On the road to being self sustainable you really find some neat stuff. These cows are barely bigger than dogs, but produce enough milk for a large family if bread every year. I am enthralled. It feels, on one hand, like I am supporting the mutation of a species for my own needs... and on the other hand, having 1 acre and 2 mini milk cows to go along with my chickens and my huge garden feels self sustainable. What do you think?

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OMgosh, they are so awesome!! I want some! But then, I've told DH I want chickens, and he twitched a little.

My dh twitched at the mear mention of chickens.... but the mini cows seem ok to him. Weird huh? lol!

We just need the set up now. I even know someone who has some. :)

Val

Yup, we have a male and female. The girly just had her 3rd lil' baby. My FIL does all the milking, and it's great to get free milk.....especially since my kids go through it like water.

The bigger (no pun intended) question: Do you want to be tied to a 5 am/5 pm milking schedule every. single. day? Are you prepared for that commitment for the entire milking period? What do you do with ol Bessie when she no longer produces? Are you ready for babies, and to slaughter the baby males? So many questions...

Yes, the milking would be fine. Afterall, I not only have a nearly teen child to switch off with, but I was raised milking goats. And it wasn't ever at 5 am... more like 8am. ;) Which is much more doable.

Slaughtering? No. I would sell them. Just like my mom did the goats. We only ever kept two... we bought two females and kept two female kids. Which we named Bozo and ReBozo (think Pete and RePete) becuase they were indentical twins but one was MUCH smaller than the other.

Hey, we were 7 and 9. ;)

Not to knock the cow idea, but wouldn't goats work too? Goats milk is nice too.

I don't either one, so I don't really know anything!

Question: so if you sell the males, do you sell them for breeding or do you think the people you sell them to slaughter them? That is what usually happens unless you have registered breeding stock.

And what about vacation? Do you never go away for a few days on vacation?

These issues are what has kept us from going w/dairy...so far...it feels like a BIG decision.

Well.. first off, esp around here we would have plenty of friends who would house sit for produce and milk. Esp if we were trading them for something like "we plan for this vacation and will give you milk all season if you would take care of the animals for that week" etc... I have friends who have done this and who I would gladly exchange this with. Yes, we would have to really plan ahead... but I have one set of friends esp who would be TOTALLY down with this type of arrangement. And they are the type who would do the job well and right too.

Second, we are only getting one or two. lol! We are not up for going dairy on any scale larger than that. (I should say "I" becuase although Don would be happier with mini cows than he would even chickens, he wouldn't be doing it unless I was sick or something.)

Oh, and Laurie... goats... nope. Not interested. We may perhaps have a goat as a pet eventually, but the milk isn't something anyone in my family would drink and although the cheese is mild and totally yummy, (I still remember fresh goats milk cheese from my childhood. I can still taste it. We had it every day.) I doubt anyone but me and maybe Alex would eat it. If we are getting butter, milk, yogurt, etc from the cows then it would be worth it... but when it is just the occasional cheese? Nah... I'd rather not put out the effort it would take. KWIM?

Val

PS I would try to sell to people who were going to breed them... but I don't think I would stop selling them just because they were thinking of using them for meat. I eat meat afterall. I am unsure on this point. I wouldn't sell them for veal. But perhaps to be raised, and then to be slaughtered later... but I wouldn't knowingly sell them for veal.

And the milking isn't nearly as difficult if you let the calf be in with the mama. My mom used to let the goats have their babies in the pen with them until they weaned... then we only had to milk once a day. The babies drank the rest.

I've been reading about that, about just milking once a day and letting them have their babies with them. That is reassuring and helpful. Still, we're not sure we want to be tied here. Having friends/neighbors take care of the place wasn't as easy as we thought in February, and I thought it would be fine. Maybe I need to pick different people...but it just didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped and if things were more complicated, I could see it getting much harder to leave. We need to find someone to come housesit, I think.

We are just thinking about doing Highland cattle for meat, and trading for dairy, mainly because we don't want to be tied to the house.

It feels, on one hand, like I am supporting the mutation of a species for my own needs...

From the Miniature Jersey Association:
The Jersey as a breed is known for it’s production of rich, high butterfat milk. The miniature Jersey is the original Jersey. The Jersey breed, like many others, has been selected and bred to become a larger breed. This has been done in the quest to have cows that produce more volume of milk.

After seeing some of the larger Jerseys the last couple of years, I wondered how in the world the early pioneers managed to store up enough feed for the winter months for these larger cows. This certainly makes more sense. If I can get DH convinced as to a cow, this smaller Jersey breed is certainly the most logical for us to have. Thanks for the heads up!

Yes I read this as well. And they were bred to be like this... no genetic modification that would never be done in nature or something like that. If we ever do get cows, this will be what we do. :)

As a mama who has dairy cows and milks them, leaving the baby on the mama half time works wonderfully. In fact we have a calf that we only put back in for trips away and she is so happy to be back with her mama and keeps her nursed out, even though she is a year old. :lol: So, we don't have to get anyone to come milk for us. We have good friends who would do it, and we milk for them when they are away, but I would rather put the calf in and just have them come feed/water. It's not so much work for them that way and it's good for the calf too.

Aileen

Oh Aileen! You just gave me hope. I was REALLY hoping it worked that way with cows too!! :D

Val

That's great news, Aileen. I'm happy to hear it, because our neighbors couldn't handle even feeding/watering our chickens! ;) Our immediate neighbors are not the "farming" type and our house is so tucked away that there's no one we can really ask to take a 15-minute drive each way to do chores twice a day, you know? And showing someone all the chores is overwhelming.

If you do get the cows, would you please get a book by Madeleine Kamman entitled The Making of a Cook? She has a section on processing raw milk. She describes French cheese making, including how she got a light blue cheese. It sounds gorgeous, and within your reach as a cook. ( Out of mine, but definitely in yours.)

Second, would you consider angora rabbits? There is a webpage on handspinning- I think it comes up first on google ( how do you link?) and the author shows how she spins directly from the rabbit. It's mean to raise angora rabbits in Texas- the heat, the heatstroke, but it sounds perfect for Washington.

Utne published a profile of this really intense organic farmer. He kept his rabbits up in a cage. Underneath, the chickens scratched around. In the ground, he added worms. Then he would move the set up. Then, I think, cows meandered over to eat the grass. I think it's in one of the popular food books published in the last year or so. I read about him at the bookstore.

ari

Oh yes, I have been thinking intensly on a rabbit/worm set up. Where the hutch is over the worm bin. Apparently this is the best set up for both ways. You just dump your scraps either into the heap where the worms are, or feed them to the rabbits. The rabbits poop right into the worms, and the compost that they produce between them and the worms is like garden gold.

The cow is a couple years off... rabbits I can get in the forseeable future. Unsure what/when this is going to happen, but it will happen. Not sure how long we will keep said bunnies... but it will be an experiment that the kids and I do some spring. Right now we have the sunflower house with the scarlet runner beans that is growing in a corner, the chicken coop in the other corner, and the garden which is starting to produce fruit like mad right now and the worm bin where we take all our veggie kitchen scraps. This is enough for this year. We will see what next year brings. ;)

Val

I fantasize about these all the time. Wait...that sounds a little weird. I mean, I think having one would be so neat. And fresh, raw milk would be so wonderful. BUt I don't know about having one in the city and what the reality would be like.