Goat vs cow, the age old question..

I was thinking if I rotational graze on 4 acres that leaves one 'good acre' free and 2 'marginal' acres. I was thinking I could put some work in, plow those marginal acres, reseed, etc and build them up. Then I'd have 3 acres for hay.

I probably worded it wrong, I didn't mean they wouldn't eat it but don't expect it to be the majority of their diet, that they will need to be supplemented with alfalfa and grain, for dairy animals. I raised pets (goats) on pasture with a little forest and a leaf of alfalfa a day tossed in when I remembered. Sheep do a much better job of actually mowing pasture though.

Ours love it when they have access to the forest, we have a serious amount of brush and brambles! We are moving to a place with 3 separate pastures, I'm thinking of re-planting one at a time with a dairy mix pasture mix (going from 16 acres of mostly forest to 5 acres of all pasture). Anyone ever try planting this mix? PVFS Dairy Pasture Mix (Irrigated) - Nitrocoated Seed (lb)

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That sounds right to me.

The suggestion of Brown Swiss cows sounds good too. There's an organic dairy near my place that sells delicious milk (and cheese, yogurt, and ice cream) from their herd of pasture-raised Brown Swiss cows. They don't feed any grain at all.

There's another dairy in west central Indiana that sells cheese and ice cream from their pastured, no-grain herd. They used to have a conventional dairy until they visited relatives in Switzerland and saw that they didn't feed any grain, so they went grass-fed when they came back home. They may keep Brown Swiss too, but I'm not sure.

Why not just buy some grain? It's not like they need a ton of it. Each goat, maybe 1-3 pounds a day, depending on the animal. This is only during milking season. 50 pounds of Dairy 16 costs about $11-$12 here, this is not exactly breaking the bank. Although you will still need to supplement goats with alfalfa or alfalfa pellets, for dairy animals. At the very least they will need a very good orchard grass. I've run the numbers on dairy animals and they at least break even, as long as you raise decent healthy stock. An ounce of prevention is always the best cure. Good feed and management, equals good fertility, equals good milk, equals longevity of the animal, equals having healthy stock to sell, equals all around healthy animals with less vet bills and mortality. In my opinion it never pays to under-cut your animals on good feed and management.

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Not sure where you live, which will make a big difference in how much pasture/ hay land you will have to have for one cow or several goats.

I can't give you much personal info about goats as I've never owned them other than a pet goat when I was a child and caring for the neighbors 3 milk goats occasional weekends several years ago. Personally, I don't care for goats milk so would not keep goats, but have also seen indications that goats can be difficult to fence adequately.

Growing up, we raised beef cattle but always had one or more milk cows for family milk. They were grade Herefords, like all of our cows, but several had a strain of Shorthorn so milked enough to support a calf on half the milk so we milked the other half. They were never grained. A good beef cow will raise a big calf on just grass pasture with no grain supplements and our milk cow, being a beef breed, did the same.

If you want a high production dairy breed cow they do need supplemental grain for that kind of production. A good beef cow with higher than usual milk production than most beef breeds will do fine on grass and will provide enough milk for her calf and one to three people with no problem. However, I'm not sure how easy that kind of cow would be to find ... not as difficult in a beef-cow area although you probably would not find one broke to mail. In areas where dairy cattle are more common, it might be more difficult.

Well let me put it this way; Why would I want an animal that needs grain, if I can find an animal that doesn't?

A Brown Swiss will give a TON of milk, and if a single guy dosent have a place for it, ITS ALOTTA MILK. Not to mention if he hasnt growed up since the age of 8 milking His hands are gonna drop off before he gets her milked, and that will be on his mind EVERY time its time to milk her.
IF your gonna milk a cow, She HAS to have grain. AS someone has already said on here. These cows of today arent the cows of 100yrs ago. Theyve been bred up to produce, and theres no stopping that. So, Its kinda like driveing a VW and seeing how far you can go on a full tank, Then getting into a Vette and trying to get the same distance outa it. Aint gonna happen. There both cars, But they been made differently, for different reasons. Same with a milk cow. 100/150yrs ago, A cow was just USAUALLY a byproduct on the farm in most regions other than Wisc. She was supposed to produce some milk, and nobody expected her to make more than a gal a day tops. 1/2 gal for most. But then they began experimenting on makeing big dairy breeds heavy producers of milk. They didnt do that by keeping the same feed before her regardless of her production. No, They learned that she had to have a certain amount of grain in conjunction with the amount of milk she made.
We always fed Ground corn to the cows. I dont know why it would have to be ground. Maybe so that she could get the right amount in , in the time it took to milk her so there wasnt no supplimental feeding beforehand.

Cows of today have the production genes of there moms, and great, great, great, great, great, great, grandmothers in them. Its been a slow process, but its been ongoinging for over 100yrs, and it isnt likely to stop. If they dont get the nuitrants and grain and hay to produce to at least near to their capacity, They will break down. As I said earlier. They will take the calcium out of their own bones to suppliment the calcium needed in milk.

Sounds like a beef cow is your answer. BUT THEN, Shell need ALOT of pasture.

I have goats for milk and will stick with them....5 goats=1 cow feed wise.....1 cow gets sick and is unproductive and/or dies...you lose....one goat gets sick you still have 4 fertile mertiles....
though two goats is all you need....soon you'll have many more...I mow my lawn with a push bagger and feed it to my girls and they love it! I trim fruit trees and feed that to them too....Christmas trees after the holiday...
goats are dry keepers....not wet and mushy like cows too...which to me is a MAJOR bonus....
But I do get week old bull calves to raise for meat (veal and beef) on surplus goat milk and lawn clippings....

Catch some junk fish for your birds...boil them w/o cleaning and give them to birds when cooled....

If you are for a cow... a dexter is a small dual purpose...but a moody breed IMO

So there is no such a thing anymore as a cow or goat that can give some milk and only eat grass/hay/forage? You cannot keep a productive animal without buying grain? Maybe I can get beef cow and cross it with something like a brown swiss. Seems like maybe somebody needs to start making a productive animal that isn't reliant on the feed store. With feed prices what they are I just don't want to go down that road.

DT U cant have it both ways. Back in the old days all the cows got was grass and hay. There production rates reflected this. Thats why a beef cow will produce milk, BUT not a 1/4 the amount of a good Gurnsey or Brown Swiss. They only get grass, and their rates show this.
HOW MUCH MILK, do you think you are going to need??
What grain do you grow, and how many acres of it??

A cow naturally produces enough milk to raise her calf. Then she dries up -as in a beef cow. Dairy cows have been bred to produce more milk than a calf will need for a longer amount of time. IF you have good grass, with alfalfa or a legume in it, you might not NEED grain to keep cow in milk. But do not expect her to feed you, her calf, 3 pigs and the chickens. That's asking too much.

Why not just give it a try with either animal and see what you can do. Be prepared to let the cow or goat slowly transition to no grain. Or raise one yourself that won't expect it. If you see that animal not doing well physically without grain - give her some. It doesn't have to be an either or situation. Sometimes they just need a boost. Yes, there is a bit of a danger of their not having enough energy stores before they calve/kid and cows at least, can get milk fever. I'd hope your aversion to grain wouldn't include an animal in need- just the on-going need for grain. Just do for the animal what they need. If you find the specific animal you buy is too needy for your purposes, you move on to a different one. And then again, you might be as well off to look for an animal that is already being grass-fed only or at least from a farm with the same idea as you have. Perhaps someone near is ahead of you in developing a grass-only line of goats? If so, I'd choose to milk goats over a questionable cow. If you like goat's milk, why consider a cow? If you can find grass-fed only milking line of Dexters or shorthorns, then I'd go with a cow. What's availble might answer your questions.

Since we don't know your LOCATION, it's hard to give all -inclusive advice. 5 acres of grass seems like a lot to me. Certainly plenty for 1 cow or a couple of goats. But perhaps you are in Wyoming?

Sorry, didn't have time to read all the posts so this may be a repeat. I have not raised dairy goats but raised meat goats for many years. I found them to be labor intensive. They were always needing their hooves trimed or were getting wormy and I hated using chemicals. they can get out of the best of fence and will get their horns hung in the fence if at all possible. Can't count how many times we had orphaned kids in the bathroom. Never will do that again. They required the best alfalfa hay in the winter and then would pick the leaves out and waste about half of it. I thought they were expensive to keep so got out of that business. We do milk and milk a Guernsey cow. They are a heritage breed and we feed her very little grain a day but we do have great pasture. Nothing puts on condition like good green grass. When we have to we feed grass hay. I don't want her to produce all she can, I want her to produce all she can on pasture while staying healthy. She gives way more than we can use and it is rich creamy milk that makes great cheese. The rest I use to feed the chickens (I buy or raise no other feed) and feed out a pig every now and then. We have one cow and use AI to get her bred. She is a part of the family and we love her more than the family dog! Based on my experience, I think everyone should have a family cow but you have to weigh your needs.

I agree entirely with your post PL

What are you going to do with the gallons per day that a milk cow would give you?

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I like my Dexter Jersey cross. She was the product of a low producing Jersey cull and a rather small Dexter bull (not mine). She calved two weeks ago as a two year old heifer without assistance or fuss. We both learned the milking experience together without to much trouble. I can now milk her while she stands outside eating the two scoops of dairy ration I put in front of her.

She only stands about four foot at the shoulders and has a relatively small yield of approx 6 quarts at the morning and only milking. I leave the calf with her 24/7.

Six quarts consistently is yielding over a quart of cream which will produce over a pound of butter.

One sixty pound bale of high quality grass hay with a smidgen of alfalfa lasts four days(calf is already nibbling also) and the fifty pound bag of dairy ration lasts about two weeks.

It is costing me about two dollars a day to feed her. I get six quarts a day of very high quality milk plus what the calf is using and only milk once in the morning.

I am happy with the arrangement but will probably separate the calf at night after a few more weeks. Will offer some calf starter at that point.

That's the story of my first dairy endeavor. Not a huge production but is enough to keep our family of eight in fresh milk and cream. Even a little for butter and cottage cheese.

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I wouldgowith goats because this will be a trial and error for you, i rather have an error with a 100 goat rthen a 900 cow

Yes, you can, but I suspect they are not easy to find. I had one in MT before I moved to KY. She was 1/4 Gurnsey and 3/4 Hereford. I was by myself, I'm not a big milk drinker so didn't need a lot of milk, certainly did not want a dairy type breed cow. I didn't even need to milk every day, so I kept her calf out with her. When I'd get low on milk, I'd call her up and put the calf up overnight. Milk her for what I needed for 2 or 3 days and put the calf back out. She kept me in all the milk I needed and raised a calf as well.

But I found her because of my contacts in the ranching community. There are still some of the beef ranchers that do keep a cow or two like this for their own use ... some have a beef/dairy cross cow if they nee a little more milk that I did and they will breed back to a beef bull ... but a lot of these cows or their heifer calves are sold more by word of mouth than in ads.

Just because a dairy cow is bred for high production do you have to try to achieve it, you can get plenty of milk just feeding high quality forage and some supplement. You can also buy stand alone bucket milkers if they do produce. Breed the animals in April dry 'em off in December (no milking in the cold that way....lol Split the calf off during the night and let it feed during the day and only milk in the morning, or vice versa.

Our first milk production animal was a Jersey cow and that was about 14 years ago. Then we went to Nubians, then to Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats. Then we sold all our dairy animals and took a break a few years back.

Went with a Jersey/Holstein mix cow when we decided we couldn't live without raw milk, who was great as far as milk and butter production. But she was too large for us to comfortably handle. So we sold her to another homesteading family. Ended up going back to the Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats for ease of maintenance. Milk supply isn't that high, but then feed requirements are low too. Our kid sales help pay for their maintenance too.

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