House Cows

Before you decide to keep a house cow you must make sure that you or your household can milk the cow twice a day for approximately 300 days a year. The cow will also need daily attention during its 2 month dry period. Cows will reach a peak yield of up to 5 gallons a day about six weeks after calving. The regulations concerning the sale of milk are complex, so the surplus over and above your own requirements will have to be made into yoghurt, butter, cream and cheese. These can be simply made using ordinary household equipment, but it will take quite a lot of time and good organisation. It will also produce by-products - butter-milk and whey - which will need to be disposed of in cook-ing or by feeding to pigs or poultry. So a cow is quite an under-taking and if you are not sure that you can profitably use or dis-pose of the surplus you might be wiser to think of keeping goats.

The Jersey and Guernsey breeds make good house-cows. Their yield is not excessive and the milk is high in solids. They are also much hardier than one tends to think. Do make sure than the cow is brucellosis accredited before buying. You will need 1 to 2 acres of grassland per cow, and Z/3 of this should be cut for hay to provide winter forage (12 to 2 tons). If you want milk during the winter you will have to feed some concentrates e.g. barley plus a protein balancer. Cows will also eat cabbages, potatoes, swedes, turnips, etc. to supplement the basic diet.

Equipment may be kept to a minimum. Some sort of milking shed is advisable, but otherwise you need nothing more than things which most households possess anyway i.e. buckets, pans, a stool and string. On the other hand, a small milking machine and perhaps a cream separator would save you time and energy and would be more efficient than hand methods alone. Hand-milking is initially very, hard work and it takes some time to acquire the technique. Make sure you choose a cow with reasonably large teats - it is much easier to milk a cow with your whole hand than with two fingers.

One problem which occurs if you keep only one cow is the difficulty of telling when she is in season. To give a good annual milk yield the cow does need to calve each year. It is possible for a vet to give hormone injections to bring her bulling on a specifi-ed day.