Question for the Dairy Farmers

Are you married? You will certainly need a partner on this venture, and not many girls today are interested in living the life of a dairy farmer. They might find the IDEA romantic, but the REALITY is a whole 'nother thing.

Good luck.

Really though if I were to consider a dairy I would think one of two ways. Very mega size; that is imposiable for most of us; or very small.

If you live in the right state you could start with 2 or 3 cows and sell your milk bottled as fresh raw milk. Problem is you do not live in the right state.

Georgia The state has banned the sale of raw milk for human consumption through its interpretation of the Georgia Dairy Act of 1980 and also through its adoption of the 2003 version of the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance.

The sale of raw milk for animal consumption is legal if the distributor is licensed under the commercial feed laws. The Department of Agriculture currently has several distributors of raw goat milk for pet food under license.

The other option you have is to work at a local dairy. Some older guys will allow you to bring in XX of your own cows. You do all the labor and the owner pays all the bills for all cows. Your pay is the milk check for your cows milk.
The only cost you have by doing this is the cows.

• Real Milk

First you'll need a milking parlor and bulk tank room. Here in New York State, there are very specific requirements for your milking parlor and bulk tank room. Each room most have a floor drain connected to a septic system, the floor must be sealed and non-porous, the walls and ceilings must be easily cleanable. You'll need the bulk tank itself, a pipeline, milk pump, automatic cleaning equipment, and a bunch more equipment. It is all very expensive. Everything must be stainless steel. I think all states have similar regulations.

IF you can afford the investment, there's money to be made in what you're thinking of. I think the suggestion of working on a dairy farm is an excellent one. If you have no experience with livestock, you really can't afford to experiment with very valuable animals.

I'm not trying to discourage you, on the contrary, I hope you do it. But you need to know, it's a tremendous investment.

Good luck!!!!

What I've observed from the people who are making it is they put their money in cows. Everything else is low cost and as they can afford it but high quality cows are the turn key. Equipment, mostly 60s and 70'stuff (except round balers and skid loaders, silage balers are the norm and the skid steers typically run daily so its better to get good quality). Land, too expensive to own. The more successful ones have 80-100 acre farms where they milk and grow silage corn. All of them get their hay on shares harvesting somewhere else.

The ones that look like they will make it challenge feed. As long as production increases they increase feed for those cows. The ones who wont are shorting the cows on groceries, hay/silage/and concentrate.

This can be done! It will take a lot of MONEY and WORK!
There are many ways to start. Don gave good ideas. Buying calves would tie you $$ up the longest before you turned a profit errrr had any income. And you will have death loss and a chance at a dud in the milking string.
If it were me I'd go work on a dairy. Get your animal husbandry skills built up, after all the cows do make the money. Then rent a farm or work into a retiring farm. If renting facilities you will need to buy heifers. Springers are fetching $1900-2000+ a pop. I would also rotational graze. Low in put, low output system, but yeilds more per cow. Buy in dry hay for winter.

Scratch bottling...way to expensive

Believe me, you don't know what works is until you dive into that game and I agree with the other poster.

Buy in fee is gonna run somewhere around half a rock. Just the heavy springers alone will make your ears bleed and that's just the beginning.

Allan