A Family Cow

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For every quart of cream you produce, you'll have about 9 quarts of skim milk. This is the finest food you can feed pigs, chickens and other poultry. If you still think you'll have too much milk, there's the annual calf that your cow will produce. If you raise the calf to veal size, about 180 pounds, the calf will consume daily a pint of milk for each ten pounds it weighs.

Another thing to bear in mind is that although a cow isn't by any means something you can turn on or shut off like a faucet, you can to a certain extent control the amount of milk she produces; she can be just as efficient producing less milk, strange as this might seem. The efficiency of a cow is simply a comparison between what she costs to keep and how much she produces. During the course of a year a commercial dairy cow will consume about 2 tons of hay, require one to two acres of good pasture, and eat 2,000 pounds of grain or other concentrates. A homesteader interested in self-sufficiency usually has the pasture land and can make the hay, but has to buy the grain, A cow, however, doesn't need grain. Professor Carl Bender, of Rut gers, explained to me how a cow could be kept in perfectly good health on a diet of good hay, good pasture and in winter succulents such as beet pulp or the sugar beets themselves . Obvi ously, a cow that isn't fed grain won't give as much milk - probably it'll give only 70 % of what it would give when fed grain to supplement pasture and hay. But to the homesteader consider ing what to do with a cow's full. of milk, a cow that will give 7 quarts of milk a day instead of 10 quarts might be preferable, particularly when she can also eliminate a grain bill.

Less than an eighth of an acre will provide the 25 pounds of sugar beets a day necessary to feed your cow during the months when pasture is not good. Beets or mangels can be stored in a root-cellar. They are simply washed and sliced before feeding.

The more the countryman looks into the business of keeping a cow, the more practical it seems. Your first cost, buying the cow and fixing up to keep her, is figuratively speaking your last cost. For if you have some suitable pasture and raise your own hay and succulents, then the only other regular cash outlay should be about $15 dollars a year breeding and veterinary fees. On the credit side you should get at least 5,000 pounds of milk (about 2,500 quarts), a calf which will give you 90 pounds of veal, and 12 tons of good manure. If you've had to buy manure, then you'll appreciate how valuable 12 tons is.

All this sounds pretty rosy. But there is the other side, too. Although neither an elaborate nor expensive building is required, you'll need a barn of some sort. It should be draft-free, have a decent sized window to let in plenty of sun and fresh air.

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