Can you imagine anything better than free raw milk for the rest of your life? You should get a dairy cow or goat.
Keeping a dairy animal can't be that hard, can it?
No More Annoying Vacations
One of the best parts about keeping a dairy animal is that you can kiss vacations good bye. No more expensive airplane tickets, no more evenings at a restaurant, no more weekend get aways.
You will only be tied to home twice a day, every day for 10 months of the year. This gives you so much free time!
Your milker just needs to be milked every 12 hours. But you can spend more time than that with her, like when you have fencing to do or when you put out hay bales, and especially at birthing time.
You get to experience weather that you never would have if you weren't milking. Blizzards, hail storms, sub zero temperatures... she needs to be milked through it all. No more hiding from angry weather for you!
Of course, some people will tell you that you can have the luxury of "calf sharing", or leaving the calf with the cow for 12 hours a day rather than bottle feeding the calf, and then if you need to take a break from milking, just leave the calf on the cow while you are gone.
Don't worry. That won't be an option. If you let the calf nurse its mom, very likely the mom will get mastitis and make the milk unsafe for customers. Plus, the mom will decide she no longer wants to give you her milk, and she will stop "letting down" milk for you so that her calf can have it all. (Even though she makes way more milk than her calf needs.) So you really do get to be there every 12 hours to milk. Isn't it good to feel needed?
Feed Bills
When you have your own dairy animal, the milk is free!
But you will have to feed your animal.
Here in Vermont, the grass grows for a whopping 4 months of the year. If you have grass fed cows, you only need about 2 acres of pasture per cow during the grazing season. Put up lots of fencing so that your animals can graze a new slice of pasture each day. Make sure they have access to water no matter how far from the barn they go in the pasture rotation.
Remind yourself as you are moving fence and water each day that the grass is free.
During the rest of the year, you will need to feed your milkers hay. Your teenagers will have a blast taking square bales out of the truck and stacking them in the barn. They will appreciate that you are helping them build character.
If you want to feed big round bales, you are going to need a tractor to handle the bales. One cow will go through about 15 round bales a year. Your husband wants an excuse to buy a tractor, anyway.
To keep your herd in top condition, be sure to buy them plenty of minerals, kelp, and (depending on the breed and your goals) grain. Be aware that dairy animals will make milk at the expense of their own health if you don't feed them appropriately.
Once you have the barn built, the housing for all subsequent additions to your herd is free!
Health Emergencies
You know how when you had kids, they came with an owner's manual for troubleshooting anything that might go wrong? Dairy animals come with one, too. Owning a dairy animal makes you an instant expert on all ruminant health problems that arise. And believe me, they WILL arise.
At calving or kidding time, you will automatically know if the mom needs help with the birth, and if she does, exactly the right way to proceed. Ever had the pleasure of reaching up inside of a birth canal? Here is your chance.
Downed cow? Don't worry. You will just know if it's bloat, toxemia, or milk fever. Strange lumps on the neck? No need to call a vet. There's only a short list of things it could be, and a few of them are not even life threatening.
Wondering which breed to get? Jersey cows are fun. They are born looking for ways to kill themselves. I recommend a jersey for newbies, just to get your feet wet.
Yearly Breeding
There are lots of easy options to make sure that your girl gives birth every year and continues to give plenty of milk.
Keep a bull or a buck. Bulls generally don't try to kill you until they reach 2 years old--with a few exceptions. Bucks aren't big enough to kill most adults, and they have this adorable habit of peeing on themselves. Your neighbors will enjoy the odiferous pleasure of your buck's aroma during the breeding season.
Find an Artificial Insemination tech who is willing to service a small farm. No doubt you will anticipate exactly when your girl is in heat so that he comes the right day, but if not, don't worry. There's always next month, or the month after that, or the month after that, or the month...
Doing your own Artificial Insemination. You will need to buy a nitrogen tank and fill it with liquid nitrogen, get semen straws shipped to you in nitrogen, and learn how to inseminate an animal with a tube and an injector. It makes an interesting conversation starter.
Clean, Safe Raw Milk
People have been drinking raw milk for thousands of years without modern sanitation practices, and it didn't kill them. So obviously there is no need to worry about sanitation while milking.
Keep in mind that people who have weakened immune systems and aren't exposed to the germs that are on your farm, like you are, might get sick if you give them milk that was produced with poor hygiene. It's not your fault if someone ends up in the hospital after drinking your milk!
If you make cheese with your milk (which is free, remember?) that is contaminated with bad bacteria, your dog will be very glad to eat it for you. Dogs of home cheese makers tend to be very well fed.
Next Steps
Before you bring home that cute little heifer or goat kid, be sure to make good friends with a large animal vet, invest hundreds of hours watching a youtuber who knows all about everything that can go wrong with dairy animals, and talk to your significant other about how much fun they will have operating a tractor and eating home made cheese to get them on board. Maybe don't mention all the hours you will spend with your animals in stead of your spouse. Or feed bills.
Start bringing your neighbor lots of treats to butter them up to see if they will farm sit for you during the couple of months when your girl is not milking. (Please don't trust anyone to milk for you. They will kill your cow or goat.)
Finally, get your head examined. No one in their right mind would actually want a dairy animal!
Oh, did I mention winter water needs?
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