farmerjen55 on Nostr: Upfront cost of the cows will vary based on where you get them. If you can find a ...
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?
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?