/ pound. |
Why we may not replace Margot for a while
In spite of all these positives, we might need to wait on buying another milk cow. We need to save up the money, as we know exactly what we are getting ourselves into now. The investment is totally worth it, considering we never got a calf from Margot, and we could have gotten a lot more milk from her before we dried her up if we had known she wasn’t pregnant.
However, I just had a baby, it’s barely spring, and if we wait a few months, we will be more financially ready and capable of the extra work. I’m confident we can totally do it right now, but since we already don’t have a cow, it sort of makes sense to wait until we are ready. And then we will hopefully never be cow-less again. This is just a season, and it will pass before we know it. I guess we should enjoy it while we have it.
Tell me your thoughts
I would love to know what you are thinking. have you bought a cow? how much is hay where you are? have you experienced other pros or cons? what questions do you have? Feel free to comment or reach out to osoridgeranch@gmail.com
