I turn 44 in a few days. I have the body of an 80 year old man. My knees are shot, I hurt all over, and I expect it will only get worse. The price of organic milk is in the crapper and has been for a few years now. My herd of milk cows is worth about half what it was last year. My friends ask why I keep doing this. Its a good question, I guess.
First of all, I never did for it for the money. I do it because I love the life. I was raised in a barn and I don't really know any other way to live. The thought of not getting up at 3:30 every morning and milking my cows scares the hell out of me. I have 7 children and my 8th is due in April. I pride myself on giving those children meaningful work and teaching them the ways of their father and grandfather. They are natural born farmers and don't know any other way to live either. Its a good way to live, by the way. Dad died 2 years ago but my kids all worked with both us every day. We built this farming operation together, step by step... piece by piece . Its my turn to keep watch over the herd now and I don't want it to end with me. The small scale family farm of the north east is something worth saving. The gardens, chicken house, home butchering, canning, and breeding quality dairy cattle should always be in style. The endless hours spent working together as a family are worth more than all the money in the world.
I know its all ending. I know that my kids might well be the last generation to grow up on and old fashioned family farm that sells a small money crop but also provides all their own table needs . It breaks my heart. But it also gives me the strength to keep going.
Thats why I keep at it.
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Permaculture and diversifying could be the way to go and even probably keep the kids interested or at least coming back to help in the next 10 years.
In Europe there are dairy cattle and sheep grazing in a mixed fruit-nut orchards, so plenty of alternative revenue streams.
Also, selling the raw material was always and always will be the worst possible financial way. So is there a way to NOT sell the milk but make aged cheese, cottage cheese, kefir, yogurt, etc?
As @bghandmade says, stacking functions is probably a smart move. I don't know your business setup or really anything about cows, but if you're selling milk as a commodity, I doubt there's a way to do well at it. Walmart will make more for a gallon of milk than the family that produced it. No doubt you've read Joel Salatin, and I imagine you'd stand to benefit from setting up a local food economy based around your dairy.
Soap, cheese, whole raw milk, beef, leather. All from cows. Run chickens with your cows, and put in a fruit and nut orchard. That way you get tons of crops from one piece of land and it all benefits from each other.
I love the idea of working on a farm. If you were in North Texas, I'd be driving to your place right now to help build things! We've got new friends an hour away setting up a permaculture farm that we'll be helping with in the spring. And wife is working on making friends with a family here in town that has a small farm that I want to help with. A farm needs young hard workers to help the farmer. You're the one with experience and rusted joints. You need a youngun that needs to learn and can swing a hammer. If that makes sense.
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