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Adding Another Dairy Cow to the Homestead

Over the past couple of years we’ve known there needed to be some changes in our dairy system. As Tilly, our milk cow, continued to get older, we decided it was time to layer in a new dairy cow. But we never guessed we’d be getting ten gallons of milk each day!

A woman with twelve half-gallon jars of milk on the counter in front of her.

This episode of the Pantry Chat Podcast is all about how we recognized a weak spot in our systems and how we adjusted to build them up stronger.

The decision to get another dairy cow was somewhat forced upon us. We bred Tilly back in the fall of 2022 and received a positive pregnancy test, only to find out later the next spring that she slipped her calf.

With no calf on the ground, this also meant no milk for our family. With 13 people under our roof, milk is a staple on our homestead. We process the milk ourselves and skim the cream for coffee, homemade butter and, of course, homemade vanilla ice cream. We also make homemade yogurt and both hard and soft cheeses from the milk.

If you’re interested in learning how to make all kinds of homemade cheeses and other dairy products like sour cream, milk kefir and more, check out my Masterclass, Practical Homemade Dairy.

With no milk coming in, we decided to purchase another dairy cow already in milk named June. Tilly lived her best life grazing in the fields all summer with the bull, and we bred both cows again in the fall of 2023.

We figured if both cows got pregnant, we’d just sell a mama and calf pair when/if that time. This would provide some income from the homestead.

However, knowing Tilly was still getting older, we decided to keep both Tilly and June and devise a better system for all that milk coming in on our homestead.

A young woman giving a dairy cow scratches on the head.

Between Tilly and June we were bringing in an average of ten gallons of milk per day. We needed a way to manage all that milk, so here are some of the upgrades we made to our system:

  • Cream Separator – Previously, we were skimming the cream from the milk by hand. This required the milk to sit in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours to allow the cream to rise to the top. With 10 gallons coming in each day, we quickly ran out of refrigerator space. This led to the idea of purchasing a cream separator. With a cream separator, we can take the milk directly from the cow and skim out the cream prior to refrigeration, which solves our space issues.
  • Electric Butter Churn – We have worn out every butter churn we’ve ever purchased. Not because they were poor quality, but just because we use them on nearly a commercial scale. Because of this, and having double the cream coming in, we purchased a low commercial-grade electric butter churn from Milky Day.
  • Homemade Cheese – With double the milk coming into the house, we decided this year to increase the amount of homemade cheese we put up. We always start with our standard Farmhouse Cheddar cheese (you can learn how to make this inside the Practical Homemade Dairy Masterclass) and Mozzarella for our Friday pizza nights. Later in the summer, we’ll begin to put up some Parmesan cheese and start experimenting with provolone cheese as well.
  • Animal Feed – With all the extra whey we have leftover from cheese making, we’ve been finding creative ways to use it. If you’ve never tried drinking whey or using it in a smoothie or as a soup base, you definitely should! We’ve also been using it to soak grains for the animals. If you saw our glyphosate testing video, we found out the chicken feed we were using tested positive for glyphosate, so we’ve now been buying whole grain feed. Soaking the whole grain in whey makes it easier for the chickens to eat, and then the leftover whey, after soaking, gets fed to the pigs. If you’re looking for more information about feeding chickens, check out how to ferment chicken feed and what to feed chickens without feed to stretch your budget.

Through all these changes, we’re extremely happy to report that we’ve cut down on costs with our feed for the chickens and pigs and are bringing in more dairy. One change we have noticed is that the number of eggs we’re bringing in from the chickens on a daily basis has slightly decreased. However, since the feed cost has also been reduced, it’s still lowered the overall cost of our eggs.

Homesteading Hack: It’s incredible to report that with these improvements to our systems, it’s taking us less time each week to process double the butter and double the cheese because of these pieces of equipment.

We encourage everyone to continually assess (and reassess) your systems. Just because something has been done one way for a long time doesn’t mean there aren’t improvements that can be made with some simple adjustments.

A woman standing next to a black milk cow holding a stainless steel tub of fresh milk.
A man and wife smiling.

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Josh and Carolyn bring you practical knowledge on how to Grow, Cook, Preserve and Thrive on your homestead, whether you are in a city apartment or on 40 acres in the country. If you want to increase your self-sufficiency and health be sure to subscribe for helpful videos on gardening, preserving, herbal medicine, traditional cooking and more.

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