How to Raise a Milk Cow on Your Small Farm

Raising milk cows can be a profitable endeavor for your small farm. It will provide enough milk for your family and to sell, it's a peaceful thing to do, and the whole family can get involved.

If you raise the cow from a newborn calf, it would be good to bottle fed the calf so it will bond with you. Leave it with its mother for the first three or four days so that the calf will get plenty of colostrum. This will give the calf a good start and make it healthier. Bottle feed at least six weeks. If you can, it would be better to bottle feed three months or more. Once the calf is weaned, it will follow you around as if you are its mother. Continue to visit it often to keep the bond going. Pet the calf, and as you do, reach under and stroke its belly so it will be used to being touched on the udders.

When the calf, or heifer, which is a female calf that has not given birth, is old enough, have it bred. Continue to keep the bond going. Near the end of the pregnancy, which is nine and a half months for a cow, be sure the heifer is fed a healthy feed, to insure the birth will go well. Feed the young heifer in the same spot everyday, where ever you plan to milk, so it will be used to going into that spot. Continue once the heifer's calf is born.

Three or four days post partum; separate the newborn calf from the new mother cow. Separate them well, because if they are too close and your pen is not tight enough, they will find a way to get back together.

Begin to milk the cow every morning and evening, as close to the same time every day as it is possible. You cannot miss a milking without endangering the cow's health. If you think you do not want to milk twice a day, you might consider separating the cow and calf at night, milk in the mornings, and then turn the calf out with the mother cow during the day. This would keep you from having to bottle feed the calf, and if you ever had to be gone a day or two, you could leave the two together without worrying about the milking. However, it's very hard to separate the mother and baby every day, and when you do it this way, you do not get as much milk.

If the milk tastes 'off', it's probably because of something the cow is eating, or the feed you are using. It will pay to buy high quality feed. You can also feed your cow alfalfa pellets or hay to sweeten the milk. Give the cow plenty, because the better the cow eats, the more milk you will get, and the better quality it will be.

Be sure and 'strip' the udders. This means keep milking until you cannot get anything else out. This will keep the cow's udders healthy, and the best, richest part of the milk comes from the last part of the milking. That is where you will get the cream, and that's the part you really want.

Once you have finished milking, take the milk into the house and strain it. It's impossible to milk by hand without getting some dirt and hair in the milk. You can use a clean towel that you keep especially for this purpose, cheese cloth, or you can buy filters especially made for straining milk. Once the milk is strained, pour it into a glass jar, and refrigerate it as quickly as possible. As it cools, the cream will rise to the top. You can skim the cream off the milk and make butter or whipping cream, or the cream can be stirred back into the milk for a healthier, richer taste.

If you choose to sell your milk, you can sell it as skimmed milk, and then sell the cream separately, or just sell the whole milk. When I was selling milk, I kept a refrigerator on the back porch. I labeled the jars of milk with the names of my customers, and kept a small jar along side the milk with small change for the customers to leave their payment. The customers always left an empty jar to take the place of the jar they took with them. I always included the extra milk and quart jars of cream that had not been claimed yet for anyone who wanted to buy it. I would label these 'extras' with the date, and if anything remained after a day or two, I would continue to leave it in there, but would mark the price down accordingly. Soured cream can be used for butter or sour cream. Soured milk would make cottage cheese or a number of other things. Just don't expect to get as much money for the soured items. If the milk remains unbought long enough to curdle, it makes wonderful food to feed your chickens, cats or dogs.

Depending on how easily raw milk can be bought in your area, it can sell anywhere from $4 on up to as much as $15 or more a gallon. You also need to check the laws in your area to see what is required to sell raw, unpasteurized milk. In my area, it could be sold as long as the customers came to the farm, we could not take the milk off the farm to sell it.

Milking a cow is a peaceful, calming thing to do. It is time consuming to care for a cow properly, but it is a very good investment, health wise, and profit wise!