Benefits of a Family Milk Cow

We love having a family milk cow or two (or three or four….)! There’s just nothing like having access to fresh raw milk and cream all of the time. Homemade dairy products just can’t even be compared to store bought! Having a backyard family cow is priceless in my opinion.

Our first family milk cow came home back in 2014. Her name was Gertie and I just loved her and still do. What she brought to our homestead and offered to my family was just priceless and has just grown since then.

We’ve had many milk cows since then and have loved them all. We currently have 4 cows that we milk for our family daily. Three of them are full Jerseys and one is a Jersey/Guernsey cross.

I see owning a family milk cow on the homestead as such a valuable (maybe even the most valuable) resource for my family and our farm. Here are my top reasons why I own a family milk cow (and maybe you should consider one too).

 Reasons to Have a Family Milk Cow 

1. Milk and Dairy Products

The first and (I think) most obvious reason to own a family milk cow is for milk. Fresh, clean raw milk has so many health benefits. The milk alone is such a wonderful product but we can’t forget all of the things that can be made with milk; cheese, kefir, yogurt, butter, buttermilk, sour cream, ice cream…….. I could go on and on but I know we are all just getting hungry.

Not only can this wonderful milk nourish my family (it tastes pretty amazing too!). It also offers nourishment to the other animals on our homestead.

We can use extra milk (not that there would be any extra milk very often) to feed our chickens and/or pigs. We also used the leftover whey to feed our other animals or fertilize plants. Sometimes we soak animal feed overnight with it. Talk about a gobble fest when they get fed.

AND who doesn’t love homemade ice cream? That is enough in itself to own a cow!

We prefer to keep our milk raw, check out how we handle raw milk to keep it clean and fresh.

(For more information on raw milk and its benefits please visit the Real Milk Website)

 2. Beef

Since I’ve already gone and made you hungry I’ll just make it worse (you can thank me later). When you own a family milk cow, you will need to have said cow bred, to continue getting a sufficient amount of milk.

The resulting calf can be a great source of home raised, grass-fed beef if it is a bull calf. If it is a heifer calf, she could be sold and the money used to purchase beef or a steer to raise for beef. Or you could keep her and have all the family milk cows!

Typically, a family milk cow will be bred each year. This would provide your family with the ability to raise all of your own beef. You can choose to cross breed with a beef type bull for more meat yield.

Just think of all of the ground beef, steaks, briskets, steaks, ribs, steaks, loin, and did I mention steaks? That is some good eats ya’ll!

3. Pasture Management

You can also use your cow (or cows, whatever the case may be) to manage your pastures. Between keeping the pasture growth level managed, the cow’s manure will fertilize and nourish the ground resulting in beautiful, lush grazing for your cow year after year.

Being able to move your cow around to different sections of your pasture with rotational grazing is a great benefit to both the cow and the land.

The milk produces by your family milk cow on rich pasture will be so delicious and full of nutrition. The butter from grass fed milk…. amazing!

4. Compost

 Similar to the pasture management, the manure can be placed into a compost pile to break down. This is an amazing additive to your garden soil. You will have some rich dirt with this mixed in and your veggies will love it. This is one of the richest ways to improve your soil.

You can also use the leftover whey from making cheese to fertilize your plants. Bonus, bonus, bonus!

Your garden will definitely rock it out with these additives.

5. Income

Owning a family milk cow also enables you to generate income for your homestead. There a couple of ways you can do this. One would be selling the beef you get from calves or selling older steers on hoof for meat. If you have more than one steer to raise, selling one of them for beef would definitely help off-set the expense of owning a milk cow.

If you have heifer calves, you can sell them as family milk cows. You will be able to get a decent price for your heifer and the satisfaction of helping another family enjoy the benefits of owning a family milk cow.

Another option may be starting a business selling milk and milk products depending on your state’s laws. You can find more info on that by checking out the Real Milk website.

6. Companionship

Something about sitting down to milk your cow just reaches into the depths of your soul. The warmth of the cow’s body, the sound of them breathing and chewing their cud, the connection with another living being, the connection with creation itself, it’s all an experience that can be lived over and over each day. Life doesn’t get much better than that.

Spending time with my cows while milking is one of my favorite things. I enjoy the quiet time listening to the melodic sound of milk filling the bucket. Sigh, such a beautiful sound.

There are about a million-billion-kajillion reasons to have a family milk cow but these are just the top of the list.