My only perspective of dairy cow ownership is one that’s off grid. It’s simple and lovely, and I want to give insight to what it’s like, how doable it really is, and our systems that we have in place.
A little bit about our off grid homestead
My husband and I, along with our 4 young children, live off grid way back in the forest on 100 acres. We are in a small community in rural northern Ontario, which has been our home town our entire lives.
We thoroughly believe God gave us this property. Because to start, it’s a little piece of paradise; almost entirely hardwood, a large ever flowing river, private lake, cedar bog, a forest filled with wild food, beautiful fertile soil, and views that take your breath away.
We have worked very hard building a self sufficient homestead that could happily sustain our family for years to come. We’ve cleared forest, implemented pigs to work the dense areas of the woods, planted gardens, free range ducks and chickens for pest control, as well as providing eggs, and built an off grid home complete with water catchment, an incinerating toilet, and solar power.
A key element to our self sustainable life was bringing in dairy for our family. And that’s what I’m here to share with you today…
Our cows
We added dairy cows to our homestead sort of on a whim (that’s how I roll) and we’ve been hooked ever since. I didn’t really think too much about how to keep a cow off grid, I just dove in and knew it’d be great. That’s pretty much how I live my life, which means I fail a lot, but it’s always great!
Currently we have two different breeds of cows. Canadienne, and Jersey.
Unless the sale of raw milk becomes legal in canada, I doubt we will expand our dairy operation very much. BUT, I wont say never. We are saving up for a milk machine and if we do end up getting one I’d have no problem syncing all of my cows to be in milk at the same time, and adding more dairy cows into the herd.
We would keep as much as we wanted for the house, and then raise our pigs and other livestock on it too!
Infrastructure
Barn
I’ll start by saying we aren’t in the end game of our off grid homestead life.
And by that I mean we are in our early stages of infrastructure still on the homestead. We have a long way to go to get to that “done” point, and we are ok with that because we truly believe that we can make do, adapt, and improve as we go along, and that we don’t have to wait until everything is perfect to start a new venture.
Our cows are living proof you don’t need anything but bare necessities to keep them on your farm.
Like for instance, we don’t have a barn. LOL!
For the first 6 months of cow ownership our herd lived under the cover of the forest with a tarp tied up in an area to protect them from hail or downpours. They were totally fine and did well.
We upgraded the small tarp to one of those mobile tarp carports. If I remember correctly it measures 12 feet wide by 20 feet long and is open on both short ends. There’s nothing in it besides a dry space for the cows if they want it.
I try to remind people when they tell me they aren’t set up for cows that; people have made cows out to be the princess of the homestead. Many blogs or books will tell you how it HAS to be, and what the cow needs in order to keep it. And although we love and respect our cows, and believe they are one of our most valuable contributors- keeping a cow is really quite simple and they can be healthy and happy with far less than people say (in most cases, but not all).
I’m not saying you should throw your cow into a field and say goodbye. I’m just trying to make it clear that things don’t have to be done a certain way or the very best. Cows are very adaptable creatures, and they will thrive with their basic needs met.
Stanchion
Currently we milk outside with our cows tied to a tree using a lead rope.
I made the stanchion (if you can call it that) in a mad dash to get our jersey milked out after we got her. We had a major storm come through the night we picked her up and it washed away the trails leading to where she was supposed to go, and where the stanchion we built sat. So I had to make do with what I had in the woods. I tied her up to the tree and put a log infront of her so she wouldn’t want to move too far forward, and log on her left side so she didn’t try to run me over as I milked (we milk on her left side).
We’ve been milking this way ever since, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever use the stanchion we built for milking her. I just love being out in the dirt, under the sun or snow or rain, milking my cow.
Watering
Since we don’t have a well here, we hand collect our water using either a 1000 ltr tote or several of those blue water jugs (the ones you use for water coolers). We do have creeks that run seasonally and also a year round running river full of fresh clean water, but the cows area can’t reach it yet, so we pump water into the tote, or hand fill the blue jugs and then fill the cow trough.
In the winter it reaches frigid temps and stays down for months. Once the deep freeze comes, nothing will thaw a water trough except springtime. So we switch to small rubber bowls (the ones you can buy from the feed stores for livestock) and bust them out three times a day. We will break ice more frequently if I’m home and outside near the water.
Our cows do fine with this, and we make sure they get the water they need throughout winter, it’s just in more concentrated amounts.
Our plan for (hopefully) this winter is to have a water trough very close to our outdoor boiler, and we will run pex line from the boiler to the trough and wrap it around it and put some line inside the trough too. This will keep the water from freezing.
How to clean milking supplies
When I first dove into the world of dairy cows, I wondered how I would wash and sterilize all of the supplies. Because we don’t have a dishwasher, or a washing machine, I do all of the washing by hand. We’re also on limited water since we catch rainwater in our 1000 ltr tote that sits beside our tiny house, so I have to be VERY mindful of water usage.
To be honest, my biggest encouragement that made me think I could make this work was after I found Robyn from cheesefromscratch and saw that she washed her milk buckets and large milking gear in her bathtub, using a very simple system. And so, I wash my pails and all other large equipment in the bathtub too!
I’ve never sterilized anything to do with my milking supplies. And we get along just fine.
For the rags; I wash them by hand with a high concentrate of soap, vinegar, baking soda, and borax, and I line dry in the sun.
We don’t have a washing machine currently so I hand wash everything we own. But, if I did have a washing machine, I would use the same detergent method mentioned above.
Milk storage/usage
Since we are off grid, our fridge and freezer are small. Which means I can only store 1.5 days of milk in the fridge. (thats 3 milkings)
So I make a ton of dairy products to be used in different ways. Some of the things I use my milk for include:
- butter
- yogurt
- clabber
- ricotta cheese
- cream cheese
- sour cream
- popsicles
- freezies
- flavoured milk (fruit infused, chocolate, honey)
- whipped cream
- ghee
Some of these items still need to go in the fridge, but they’re creating more diversity in our diets, we use them daily, and it keeps it all very interesting and fun!
I feel like with raw milk, there’s always more you can make and create. I haven’t tried making ice cream yet because I want to find a suitable off grid version (which is proving to be hard), I want to try cottage cheese, and I haven’t even touched the surface in the world of aged cheese!
Supplies needed to keep a dairy cow
Here is my list of things I bought and have for my dairy cow. It’s a basic necessities list, and I stand behind each item since I’ve used them for several years! (this list doesn’t include vet type supplies, that’s a whole other article in itself!)
- milk pail
- large milk pail (aka “the mother bucket”)
- funnel
- filters
- 1 gallon jars
- wide mouth quart jars
- wet erase markers
- organic cheese cloth
Conclusion
In conclusion, keeping a dairy cow when you live off grid is completely doable, and easier than you might think. You just have to make the jump.
Whether you’re on or off grid, and you’re still thinking of all of the reasons you shouldn’t get a dairy cow for your family, stop and look at your heart. I believe that if deep down inside your heart, you find that maybe it’s fear causing you to make up all of the reasons you shouldn’t do it, then you should do it. Jump, and go for it. I HIGHLY doubt you’ll regret it. (like who regrets stocking unlimited amounts of chocolate milk????)
If you have any other dairy cow questions for me I’d love to answer them and share what I’ve learned with you!
-Micheon
Thank you so much for such a lovely article with informative content. I hope to see more of similar articles.