I'm surprised as the speed we went from home baked sourdough to owning a dairy cow.
If you haven't started baking your own bread yet just know that there are unexpected consequences. 🥖🐄
Discussion
Hello, hope you are doing well. I am a fellow homesteader used to raising my own chickens and growing my own crops. Found out yesterday that my favorite sourdough bread has soy in it. So I had to give it up. Would love to learn the ways of the dough if you are willing to teach and/or provide educational resources.
Also I would like to look into the possibility of owning my own dairy cow too, but I would need to clear out another acre, or two of my land to make it happen. I'd like to learn all of the costs and responsibilities involved. As well as anything you would like to share on your personal experiences getting started with raising and caring for your own cows to produce milk.
I've never done either before and don't know where to start.
Thank you for your time. Have a wonderful evening. GN
Flour water salt yeast by Ken Forkish is a great resource for sourdough. My advice is don't over think it, find a 'lazy' recipe and start practicing.
The dairy has been a huge learning curve for me. Ive got the art of natural cheese making by David Asher asmu reference for that. With regards to getting the cow they are herd animals and absolutely need a buddy so know it's two cows from the get go. Cows are my favourite people and are a joy to have but if you are light on space try goats.
I could talk about cows all day do if you've got specific questionset me know.
What are the monthly costs and supplies associated with keeping 2 cows well fed, healthy, and happy?
Is there any specific equipment that I need?
Thanks for sharing the bread info too. I will be diving deep this weekend to try and maybe make my first loaf if I can.
Upfront cost of the cows will vary based on where you get them. If you can find a halter trained house cow it makes the logistics of milking much easier but often costs more. Cows are fairly smart, love routine and easy to train. Without knowing where you are it's hard to specify costs. Get connected with others homesteading g in your area and they will point you to the best place locally to try to get a house cow.
Typically a cow will eat between 1-3% of their body weight daily. Ours are on grass and just take care of themselves. They say as a rule of thumb 1 cow per hectare of land but with some closer management and feeding out hay you can do it on less. We are in along dry spell at the moment so are feeding hay but the costs have gone up because of the weather and scarcity so 600kg hay is around $180-200 at the moment and feeds 6 cows for a week. They drink a LOT of water especially if producing milk. Up to 30L a day on the hot days. So having a way to keep clean fresh water up to them is important.
The only equipment we have got them is a halter, flexitubs for holding smaller amounts of hay when milking and an electric fence to increase some control around grazing.
Connect to someone local that you can go and see how they do things. Ive learned so much from my neighbours and by offering to give them a hand to learn from people with experience.
What's your climate like? And how much land are you farming at the moment?
it's a slippery slope