are you milking?

[bookwormom]

I am wondering, how many are actually milking either a goat or a cow? How do you like it?

[Drawbar]

Do I count?

On the family's small farm we milk 27 as of today (we sold a few cows, calf's, heifers last week).

On the family's middle sized farm we milk 125 cows as of today which is about max...

And on the family's big farm we are now milking 403 since buying 75 cows last month.

That's a total of 555 Holsteins, milked twice a day, 365 days a year with an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow per day. That equals 44,400 pounds of milk per day, or about 5,920 gallons of milk produced per day hitting the national food chain. That is ONE family!

For what its worth, the creamery we sell to has a patent on a powdered milk. This powdered milk is then sold to many fast food chains and used as a milk shake mix, so there is a very good chance that the chocolate milk shake you had at McDonald's yesterday came from our cows located here in Maine.

When you add it all up, its amazing what one farm (or homestead) can produce.

[Drawbar]

Sorry I forgot the last part.

Dairy farming is a way of life, and even though I only fill in part time on the family farms, I love it. I like the cows too, but after spending 20-25 years with "the girls" you get kind of attached to them. :)

http://www.railroadmachinist.com/images/After_Milking-small.JPG

[walls0stone]

Not Milking mine cuz they are beef cattle. :)

Just think how hard it would be to support the world now if we didn't have the up to date, new ideas in farming.

[Drawbar]

Its pretty interesting, they say if all the farmers went to organic gardening, 3 out of 10 people would starve to death...there is just no way to support the amount of people we have on this planet through organic gardening. At the same time, for the first time in history, land used to grow crops is now being used to produce fuel so we can drive around. Its also the first time that a retail gallon of milk costs LESS than a retail gallon of gas.

I think the biggest challenge now in farming is to do it with the least amount of diesel fuel. Even on our farm we are doing well at that. We are using bigger equipment, trucks, tractors and implements and getting so much more done, so much faster that its really cut down on our fuel bill.

Using a 400 hp tractor, and 33 foot disc for instance we were able to till and plant over 400 acres of corn using 400 gallons of fuel! And using a 16 foot discbine, we knocked down 28 acres in 65 minutes sing about 3 gallons of diesel fuel.

If we get the new barn (and we'll have to at some point) we will be milking 600-700 cows on the big farm, so we are doing okay at the moment.

[AlchemyAcres]

Yeah....I start the day early and help the neighbor's on their farm 4-5 hours a day...6 days a week.

No milk animals on my place currently, but I plan to get some milk goats again next spring.


~Martin :)