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Want to eat well today and hedge for the apocolypse? Try a family milk cow!
I want to be clear on one point. I am not really a survivalist. I am a thrivalist. What is that? For me, being a thrivalist is a combination of several factors. First, I believe that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand...today...right now...here on Earth...not at some unknown post-apocalyptic point in the future. Second, philosophically and politically, I am very Libertarian with a strong Epicurean streak. For me, these two views are well summarized in the following quotes (and you will soon read why this is germane to the topic):
Life Is a Gift from God.
We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This
gift is life -- physical, intellectual, and moral life.
But life cannot maintain itself alone. The Creator of life has entrusted us with the responsibility of preserving, developing, and
perfecting it. In order that we may accomplish this, He has provided us with a
collection of marvelous faculties. And He has put us in the midst of a variety
of natural resources. By the application of our faculties to these natural
resources we convert them into products, and use them. This process is
necessary in order that life may run its appointed course.
Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God
precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.
-Bastiat
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.”
-Epicurus
So, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorow we may die fighting to defend our person, liberty, and property? Well...kinda, sorta, yes.
Personally, I am a self-made professional and an equestrian-by-marriage. Most important to this post, I am not a prepper focused on some unpredictable future event (thank you Nassim Taleb), but rather a man focused on living well today, and God willing tomorrow, with an eye to practicing disintermediation wherever and whenever possible.
So, where is this leading, and what does it have to do with cows? Well, yesterday, I was asked by Meat Hammer:
This was my response:
A clear mind, a fit body, a few people you trust, a quality blade, a rifle
you know, and a good mare, everything else is superfluous.
I am happy with that response, as those are truly the
ESSENTIAL Shit-Hits-The-Fan items for me.
I have posted a much longer and more detailed TEOTWAWKI article
on ZeroHedge before, with a much broader and more general audience in
mind. However, I think Meat Hammer is
looking for something less general, and a little more personal, specifically
dealing with what some people call homesteading, but I like to think of simply as
thriving. At the top of that list is a
small bit of pastureland proximate to one's home, then closely followed on my
list by the family milk cow, which is really the focus of this article.
Do have a cow, specifically a triple-purpose heritage-breed cow such as a
Milking Shorthorn! She provides milk,
meat, and when trained as an ox she can pull a load.
A cow is a proven way to convert sunlight, water, and
pasture into a usable surplus of protein, fat, calories, leather, and
horsepower. I believe that in many ways
having a family milk cow is both easier and more reliable than raising crops,
although it is pretty darn easy to grow potatoes or yams.
In The Princes of Ireland, one of Edward Rutherfurd's
historical-fiction novels set in Ireland, it is illustrated how cattle have
been the most significant store of wealth for centuries of Irish history, and
how political power and stealing said wealth (by cattle rustling) were often
intertwined. For me, as someone who has
enjoyed historical Wyoming from both horseback and an easy chair, The Johnson
County War came to mind. But I digress.
Let us get to what Meat Hammer really wants to read, which I believe is hedgeless_horseman's
list of things you will need for your SHTF family milk cow. Please understand that neither I, nor
mrs_horseman, were raised on a farm, nor did we study agriculture in school,
nor were we in FFA. However, we both
have had horses most of our lives, kept at a stable or a neighbor's when we
were young, and later at our home for our entire married life. After having a family milk cow for more than
five years, I will say that cattle are much easier, and infinitely more
productive than horses.
First, you need pasture-with some source of water. A spring-fed pond is best, but anything from
a garden hose and a metal tank to a windmill and stock tank will work. How much pasture is entirely dependent on
your local climate. In the South we can
keep a dairy cow and her calf year-round, without hay, on just a few
acres. In the West you need to have many
acres and/or feed hay. In the North you probably
also need a barn and hay storage, or a small silo, to get through the winters,
but we have no experience with this situation.
Your county Ag Extension office is a great resource for these
calculations, testing the soil, etc. If
you are in Wisconsin, ask a Cheese Head.
Second, you must have time, man-power, and passion 365 days
per year, often twice a day. On our
little farm, this comes primarily in the form of the dynamo known as
mrs_horseman, with assistance from the lil_horsemen, yours truly, and our
friend and neighbor, juan_caballero. It
is important to convey that being a female equestrian, mrs_horseman is blessed
with super-human endurance and strength, as well as a burning desire to spend
vast amounts of time in the barn...bordering on insanity...aka horse crazy. If it is not already obvious to you, animals
need to be attended to every morning and every evening. If a cow does not have a calf and needs to be
milked, and is not milked, it is very bad.
Having a hand like juan_caballero to fill in for us several times a
month is absolutely critical, and surprisingly easy to arrange, when one
realizes how valuable fresh-raw milk is in today's world. However, please understand, the time
commitment is a very good thing, as it teaches us real responsibility (especially
important for kids), which leads to huge amounts of self-esteem (important for
stay-at-home mothers), eventually gratitude (important for happiness), and periodically
when taking care of the animals we can even experience complete bliss. It goes right back to the Bastiat and Epicurus
quotes, above.
You will need to have fencing. If you have horses that share pasture, like
we do, then three-board rail fences work just fine, as long as you don't have a
bull on one side and a cow on the other.
You do not need barbed wire or hot wire.
Our cows have always been very domesticated, the never jump the fence,
and are not prone to damaging the fence, especially relative to horses.
You may need to feed hay.
Horse hay and cow hay are two different things. Horse hay needs to be kept dry. Cattle hay is found sitting out in the rain,
and is much cheaper. You can have a big
round bale loaded into the back of a pickup truck, and roll it out into the
pasture. Buy one of the roundbale hay feeders. You
lift it over the round bale to keep the cow from shitting, pissing, and
standing in her food, and this dramatically cuts your feed cost. We can pick up a round bale today for $65 and
it would last our cow about a month.
When you buy your family milk cow, get her just before she
calves, or just days after she calves.
It needs to be her first or second calf.
She and the calf will probably cost you as much as $2,000. At first, the calf keeps you from having too
much milk for your family, and you can separate them at night, and thus only
need to milk once in the morning. If you
have a dual-purpose breed of cow, and mate her to a beef bull, then when the
calf eventually goes off to freezer camp it will provide your family all the grass-fed
hormone-free beef it needs for a year.
About once a year you will need to either artificially
inseminate your cow, have someone AI her for you, or take her to visit a bull. NEWSFLASH: Cows only produce milk after they
give birth. The trick is determining
when she is in heat. If she is trying to
mount her calf, the dog, or you, then she is in heat. If she is mooing all night long, then she is
in heat. It is that simple.
You need a stainless steel bucket for milking, a plastic
bucket or a stool to sit on, and a place to tie her. It helps if you feed her a little treat at
milking time. Our cow gets the ends and
tops of vegetables, fruit rinds, banana peels, etc. Remember the lesson from Napoleon
Dynamite...no onions or garlic. Hamby
Dairy Supply has everything you need such as teat wipes, teat dip, strip cup,
stainless filter and paper filters, cleaning brushes, and soap.
You may eventually decide to build a stanchion for your milking parlor like I did...
Your hands will get stronger milking by hand, and it is faster because there iss less clean up. A Surge Bucket Milker with vacuum pump, like
the modern conveniences of a refrigerator and chest freezer, are not absolutely
necessary, but very convenient and very expensive. They do work incredibly well.
Order two dozen one-gallon glass jugs and metal lids at
Specialty Bottle's website. They can be
cleaned and sterilized with a normal cycle in your kitchen dishwasher.
When the milk sits in the refrigerator for a day the cream
will rise to the top. Use a stainless
ladle to skim it. Fresh, real, heavy
cream in a cup of french-press coffee is heavenly. Whipped it is absolutely sinful. This is more of that epicurean stuff.
For making butter you will need a butter churn like this one available at
Lehmans (we cheat and use our MagiMix), a wire-mesh wood-rim sieve, and a
wooden butter paddle. Ceramic butter
crocks and molds are nice to have, but you can also just wrap the butter in wax
paper and put it in the freezer.
For making cheese, it is important to use only stainless
steel pots and utensils. You will be
able to purchase all the recipe books, cheesecloth, rennet, molds, presses, wax,
etc. from Ricki at New England Cheese Making Supply.
If you want to do it all yourselves, butchering equipment
and supplies include a cold place to hang the carcass, gun, hoist, spreader,
hanging hooks, skinning knife, butcher knife, sharpening stone, steel hone, shovel
and garden for the offal, butcher saw, meat grinder, several large plastic
buckets, butcher paper, freezer tape, and a marking pen. Alternatively, load the heifer or steer in the
trailer and driver to the butchers. Your meat will be correctly aged, butchered, and ready in a few weeks.
If you have read this far, then you may also be interested
in my article on killing fascists by raising rabbits.
Happy New Year, and peace be with you!
»
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I want to thank god that I am atheist! With the metaphysical and superstitious stuff out of the way I can focus on the 'real' good stuff. I love the farm information and suggestions, the howto and links are great! Thanks!
FFA used to be called Future Farmers of America but they decided it just wasn't working because so few people were interested in anything agriculture. I was a Future Farmer of America officer all the way back then in the late 80's. Yep, the cocaine decade. I did not do FBLA but everyone else did. I think they just did to get out of class. I was on the soil judging team and the parliamentary procedure team because that is exactly what don't dig. I ended up all-conference in football and baseball through sheer determination. Chicks digged that but so what? What good does that do me now? None good.
We raised hogs, ducks, rabbits and chickens because you have to have chickens to shit everywhere if you let them range. I still like chickens but not chickenshits. If you want to attract owls then have a flock of chickens. For some time I was an member of the ARBA and had some of the best pedigreed Florida Whites in the U.S.. Chicks do dig bunny rabbits because they are cute. The big turn off is when it is time to harvest the bunny rabbits for meat.
After some time, I decided that it was not animal husbandry that I really liked but rather plants. Plants don't shit the place up and while you still have to clean up after them from time to time, plants are far less of a pain in the ass. So it went that I obtained a degree in horticulture. There are so few people who have that degree or the passion to do it. I should have been a business major but my heart was not there. Even when I was young I knew they were liars. There were 1500 business majors at the university and 11 horticulture majors and probably about 25 agromony majors. That is striking because I went to an agricultural university back in the 90's. I knew several good guys who just said "FUCK this place I am going back to the farm" and they did. They didn't like the theoretical bullshit of the classroom and knew that hard work was what really mattered. I had one roomate who said, "Fuck this place, these asshole professors have NEVER done a day a of work in their lives." True story that.
No one ever said that anything that agriculture was easy. You won't get monetarily rich either. The expenses are outrageous and you can't really outsource it. Probably one of the best expressions I have heard is this one: "Do you want to make a little money in agriculture? Start with a lot of money." Ain't that the truth.
So who is going to do this job of providing food? Are we just going to print more money and buy stuff from other countries where labor is cheaper? How long will that last? One thing you learn from nature is that you can only take so much before the returns diminish.
Good article Hedgeless. I like seeing your recipes and the food you make. You should post more of those pics like you used to. You seem like the kind of guy who would get right in there on fixing up an old tractor to get it running. Buy an old grain truck and fix on it. You may not think you need it but you do.
I have a 60 year old John Deere 820 that I will never trade in. One of the lil_horsemen and I just replaced the fuel tank. We tried welding patches, but the metal was too thin for our skill set.
I will ponder this.
Peace.
Never argue with a patient man is my credo. Yep the old tractor that you have to keep running is what figured about you. Good to know that because that is more important then what you might think. You keep it working just by using bubblegum, bailing wire and twine. Yes, you do need a grain truck because look how much work you can do with it. When the time comes you can use it to defend yourself. I really want this one because that is cool in so many ways. I just don't know where I would put it.
That is a cool truck my friend. It might take a little work to fix it up but so what. It's a classic. I will never be that guy who buys the $100,000 resto-rod.
https://marshall.craigslist.org/grd/4786165812.html
Go search "Grain hauler" on Craigslist for your area and you might be surprised at what you find. Many of them are old but they still work. They are not expensive per se. i.e. does it have good tires? They aren't young or beautiful but they can get the job done and that is all that matters.
Y'all oughta, you milk drinkers ought to simply give it up.
You don't need or have any nutritional requirements in dairy products. Eggs, sure. But the rest of dairy is a bane on your health.
So that eliminates the need to have any dairy cows at all.
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Fucking religious nutcases--God help me if I had to live eternity with these insufferable fuckfaces. I'd prefer hell. More importantly, dairy products will kill you sure as meat.
God is just and righteous to give you exactly what you want.
Look at your teeth. You have teeth for ripping and tearing meat, teeth for grinding grains and plants. Which means you are what is called an OMNIVORE, which means you were designed/evolved to eat both plants and meat. So eating meat will NOT kill you unless you eat spoiled/poisonous meat... in which case you ae more likely to puke your guts out and get over it unless it's a REALLY NASTY toxin... which toxins can come from both meat and plants.
That's the REAL world.
As to you preferring Hell, if it exists, then God also exists, and if God exists (and logic indicates that He or something analogous to Him DOES exist) He is known for honoring such preferences.
The only thing I can conclude is that Oliver Wendell Douglas was 50 years ahead of his time. And had Lisa to milk Eleanor every morning...after she milked him.
We eventually ate 'ole Bettsy. The kids weren't happy.
That's why you don't name your meat animals like they were people. We named ours things like "Pork Chops" and "Ribeye." The kids would be feeding them and say stuff like "Ribeye, you're looking good today, but you'll look better on a barbeque grill!"
I remember my parternal grandmother talking about life on the farm. About how they would name the milk cows, but they would never name the slaughter animals. Naming them made it too hard to butcher and eat them.
"The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand... right now..."
Yet another Messianic Bible idiot. The Kingdom of Heaven is a Jewish concept, preached in Matthew, a Jewish author writing to a pork-abstaining, Temple-worshipping, Sabbath-observing Jewish audience. Has less than nothing to do with him.
These morons have no idea what it is they're reading but no matter, their foolishness will be preached ad nauseum, confusing many.
This dolt should have just stuck with the dairy cow theme and left his distorted, half-wit understanding of Scripture remain unknown.
Why so virulent? An atheist friend of mine said he respects and honors the morality of good because he thinks cooperative living produces a better life than ill principled competition and war, and for him God, who for him does not exist, has nothing to do with that. I told him that I agree with his temporal morality premise but in my case I choose to believe God is watching, and if you believe and ask, subtly advises in a way that does not interfere with the free will He gave you, and that I will be around for all eternity if I am worthy of further evolution. Now my atheist friend believes what he believes, I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe and Hedgeless believes what he believes. None of us are going into a scientific laboratory and design an experiment that either proves or disproves what any of us believe. So calm down and believe anything you like. The only thing you are obligated to do in this world is live by the golden rule, whatever way you come to understand it. Two golden rule followers will always have minimal win-lose interactions, no matter how they arrive at that understanding.
Now my atheist friend believes what he believes, I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe and Hedgeless believes what he believes. None of us are going into a scientific laboratory and design an experiment that either proves or disproves what any of us believe. So calm down and believe anything you like.
That way of thinking is not only practically false, but incredibly dangerous. While it may be technically true that science (or, frankly, humans) cannot prove the existence of god, we can disprove any falsifiable statements made in dogma or by god's chosen voices on earth. In short, those aspects of the world/universe that our predecessors believed god to have been responsible for have dwindled as we have had more time to develop theory. Likewise, if you fleshed out all of your theories on god, I strongly suspect many would be falsifiable [if not, then you do not belong to any organized religion].
On the one hand, a vague couple thousand page text has a lifetime of wisdom, but on the other hand it is a few thousand pages of noose for the writers. God cannot be wrong and, by extension, god's messengers cannot be wrong if god is to have any viable meaning to humans. Once you're wrong, then your credibility is in question. Once you attempt to retreat and retrench those ideals, you've already lost. Those who believe in a non-religious creator do not actually believe in god; they've merely sidestepped the entire retreat and retrenchment process. Rather, they're simply bad scientists with a flair for clinging onto biological needs when faced with the unknown. There is no practical difference between someone saying an unconscious entity made the universe and someone saying a natural force caused the universe...
At some point in time, after being wrong about material portions of theses, the concept becomes unlikely or even unreasonable to believe in... In other words, it is not necessary to exhaustively prove or disprove a theory to make competing theories more reasonable choices. I also find it troubling that anyone would cling to humans' inability to prove anything as justification for belief in something. This is the act of a salesman at best. Simply throwing your hands up and saying "we can all believe whatever we want to believe, and that's fine" is complete nonsense. We all have a natural right to those beliefs, but in so doing we also have the ability to be unreasonable. Once those beliefs turn into political tools (which is virtually always), then the mere beliefs turn into the building blocks of a monster. While I advocate for the right to believe what you wish, I also abhor idiocy, especially when it is so often politicized.
Pascal's wager has proven for all time beyond all argument that unbelievers are idiots.
Pascal's wager has been laughed out of the logic arena for centuries... Did you read the "criticism" section of the wikipedia link you posted? The wager is superficially alluring, but hollow underneath.
Do you have something against other people's freedom to think?
I worry more about people like you.
Messianic Bible idiot
You now what our biggest problem is today, attitude and respect.
What ever happened to the Ethic of Reciprocity? I didn't read the whole post, but as long as he isn't preaching murder, theft and so on and just stating as a human being what he believes in, whether you agree or not, make him an idiot?
It is usually people who refers to others in a derogatory manner, such as idiot, who are guilty of being in the same class they refer to.
What makes anyone an idiot is spouting off UNINFORMED opinions, as if their beliefs deserve as much credit as thoroughly informed ones based on facts, proven truths, experiential vetting.
I have the opinion that the Steelers are a rag-tag football team, and that the Cowboys are the best in the World. That is an uninformed opinion, especially after their track records are considered.
I have the opinion that gold is an undervalued precious metal. Based on what?? It's utility? It's rarity? It's market value? It's intrinsic value?
Theft itself is a necessary, rational solution if you are starving, and need food.
There are some absolutes. And one of them is rendering UNINFORMED opinions, based on nothing more than your beliefs, feelings, intuition, and biases with no facts, proven truths, and no solid data.
Definition of informed, interesting. All loci on the surface of a sphere might choose to travel to the common center, no two shall take the same path to arrive at the same destination? Which locus is informed? Yes, there are some common "absolutes", but a whole lot less than we need to understand the universe or ourselves. I don't know who is informed and uninformed, you, hedgeless, or either. When you bring me that informed laboratory "proof" of no God I will still not reconsider my preference for hedgeless's viewpoint, because in my view, no one around here is ready for that level of understanding. So hang on to your viewpoint, I got no problem with that at all, but you will just have to forgive me if I don't accept it as any more "informed" than mine.
Not just 'interesting' as you put it. "Informed" is knowing that the match you light, should you decide to put your naked finger in the fire, for second or two will burn you, 100% of the time. The longer you keep it there, themore burned and charred it will become.
Only the arrogant would presume to think their minds can comprehend what is essentially infinity. No brain, no matter how large, wired, or otherwise brilliant can fathom the endless universe, so drawing conclusions that 'god' or surrogate of similar omnipotence exists, is just a reflection of the limitations of the human and nothing more. Just because you can't understand something does not give you the right to do more than render an uninformed opinion as to the existence of a supreme being.
The obvious question to that conclusion being: "Well, who created the Supreme Being".
All that creation suggests to us is that we are paltry, tiny cells in the scheme of things, incapable of understanding what is essentially the chaos that is existence, upon which we spend our lives trying to establish some order.
\
"No one around here would understand" is a pretty sweeping generalization and just exemplifies your opinion clouding your judgement when you commit the very acts which you evidently abhorr.
Most women do not like farms.
But quite a few have discovered the 'joy' of riding horses.
You Walter Mitty types amuse me. What will you do when the local government, accompanied be armed men, visits you to redistribute your food to the community?
Get dead probably...
Libertarians dont approve of violence and naively believe everyone else thinks the same. Of course most of them believe in the right of armed self-defense but consider the following scenario:
At some point after the apocalypse/nuclear war a warring party arrives at your farm. They are armed, numerous yet polite and all they ask is for you to register at the nearest county office and to issue and keep receipts for all your sales and purchases.
Certainly a reasonable request! Who could possible open fire on them?
Horseshit.
Rights are an exchange of duties and benefits between two parties. Say you pay an employee for his labor. You get a right to his labor, he has a right to a salary.
Rights do not exist outside of the context of contract. There are neither natural nor divine rights.
.
Are those steak cows or hamburger cows?
Milking Shorthorn are steak cows...dual purpose.
A Holstein makes pretty good eating also if fed correctly. I can take an old cow, completely stripped of back fat from milking her...dry her up and in 3 months on a dry hay diet she will be the best eating beef anyone has tasted. When we fatten her as a dry cow, we say she has all "new" meat.
Hosteins being bigger,have a large body capacity enabling them to eat vast amounts of roughage...needing no grain. The modern dairy farm systems have bastardized the concept of what the Hostein was bred to do...convert grass to milk. When a Holstein is not milking, she will take all the energy that was going into a pail and put it into meat production. It is unbelievable how fast a Holstein can fatten, when she is not pregnant or milking.
Dairy breeds , including the dual purpose Short horn which can be rare to find for most people.... have a remarkable taste to their meat...better than the beef breeds.
Fun and interesting article, thanks. We are considering a pair of miniature goats; even one will produce more than a quart of milk a day, which would suit our needs. And, they clear brush (by eating it) and poison ivy.
You will love having goats! One of the greatest animals on the planet. For meat, milk, entertainment, pure joy, you can't beat em'. Enjoy!
We grew up doing all that stuff, plus 4-H clubs for years on couple acre farm in Oregon. Yes, even made the butter and ice cream, too. But milking a cow in the morning before school is a bum steer when you're 15 years old and dreaming of chicks and a car.
Good article. I think preppers/farmers should also get into foraging for wild edibles, and get into permaculture where they plant their own fruit/nut/perennial bushes/trees/shrubs. Nothing like having free food all around your property. Check out the EatTheWeeds YouTube channel for hundreds of free videos on foraging or eattheweeds(dot)com. For a permaculture introduction, check out geofflawton(dot)com, sign up with your email, then watch the dozens of videos he has. You'll look at your current/future property with a whole different mindset. I've collected pounds of free food that people have no clue is edible.
Too much mucus in da head mon.
Fuck dat.
2 dairys on de island. Few Moo Cows.
Cow Foot.
Cow's Milk.
Cheeeeeese be better.
Goats.
Irie~
Serge or Cremo?
Goats, Sheep, Chickens, Rabbits.. better to have many smaller animals that can breed, abnd be butchered at even intervals. But God help us if we have to go back to Subsistence farming, we have already lost way to much of Humanity.
Pick your little farm very carefully, it may take some time. My parents did it in the late 40's but as a small kid I don't remeber much of exactly what they were looking for. The land they ended up with, some 20 acres, had a well on a hill, 200' higher than the house they built. Water gravity feet to the first and second floor and to the cow barn with one cow. They'd cut the power to the pump most of the summer with water 24/7 with just enough pressure. They'd leave the lawn sprinklers on most of the time when the lawn or garden needed it. And, of course, no crap lile flouride in the water.
This is the breed we raised.
http://www.braunvieh.org/
db51, good looking breed. The breed my parents picked looked a little like that but was not the best dairy cow or beef steer. They started out with Brown Swiss.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_Swiss
I'm thinking of suggesting that ZH split the threads into two categories - those ON topic, and those on something else (side/derivative threads.) Like this one went a little bit country, and then jumped the track to how many rounds your favorite end-times weapon of mass destruction holds and how big of a hole it leaves.
So... to respond to the post, NOT all the WW III BS...
The choice of a milking shorthorn would be a good one, but if you don't have a market or a good use for the excess milk, I'd suggest a poled shorthorn (the beef breed that came from the milking shorthorns). They are better milkers than your average beef cow (I think they orginally came from Irish milking shorthorns?), and they have really sweet dispositions. We raised them for a while and had absolutely ZERO trouble from them - except for one cow who got a free ride to the sale barn to visit all the other cows who rejected their calves.
The comment about oxen was also right on the mark. A steer calf raised to work will be larger than most of your working horses and can pull more. (You start training an oxen at about 2 or 3 weeks old, and the poled shorthorn oxen get HUGE!!!)
A cautionary note about your average person getting a milk cow. If you didn't grow up around it, or if you haven't actually done it, milking is a whole new way of life and it's a S**t-ton of work! And if you don't come from a milking family - even if you raised beef cows like we did - you have a LOT to learn! My wife grew up around one of the foundation herds of poled shorthorns, one of her relatives was one of the original developers of the breed in the early part of the 20th cent., and she had to do a lot of learning before we tried it.
And a warning - If you buy a Jersey or a Holstein (Or possibly any "milk breed") from a dairy - you are most likely buying the dairy's problem cow. And from those breeds, the cows are also highly likely to have "Johnnies Desease" (pronounced "Yon ees"), (technically "MAP") in which case they'll be dead within a year as there is no cure for it, and then you have to idle your pastures for about 3 years or any cows you put on them may end up with it too.
So if you want to try the milking thing - great! But you need to learn what you are getting into before you spend $3,000 for that milk machine (pictured - from Hanby's), and over $800 or $1000 for a cow (unbred).
thanks HH i enjoyed.
This is a comment I made in reference to another article that was promptly relegated to page 8. It is important information in my opinion.
In part of my thesis I addressed the endocrine disruption caused by styrene dimers and trimers. Styrene is used in food packaging whether it is plastic, paper, or the new plant based biodegradables. Styrene is cracked from petroleum for use in these products. Many studies since 1976 have shown that styrene leaches into the food we consume. The government has actually been collecting industry supplied data to formulate what they call polystyrene consumption factor (PScf.) In 1980 it was .08, 95' re-evaluated at .10, and 07' study pegged it at .14. There were two studies that really made me think twice about packaged foods. Male rats brains were significantly smaller when exposed in vitro. Rats are mammals- so are we. Decreased brain weights could be a reflection of styrene's inhibiting the T4 conversion to T3- thyroid hormonal action important in branching cells in the embryonic brain.The other study noted polystyrene petri dishes interacted with human leukocyte cells and observations were recorded of DNA single strand breaks. There are a total of 51 polystrene (most people call it styrofoam- which is incorrect- that is a Dow product not used in food applications but similiar) and styrene based additives used in and to package food. In an 05' study PRL was hyper secreted in rats exposed to styrene. PRL stimulates mammary gland growth.
Boys are getting dumber- look at the lack of males on a college campus and girls are getting breasts earlier and earlier. More research needs to be done but packaged foods could be the source of some of our ills. Reaearch shows I.Q. is falling- what if we really are what we eat? Food for thought.
<"Girls are getting breasts earlier and earlier."
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