small scale dairy without extra calves

Given the resources I have on my land, and what I like to eat, it's pretty clear that home dairy production would be a big win if I want to really increase the amount of food I could produce for myself. This is definitely a hypothetical future thing still, but it's an attractive enough idea that I'd like to learn more about it. I'm filing this in the "cattle" forum because I have to pick one, and all my neighbors raise beef cattle, but I'm not set on cattle over goats or sheep or whatever, just thinking about dairy animals in general.

One question that's particularly bugging me at the moment is whether it's feasible to run a small scale vegetarian dairy operation, or I guess that's what I'd call it. I'm not even vegetarian, but I do feel a little weird about slaughtering calves (or lambs or kids). Especially if I went to a lot of trouble to bring those calves into existence. But all the info I can find online says that standard practice is to have cows give birth once a year so that they keep producing milk. Which means that if I don't want to slaughter those calves, or sell them to someone who will, I'd quickly have a small herd on my hands that I feel obligated to care for. And I'm not trying to run a big for-profit operation, I just like the idea of a bit of homegrown dairy products as a possibility.

Is there some sort of middle ground here that I'm not understanding? Is it possible to do sustainable homestead-scale dairy without generating a steady stream of "surplus" calves destined for short unhappy lives, the way the modern mega-scale dairy industry does? I'd be totally fine with reduced yield per head or per acre, and would in fact assume that's the price to pay for improved animal welfare. But searching the internet for this question seems to come up with either graphs and charts from factory-farmer types, or vegans ranting about why nobody should eat dairy products at all. I'm hoping someone here can provide a third perspective

Alas, I don't know cows.  We never had enough space to keep them healthy.


With good nutrition,  goats can stay in milk for several years between freshening (making babies).  The longest I've seen is seven years, but a beginner goalkeeper can usually manage 2 to 3 years between freshening.

Not sure about other livestock. I don't milk my sheep,  but one ewe was nursing her lamb for two summers.  But she didn't have any lambs that second spring, so she must have been in milk all that time.

100% vegetarian dairy would be hard.  Overcrowding is horrific for the animals,  so these extras need some other job and lots of space to make them worth keeping. Maybe a fiber animal?

It doesn't necessarily *have to be* every year, but milk production does taper off. That said, we had a jersey cow that we milked almost 4yrs on one calving. Selling the calves is pretty much a typical answer, and barely covers the feed cost of the cow.

. I'm not even vegetarian, but I do feel a little weird about slaughtering calves (or lambs or kids). Especially if I went to a lot of trouble to bring those calves into existence.

Seems strange to even consider this when it is so easy to sell the calves.

I <3 this thread! I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian and have been wondering this same thing. We love cream, butter, yogurt, ice-cream, and especially cheese, and would like to have our own source of raw milk, but it's so hard to find info on extended lactation that I keep shying away.

Interestingly, there's at least one no-slaughter dairy in operation: https://gnecofarm.org/  -- but they seem to have a lot of side-gigs, which might be the only thing that keeps them running and their cheese is just incredibly expensive.

As much as I dislike commercial dairy processes... they have figured out how often you need to have babies to keep the milk at the greatest production. If you are using dairy to make money, obviously this is important. Once a year is also about how often animals have babies in the wild. If you are using dairy to produce food for your family, then a slacking off is not as big of a deal. I think looking into lengthening the cycle could help your situation.

I'm going to lean a little different than some people posting here. In order to get dairy from animals, you must have babies. Since this is a fact, you will have some number of babies to deal with. Fewer if you can lengthen the cycle between, but still some. If you do not want to keep them, nor do you want to eat them, then the answer is to get rid of them. The question becomes "How do I get rid of them in a responsible manner that will allow the calf to live a good life?". It's kind of like people giving away free old chickens on craigslist "to a good home only - not for eating". VERY few people are going to keep old chickens just for fun. Most of those chickens are going to be eaten. These calves are the same. All of them will die at some point, and most of them will be eaten at some point. Given this, instead of asking "how can I do dairy with as few calves as possible?":, why not ask "how can I bless a homesteading family with this calf where it will live a good life and have only 1 bad day?". Instead of trying not to have calves, why not try to find a good place to sell them, so you don't have to give or sell them to some commercial farm that will give it a horrible life?

Anne Miller wrote:

. I'm not even vegetarian, but I do feel a little weird about slaughtering calves (or lambs or kids). Especially if I went to a lot of trouble to bring those calves into existence.

Seems strange to even consider this when it is so easy to sell the calves.

Right, I could sell them, but if the person I'm selling to is taking them straight to the slaughterhouse, then it's the same thing to me. I'm not just saying I'm squeamish about killing and processing an animal; I grew up hunting so I crossed that bridge a long time ago. What I am uneasy about is this process of knowingly producing more babies than is feasible to raise to adulthood, and then more or less immediately killing some percentage of them (or having someone else do that for me, all the same). That just seems like a bridge too far, somehow. And what I'm wondering is if that's truly necessary, or if it's only necessary from the perspective of turning a profit, which is not my goal.

If I sell them to someone who does intend to actually raise them, I can't help but think that I'm just postponing the issue. A couple years down the line those people are going to have calves they need to sell, and maybe they sell to a third person who will also care for them well. But if every year more babies are born than adults die, eventually all the like-minded people in the area would have as many animals as they can handle, and then we're collectively in the same position that I individually started out in.

I guess I was hoping to hear that it's hypothetically possible to only make babies at replacement rate, and still get some amount of milk beyond what the calves drink. I don't think anyone so far has said that's actually impossible, but it sounds like almost nobody is even trying to do it, primarily because of the money side of things. Is that an accurate summary?

When I was involved with goats in the UK, which is a looooong time ago, there was a huge difference between the breeds.

Anglo Nubians would basically need to be bred every year to keep the milk flowing.

Pure Toggenburgs every year.

British Toggenburgs every other year.

Alpines and British Alpines mostly every year.

Saanen and British Saanen could be left for five, six, maybe seven years and still produce about a pint of milk a day at the end.

My own little British Toggenburg could give milk for three years after kidding.

I knew quite a few one-goat smallholders who would buy a recently kidded British Saanen from a reputable breeder and basically never have to breed.

I also knew a vegetarian breeder of Anglo Nubians who would put the male kids down at birth, though that never sat quite with me.

If you are keeping a dairy cow, fewer people who want a meat animal will respond. If you spread out the breeding cycle, your milk production will slow, but not stop, for some time. You can expect roughly 50% of the calves to be heiffers, which will mean roughly 50% can be given or sold to other farmers looking to raise their own dairy cow, and at least a few of your bull calves will be wanted or needed for keeping the cows in calves, that keep them in milk. This is the only path I've seen that takes a path in the direction you're trying to go. One other thing is that some calves don't survive birthing, then the cow will, as long as you nolo her anyway, keep producing milk, for a while. There is no way to keep a mammal in milk without periodically making babies. If this is too much, your best bet will probably be to find a local farmer from whom you can buy milk.

Cows are not like chickens, who continually produce eggs without a cockerel to fertilize them. They have a long life, a and will completely stop producing milk within 2 - 4yrs of calving.

Burra Maluca wrote:Saanen and British Saanen could be left for five, six, maybe seven years and still produce about a pint of milk a day at the end

This is the most optimistic thing I've heard on this so far, from the perspective of someone who'd like to convert grass into milk, not just dollars into more dollars. I'm sure a pint per day would not even cover the cost of feed, if you're looking at this like a business. But it's still a usable amount of milk available every day, and I have enough pasture that I don't think I'd have to buy feed anyway. Sounds like I might want to research goats more.

If you consume dairy, then this process happens on someone else's farm on your behalf.

If you look at it another way, you are able to produce so much more food on your homestead by including the calves in the formula. Even if you don't eat them, someone else would. This is just how that food gets produced, and people like me rely on Craigslist animals that we take directly to slaughter to offset our own food production needs. Just did it the other day with someone's roosters. They'll feed me all winter, and that guy didn't have to slaughter his birds. We both knew our part in this symbiosis of the farm & garden section of CL. More food is a good thing.

Apparently it can be done. Ahimsa is a UK dairy that is slaughter free. I gather they have sponsorship to support the excess animals and they talk about using the male cows as work animals. They are the only ones that I found raising cattle this way. I suspect you may find it much easier with animals with longer lactation periods (goats have been mentioned a few times), but having a secondary product (like fibre) from the males will make the exercise of raising them more worthwhile.

Josh you wrote:
“But if every year more babies are born than adults die, eventually all the like-minded people in the area would have as many animals as they can handle, and then we're collectively in the same position that I individually started out in.

I guess I was hoping to hear that it's hypothetically possible to only make babies at replacement rate, and still get some amount of milk beyond what the calves drink. I don't think anyone so far has said that's actually impossible, but it sounds like almost nobody is even trying to do it, primarily because of the money side of things. Is that an accurate summary?”

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No that’s not an accurate summary.
It has nothing to do with money.
Few people do this because a) it’s another form of animal cruelty, just a more insidious one  b) most permaculture folks don’t want to go against nature and nature’s patterns. Most accept and use natural rhythms and patterns of livestock in a permaculture way, instead.

With some goats you can lengthen lactation.
Personally, I’ve not seen the 7 years some are saying, but if it’s been done, then it can be possible. Just know it’s not the norm.
(For background, I’m a veterinarian and raise milk and meat and fiber sheep).
If you lengthen lactation even one month, you MUST *fully* milk every single day, no exceptions - that is more work than you might think - and provide the nutrition for it. Animals aren’t machines and aren’t any different than humans: you need nutritious food to continue chopping wood and building your house and gardens.

Something to consider is that while it sounds like you don’t want to slaughter or do factory farming methods, extending lactation is most definitely a factory farm method.
I don’t know that most people think of this, but extending lactation is very hard on the ruminant - it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce milk for the normal lactation period, never mind an extended one. And you are talking more than a season. They need a break. And deserve one. It’s the humane thing to do, like it or not. If you don’t, you will shorten their lifespan and happiness; and, you have to have very rich nutritious pasture year round to help produce that energy. Ideally you would plant both browse and graze for these ruminants.

Factory farms also add hormones to extend Lactation. Your local large animal vet can tell you how, if that’s the route you want to go.

Pushing nature too much is getting into factory farm territory.
Ruminants’ natural cycle is birth and death every year. You can and should sell the babies every year if you don’t want them. As the males grow, they end up fighting each other to the death each breeding season anyway- (and that’s what keeps the species strong, evolutionarily). But you want to avoid that blood bath and constant infighting by selling or butchering the males. Yearly. And keep only the best and healthiest.
It’s very permaculture to follow and use nature’s patterns to advantage, not change them, sorry to say.
If you want ruminants, you must be able to accept their natural life rhythms and *do your part* and act as the predator in the situation, which we humans are. Predators are supremely important. *We MUST do our part if we are to respect and honor and animals we keep*. (In the wild, this natural life and death rhythm is clear, beneficial to all parties involved, from microbe to plants to insects to birds to wolf and bear, and not “cruel”).
If you don’t want to butcher them yourself, as others have said, it’s very easy to sell them to someone who will, locally. Or donate the meat to a local food bank. After using the ruminants’ grazing and fertilizing abilities to mutual advantage. It’s amazing perfect food and free grazing and fertility for the local ecosystems.

Honestly in your situation, I would say keep the same sex ruminantS (never keep only one, they are herd animals) as pets and don’t milk or breed them, just use them for fertility in your veggie and fruit gardens, and buy your milk elsewhere. That is far more humane and no-kill, than extending lactation so much.
If you want milk from your own animals, allow nature to do it’s thing and learn from it - including that some practices that are no-kill are also cruel.

tuffy monteverdi wrote:...extending lactation is very hard on the ruminant - it takes a lot of energy and resources to produce milk for the normal lactation period, never mind an extended one.

Is there something special about ruminants that makes this especially so? My understanding is that among humans, it's normal to complete weaning anywhere between two and five years and that it is significantly easier on the mother's body than a pregnancy. So my natural inclination is to assume the same is true for other mammals, but I really have no idea.

I haven't read all the responses so someone may have already suggested this.

Raise the calfs as steers or heifers until they are ready to butcher or ready to be bred.  You can treat them well while you have them then have them slaughtered on the farm.  That way a bull calf only has two bad days: when he is castrated and his last.  Most animals dont have it that well.

You also have to have a plan for what you will do with your milk cows once they stop producing.  You can butcher her or sell her at a sales barn to be transported to a feedlot and then butchered.  Butchering her yourself is probably the best outcome for her.

Unless you are very wealthy and plan to feed every animal until they die of old age, having dairy and eggs mean someone has to kill animals.

Christopher Weeks wrote:
Is there something special about ruminants that makes this especially so? My understanding is that among humans, it's normal to complete weaning anywhere between two and five years and that it is significantly easier on the mother's body than a pregnancy. So my natural inclination is to assume the same is true for other mammals, but I really have no idea.

============
Sheep and goats start the process of weaning at 4 months, naturally. Cows around 10 months. Wild ruminants sooner. Dogs and wolves 6 weeks.
Animals can’t afford to have energy going to nursing young the way humans can. They have foraging and predatory concerns. Evolution has made these kids, lambs, calves and pups learn to grow up very quickly and for the mother to return to normal function as quickly as possible. It’s genetic. And domestic animals haven’t changed much in that regard. Though factory farms have certainly changed lactation lengths, udder size and production, to gross levels.

Human babies are so different from non-human animals, in so many ways, they can’t even be compared.

I know a woman who had previously birthed and nursed her children who then successfully nursed an adopted child.

Do animals have this ability?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I know a woman who had previously birthed and nursed her children who then successfully nursed an adopted child.

Do animals have this ability?

If I'm answering this correctly, then yes......assuming the mother is still lactating from recent birthing.  Again, correct me if I'm mis-reading the question....  I can't say if this happens in the wild and with domesticated animals appears to require human intervention.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/tips-on-adopting-lambs-onto-sheep.364006/

Josh Warfield wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:

. I'm not even vegetarian, but I do feel a little weird about slaughtering calves (or lambs or kids). Especially if I went to a lot of trouble to bring those calves into existence.

Seems strange to even consider this when it is so easy to sell the calves.

Right, I could sell them, but if the person I'm selling to is taking them straight to the slaughterhouse, then it's the same thing to me. I'm not just saying I'm squeamish about killing and processing an animal; I grew up hunting so I crossed that bridge a long time ago. What I am uneasy about is this process of knowingly producing more babies than is feasible to raise to adulthood, and then more or less immediately killing some percentage of them (or having someone else do that for me, all the same). That just seems like a bridge too far, somehow. And what I'm wondering is if that's truly necessary, or if it's only necessary from the perspective of turning a profit, which is not my goal.

If I sell them to someone who does intend to actually raise them, I can't help but think that I'm just postponing the issue. A couple years down the line those people are going to have calves they need to sell, and maybe they sell to a third person who will also care for them well. But if every year more babies are born than adults die, eventually all the like-minded people in the area would have as many animals as they can handle, and then we're collectively in the same position that I individually started out in.

I guess I was hoping to hear that it's hypothetically possible to only make babies at replacement rate, and still get some amount of milk beyond what the calves drink. I don't think anyone so far has said that's actually impossible, but it sounds like almost nobody is even trying to do it, primarily because of the money side of things. Is that an accurate summary?

In my experience, anyone buying calfs plans to raise them for at least a year, and possibly several years before butchering them.

Your idea of all like minded people having more animals than they need isn't that big of an issue.  If the calf is to old for veal, anyone who buys it plans to raise it to gain weight until it is full size to butcher.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I know a woman who had previously birthed and nursed her children who then successfully nursed an adopted child.

Do animals have this ability?

Yes if animals have just birthed young, and especially if only one, it’s possible to add another baby on. However the difficulty is getting the dam/mother to accept the strange lamb/kid/calf.
They are mostly predisposed to save their resources, energy, and milk, for their own genetic lines. So, often one sees mothers actually kicking away strange lambs/kids/etc when they try stealing milk or get too close.

So if one would like to “graft” a lamb/kid/calf onto a different mother:
1) it’s best done right away after birth of the related baby
2)if not, it needs to be done early in lactation when there is still a lot of milk.
Sheep and goat Mothers start reducing milk after two months, as the lamb or kid starts grazing more, in preparation for weaning at 4 months.
It doesn’t mean she won’t have any milk, she does keep nursing them here and there, but mostly it’s not enough milk to sustain another growing baby.
There are exceptions. With a heavy producing doe goat, a baby might be successfully raised IF one could get the mom to accept it. It’s Even harder at that stage since the females are pretty fed up with nursing and being moms at that point.
3) mostly, unrelated babies need to be either “tricked” onto the female or forced.
“Tricked”, using the skin of one of her own stillborn lambs/kids, for example. Putting it on the unrelated baby to take up the familiar smell of her own baby.
“Forced”, meaning tying the female to a point in a stall where she can’t butt the baby away, or kick it away, and the baby is free to nurse. Eventually the female will start to accept the new baby. This can be successful especially if early on in lactation. Not so much later on.
It is a lot of work though. It often requires feeding the baby round the clock until things are quieter and mom starts to accept baby.

As far as having a doe/ewe/cow accept a new baby *after* weaning their own, that’s a LOT more difficult, as explained before. If there is enough milk, which isn’t at all common, one could certainly try. But it’s a LOT more difficult. Easier to bottle feed probably and allow the Mom’s to simply teach the new baby how to graze and what not to eat and so forth. (After they get kicked around - it’s hard for an orphan newbie without a mom to protect them).

John Weiland wrote:

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I know a woman who had previously birthed and nursed her children who then successfully nursed an adopted child.

Do animals have this ability?

I can't say if this happens in the wild and with domesticated animals appears to require human intervention.

John, I agree on all you say.

It really doesn’t happen in the wild, there are always exceptions, but it would be extremely rare. Mostly orphans are eaten by the many hungry predators. As they should be.

If the mom had trouble birthing, or not enough milk, or sick, etc,  those are not a viable persistent qualities for these wild self-sufficient breeds. Better for the health of future generations in nature, to eliminate those genetic lines.

Yes, human intervention is required in 99.9% of cases, for domestic orphan grafting.

I think I was unclear. This human mother had not been pregnant in the last two years prior to the adoption. Lactation from her latest child had long been finished. She alternated formula and nursing until her milk came back in.

Can animals do that?

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:I think I was unclear. This human mother had not been pregnant in the last two years prior to the adoption. Lactation from her latest child had long been finished. She alternated formula and nursing until her milk came back in.

Can animals do that?

No. Animals cannot do that.

I’m not sure how a human were to accomplish that either, unless there was a problem with her glandular ducts or there were hormonal imbalances. (Can happen with tumors of hormonal or reproductive origins.)
Spontaneous milk production without some kind of pregnancy or recent birth isn’t a thing in humans or any animal, as far as I know.

From my own experience, lactating for three years was a whole lot easier than being pregnant!

I've certainly known mares who have allowed their foals to nurse for two years if they didn't foal every year. It didn't seem at all unnatural or anything like 'factory farming'.

In the UK it was a firm belief, which is borne out by my own experience, that allowing a goat to run through rather than having a kid every year was akin to giving her a break. They produce only about half the milk the second year, and less in subsequent years, and they are generally less stressed and in far better condition than ones that have bred that year.

Male goats from 'good' milking likes will occasionally come into milk too. And I have it on good authority from a neighbour who was also a doctor and a dairy goat keeper that occasionally men will come into milk if their wives die and there are newborns to be fed.

I used to mix a lot with goaty-type people in the showing, breeding and milk recording world. But unlike most of them I also knew a lot of the people who kept just one or two goats very simply and let them run through for many years, because I was a relief milker and would get called in to take over milking duties during family emergencies. What I found with them is that they didn't follow the established rules of the goaty community. They generally fed very little grain, their animals were superbly healthy, never saw a vet, were part of the family, and they often had not had kids since they had arrived on the property years previously.

Here's one I got called in to milk during a recent emergency. She is on her second year of lactation, is never, ever fed grain, has ample land to graze and browse, and is decidedly more plump and laid back than the other goats in the herd who have kids running with them.



Here are a couple of interesting links -

male lactation

males can lactate

When I was a kid, we raised Holstein steers for meat. They’re not as meaty as the traditional meat breeds, but still substantially meaty. I’m sure it was because they were cheap to get from the dairy across the road. If you’re ok with castration, you could keep the calf with mother for a few months, milk her when the calf is done to increase supply, and when the calf is old enough, wean and castrate and sell to a local family to raise their own meat. Or you could sell sooner after birth as a bottle calf. Yes, eventually they’ll get eaten, but they can live a pretty good life in the meantime. Heifers you can keep if you want more cows, or sell to someone else to breed and milk.

J Hillman wrote:In my experience, anyone buying calfs plans to raise them for at least a year, and possibly several years before butchering them.

Your idea of all like minded people having more animals than they need isn't that big of an issue.  If the calf is to old for veal, anyone who buys it plans to raise it to gain weight until it is full size to butcher.

Since these are dairy calves, my assumption would be the folks buying the calves are starting a dairy herd or maybe just want one calf to supply milk.

With the price of feed any extra income is welcome in my humble opinion.

There is so much to consider with starting a dairy herd, extra calves would be my last consideration.  Fencing, shelter, feed, water

I feel it is not even necessary to own a bull.  Just buy the animals already breed.

Anne Miller wrote:Since these are dairy calves, my assumption would be the folks buying the calves are starting a dairy herd or maybe just want one calf to supply milk.

They wouldn't necessarily be dairy calves just because they come from a dairy cow.

I don't know how it works in the US, but in other places unless you were actively trying to breed replacement cows, you would use artificial insemination with a straw of semen from a beef breed to produce a beefier calf.

My partner's family used to breed goats and keep billy goats at stud, including some very 'beefy' Boer goats for crossing with the local dairy nannies.

This is a yearling male, 98% Boer goat - very beefy looking!



And here are Port and Starb'd, a pair of castrated male Boer x British Toggenburg, finding an alternative use to being eaten...



In Wales there were dual-purpose breeds like the Welsh Black, as seen below.



And in Portugal there are triple-purpose breed, for milk, meat and draught purposes, like the Arouquesa.



As for feeding grain, when I was in agricultural college, more years ago than I care to remember, they experimented producing organic milk. At the time it was pretty much impossible to buy organic grain and the only way they managed it was to feed the cows exclusively on grass and home-grown silage. The yield dropped a little without the forced feeding, but the quality of the milk went up and profits went up as costs were down and there was a premium on organic milk.

Is it possible to do sustainable homestead-scale dairy without generating a steady stream of "surplus" calves destined for short unhappy lives

Surplus is in the mind of the beholder. I’d call it abundance rather than surplus.

Animals work into so many stacked functions! All of them will create manure to feed your soil. All of them will eat down grasses to control fire danger (can you tell I live in the PNW?). Goats and oxen can provide manual power for drawing carts, turning soil, or even threshing. Sheep and goats provide fiber. Offspring can be sold for those purposes too, and if you’ve done any of the training necessary then you’ve just created a value-added product. When selecting your animals, consider not just the dairy aspect but all of the other functions that the animal may provide—not just the mama that makes the milk, but also what the offspring can do. One of the best joys in having animals is working with them.

Notice that there’s nothing about an unhappy life in any of that. Those that become food can also have peaceful, happy lives before they have one bad moment—and that bad moment comes for all of us at some point. Given the choice, I’d take a humane killer over slowly rotting in a hospital bed every time and be grateful for it.

Burra Maluca wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:Since these are dairy calves, my assumption would be the folks buying the calves are starting a dairy herd or maybe just want one calf to supply milk.

They wouldn't necessarily be dairy calves just because they come from a dairy cow.

I don't know though seems to me if the OP has a  dairy production/operation and wanted to increase his production the breed would stay the same.  The girl calves would be kept to increase the herd and the bull calves would be sold.  The breed would stay the same.

Why would a person mix breeds?

Why would a person mix breeds?

I'm not a cow expert at all, but I think the reason would be if you have no desire to increase your dairy herd, you could cross them with a beef cow. This lets you keep milk from a dairy breed, but makes the calves bigger and more valuable for when you get rid of them in whatever way you are going to. The only reason to cross with a dairy breed would be to get more dairy cows.

Matt McSpadden wrote:

Why would a person mix breeds?

I'm not a cow expert at all, but I think the reason would be if you have no desire to increase your dairy herd, you could cross them with a beef cow. This lets you keep milk from a dairy breed, but makes the calves bigger and more valuable for when you get rid of them in whatever way you are going to. The only reason to cross with a dairy breed would be to get more dairy cows.

Exactly this. It works that way with goats & sheep, too. The dam must breed, to produce milk - but if you're eating meat, and don't want more dairy animals, it's *very* common to keep a meat-breed bull and one dairy cow, as a mated pair, so the calves produce more meat than their dam, thus filling the family freezer, with the offspring.

Carla Burke wrote:

Matt McSpadden wrote:

Why would a person mix breeds?

I'm not a cow expert at all, but I think the reason would be if you have no desire to increase your dairy herd, you could cross them with a beef cow. This lets you keep milk from a dairy breed, but makes the calves bigger and more valuable for when you get rid of them in whatever way you are going to. The only reason to cross with a dairy breed would be to get more dairy cows.

Exactly this. It works that way with goats & sheep, too. The dam must breed, to produce milk - but if you're eating meat, and don't want more dairy animals, it's *very* common to keep a meat-breed bull and one dairy cow, as a mated pair, so the calves produce more meat than their dam, thus filling the family freezer, with the offspring.

Yes 🙌  exactly

However, if, like the original author, one wants milk, then there’s no reason to outcross. The calves will still taste delicious and nutritious there just will be a bit less meat.
One can milk or eat any breed though. It doesn’t really matter if there isn’t much choice for bulls/rams/bucks in the area.

Meat breeds tend to be more docile and placid and robust than dairy breeds, too. In the UK there are laws against bulls of dairy breeds being kept near public footpaths as they are known to be far more likely to present a danger.

If someone is thinking of breeding just for milk and don't want to dispose of surplus offspring, especially males, it's worth thinking about temperament and potential uses. Heavier, more laid animals make better draught animals, too.

I currently have nigora goats, which I got with the hope that there would be a market for the male babies as fiber producers/brush clearers. Unfortunately, that has so far not been the case in my area at least. Some people with sufficient marketing skill seem to be able to sell all their unwanted goats as pets, but that doesn’t look to be the case for me.
However, although I personally am vegetarian, I do not have an objection to meat production, done well. I am raising the boys through the fall, and if I haven’t found them homes as pets/fiber animals, I will find someone who will kill them humanely for meat. They will have had a better life than most meat animals in the commercial meat system, and I am more or less at peace with that as the price of dairy for my family. I have heard of goats milking for 2, maybe 3 years, and that it is dependent on the individual animal whether you get enough to make it worthwhile. But even if you stretch it out - my goats each had twins, leading to 3 boys total. That is just more males that you need, even every couple of years. So you can shrink the problem, but not do away with it completely, unless you have space to run a decent sized herd.

Wow, lots of info to absorb here. It sounds like it generally is possible to do something along the lines of what I was hoping for, and probably more people are currently doing it than I had assumed. And it seems very likely that goats would be a better fit than cattle for me. Still probably years away, if at all, but this thread has definitely given me a better idea what some of my longer-term options might actually look like.

One more tidbit to put in re: cows: before I hd goats, we bought our milk from a local farmers market. They are doing commercial scale. The calves, whether a meat cross or jersey, are raised by the farmer’s father in law, who sells beef. Most commercial scale farmers don’t consider it worth it, because Jersey steers are stringy and don’t produce tender cuts. These guys get around it by producing whole cow ground beef, which sells quite well. Maybe a lower margin without the expensive steaks, but the seem to do ok.

This thread make me want to ask what is the permaculture approach to this?

It is designed to assist future dairy farmers to confidently make the transition to a holistic model of dairy management.

https://permies.com/wiki/43161/Dairy-Farming-Beautiful-Adam-Klaus

offers practical ways that Permaculture can be implemented into large scale, productive food systems.

https://permies.com/wiki/20601/Restoration-Agriculture-Mark-Shepard

Hey, I just happened upon a related thread and remembering our conversation here, I wanted to drop the link so that anyone else interested in this subject could find both: https://permies.com/t/47929/Questions-Milking

Happened to see this discussion…….not that I plan to debate the pros and cons. Just wanted to interject some information to clear up what I noted as a tad of confusion……

Precocious lactation —— it happens with mammals. The animal produces milk even though it was not pregnant. It most commonly occurs with pseudo pregnancy, that is, a false pregnancy. BUT in my vet practice I have seen both cats and dogs be precocious milkers. It is quite uncommon but it happens. And decades ago, one of my friends had a young Alpine doe do it too. Now here’s a very interesting case: a spayed 2 year old husky bitch adopted a litter of kittens and allowed them to suckle. 2 to 3 weeks later it was noted that the bitch was lactating. She lactated for 4 to 6 (I cannot remember to exact details of the case anymore).

Precocious lactation is not the same as natural lactation. The amount of milk is much reduced and the duration appears to be shorter. I have only seen about half a dozen cases in my veterinary career, so it is not all that common, but it does exist.