Managing a Dairy
Share
(an exerpt from The Milk
Pail Companion by Agatha Grimsley)
Downloadable from: sfc.smallfarmcentral.com/dynamic_content/uploadfiles/212/DairyShare101.doc
The consumption
of farm-fresh milk is legal in all
50 states, but the challenge for a consumer to obtain raw milk varies from
state to state.
Most consumers
are looking for a source for raw milk for the numerous health benefits, while
others are simply interested in extending their commitment to local food and
farm animal welfare.
Definition of Raw
Milk
Unprocessed
milk ready for consumption, from small local farms
vs.
Raw
commodity milk intended for pasteurization, from conventional dairies
Farm-fresh raw
milk that comes from clean and healthy cows on green pasture, and that is
handled properly by the farmer, is safe for human consumption. In fact, it is
the opinion of raw milk advocates that such milk is much safer and healthier
than pasteurized milk from commodity farms. Pasteurization has come to serve as
an excuse for poor farming practices and bad hygiene on many commodity dairy
farms.
Raw Milk’s Legal
Status, by State (for most up-to-date info,
visit: www.realmilk.com/happening.html)
Retail
Sales Legal (farm must be licensed dairy): Arizona, California,
Connecticut, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, South
Carolina, Washington
On-Farm
Sales Legal (licensed or meet legal requirements):
Arkansas, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi,
Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont
Herd
Shares Legal (farm does not need to be licensed):
Alaska, Colorado, Ohio, Tennessee
No Law
on Herd Shares, but retail sale illegal: Alabama, Indiana,
Kentucky, Michigan, Virginia, Wyoming
Legal
Sales as Pet Food Only (no dairy shares): Florida, Georgia,
North Carolina, North Dakota
Fully
Illegal (though it is legal to own your cow and drink her milk, it is not legal
to own a portion of a cow or to board your cow on another farm):
Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, New Jersey,
Nevada, Rhode Island, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wisconsin
Definition of a
Dairy Share
(aka Milk Share
aka Cow or Herd Share)
This is quite
literally a CSA at its best, in that members from the community join in
purchasing a dairy cow so that they may reap the benefits of her milk.
How it works
A dairy share
works on the legal principle that you may drink the milk from your personal cow
or goat. Most people these days have
neither the land nor skill (let alone the lifestyle) to keep their own dairy
cow. Thus the consumer purchases a share in a dairy animal.
The farmer and
the consumer enter into a legally binding contract. In accordance with the
contract, the share member pays a boarding fee to the farmer, who in turn feeds
and pastures the cow, provides the labor to milk the cow, and stores the milk
for a set amount of time. The ownership of a portion of the cow provides the
consumer with an equal percentage of the cow’s milk each week. In most cases,
one share equals one gallon of milk per week.
With this shared
ownership of the live animal, the consumer does not need to buy milk from the
farmer. Rather, she pays the farmer for
service and labor, which may include processing the milk into value added
products (butter, cream, cheese, etc).
In most states, this arrangement provides the consumer with access to raw
milk.
Unless otherwise
stated, these contracts are for the life of the cow, be it one year or
ten. Therefore, the purchase of a share
is a one-time cost (though the boarding fee is continuous). If a member wants to leave the dairy share,
the farmer will buy back the share, but he may reserve the right to find a new
member before doing so. If the farmer
decides to end the program, he must pay the members from the proceeds of the
cow sale.
Starting a Dairy
Share
Measure the Demand
One dairy cow can
fill ten to twenty shares, so put out some feelers to see if your local
community can support a dairy share. If
you have an established farm, find out the interest level of your customers. If
you are nervous about having enough people to fill your shares, wait to buy the
cow until all the shares have been purchased.
Determine Your Cow’s Milk Production
Capacity
Note: the
standard is to measure milk in pounds, which is far more accurate than gallons.
However, for the small-scale home dairy I think it is easier to discuss in
gallons. For your personal production records, you may want to weigh your daily
milk pail for accuracy.
Commercial
dairies primarily milk Holsteins, but the homesteader most often chooses to
have Jerseys or other such breeds for their good temperament and high butterfat
content. While a Holstein produces many
gallons per day, you can expect your cow to give 3 to 6 gallons per day,
assuming you are milking every twelve hours.
On our farm, we count on 5 gallons per day per cow during the peak
production period of the lactation cycle.
By the last month of the cycle, they each give as little as 1.5 gallons
per day.
Our cows have
plenty of good pasture, which we manage intensively. We believe strongly in a grass-based diet for
ruminants, but our research showed that a small amount of grain fed to dairy
cows greatly benefits milk production.
The rule of thumb is to feed 1% of the cow’s body weight in grain. This is thought to feed the bacteria in the
rumen, which in turn efficiently digest the forage so your cow can transform
that grass into milk. In addition, we feed alfalfa pellets and high quality
minerals at the time of milking.
Which grain
ration you feed your cow will also effect her production. Though commercial feeds are high protein and
low cost, you sacrifice quality in many respects. Consider sourcing grains that
are free of GMO crops, contain no soy, and are grown organically (see sources). Such feeds are much more expensive, but most
dairy share members are willing to pay the higher price for quality. Also note that roughage (grass and hay) is
just as important. It is the cellulose
that translates into butterfat, so the more high-quality grass she eats, the
more cream you’ll have on top. Fresh
grass will also keep your milk tasting as sweet as melted ice cream.
Another major
factor in milk production is the number of milkings per day. If you are starting a diary share as a major
part of your farm business, you will need to milk twice per day (every 12
hours). If you simply want a dairy cow
for your family and hope to supplement the feed costs with a few shares,
milking once per day will give your more flexibility. On our farm, we milk two cows twice a day.
Calculate the Number of Shares
Calculating the
number of shares available is difficult if you have not yet milked this
particular cow. If she’s new to you,
play it safe and assume you’ll be getting 3 gallons per day (1.5 gallons per
milking twice a day), which gives you 21 gallons per week. You can always sell more shares a few months
into her lactation.
There are a few
key points to consider when deciding how many shares to sell:
The Calf: In order to start milk production, your
cow will have a calf, and that calf will need milk. Milk replacer formula is expensive and less
healthy for the little one, so feed mama’s milk if possible. For the best production, separate the calf
from the cow after the first few days of colostrum. Keep him in a separate pen
and bottle-feed him a gallon per day.
Thus your calf needs at least 7 gallons per week. You can wean the calf after three months, but
he will greatly benefit from six to eight months of milk, plus pasture.
Fluctuation in
Production Throughout the Lactation:
If your share equals a set amount of milk per week, be sure not to calculate
based on your cow’s peak production. Keep a safety net of a few extra gallons
to make sure you can fill all the shares later in the cycle. One way to avoid this is to instead make a share
equal to a percentage of the milk, so that the amount a member receives each
week can fluctuate with the cow. (Note
that this is technically the more legally foolproof way to assign shares.)
Your Personal
Milk Consumption: If you are driven to have a dairy cow (and
the lifestyle that comes with it), then you must be a lover of dairy
products. The primary benefit of this
business is having plenty of milk to drink, with more for yogurt, cheeses, and
all the other delicious possibilities.
Don’t forget your own family’s dairy desires; be sure to keep several+shares
for yourself. In my family of four, we
drink roughly ½ gallon per day, plus make cheese, yogurt, and treats weekly.
Calculate the Cost for Consumers
Shares
As stated, the
purchase of a share is a one-time fee for the life of the cow. Since ownership
is indicated via exchange of money, you must charge something. The price of each share is entirely up to the
farmer, and if you research other dairy shares you’ll find that they run
anywhere from a nominal $1 to a substantial $100 each. The most logical calculation is to take the
price you paid for the cow, perhaps adding some for the labor it took to get
her, plus any costs in setting up the dairy on your farm. Then divide that total by your number of
shares. Remember to include your
personal shares in this calculation, as you must also own part of that cow in
order to legally drink her milk. (FYI,
shares in our dairy share are $50 each.)
Boarding Fee
The world of
retail assumes that the price for a product fairly covers the materials and
labor used to produce that product. In a
dairy share, the farmer is not selling
milk, but he does need to be compensated for materials and labor for
boarding the cow. Thus the simplest place to start with calculating your price
is to assign a value to a gallon of milk.
Milk from commercial dairies is cheap (dairy farmers receive $1 to $2
per gallon and are subsequently government-subsidized), so do not set up your
dairy share to compete with them. In
contrast, milk from smaller scale organic dairies generally goes for $10 per
gallon retail. One approach would be to
stay competitive with that price. For
our dairy share, we assumed members would be getting roughly four gallons per
month for ten months of each year, making our boarding fee $400 per year.
A more accurate
process is to do the calculation in reverse, taking the number of hours you’ll
spend caring for the cows and decide on your hourly wage. The difficulty there
is pinning down the exact amount of time you spend managing your cows and their
pasture, which varies day to day and season to season. If using this method, don’t forget to include
the cost of materials; including monthly feed, winter hay, the occasional
fencing tools, etc.
Because we used
the price-per-gallon method, we were happy to discover that adding a second cow
greatly increased our hourly wage. Managing two cows did not double the work,
so we went from earning $1.50 per dairy hour to earning roughly $4.50 per
hour. Don’t be disheartened by these low
wages. As is typical in farming, you
must consider all the non-monetary benefits (milk!). In addition, you, the farmer, maintain
ownership of the yearly calf, which offers another source of income.
Bottle Fee
You will need
many bottles throughout the week (preferably half-gallon glass jars), and it
makes the most sense to charge a fee to the members for the use and care of the
bottles. Consider charging a bottle fee
up front with the share purchase, and then a small annual fee to cover washing,
replacing lids, etc. If one share equals
one gallon of milk per week, plan that each share will need 6 half-gallon
jars. Managing the bottles is one of the
biggest headaches of running a dairy share, so I will devote an entire section
to that below.
Create Your Contract
The contract
between you, the farmer, and each share-holder will be legally binding. The main purpose of it is to ensure that you
are operating within the legal parameters of your state. Therefore, I urge you to become a member of The
Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund (www.ftcldf.org). Once a member, you will have access to a
generic dairy share contract, plus free access to a group of lawyers who will
help tailor your contract to fit the laws specific to your state. In addition, if you are ever challenged
legally, you can apply to have your case taken by the fund; if accepted you
will be defended for free by lawyers who specialize in the rights of farmers
and consumers. This precaution may sound
paranoid, but big business works hard to make sure that retail sale of raw milk
remains illegal in most states, and there are plenty of officials ready to
fight for their cause. I’ve read enough
horror stories to convince me to continue paying the annual FTCLDF membership
fee!
There are, of
course, some fundamentals to include in your contract. First and foremost, make sure that it is
clear that you are not selling the milk.
This is an exchange of money for labor.
Include the prices for a share, boarding fee, and bottle fee. Make sure to state your policy regarding
bottle returns. Lay out the schedule for
the boarding fee (monthly or annual).
Our year starts the month of calving.
If you will be delivering the milk, rather than have it picked up at
your farm, you may want to include a small fee for that as well. Be sure to include information pertaining to
the care of the cow. For example, you
may want to state that any veterinary fees will be split among the
shareholders, whereas the cost of breeding, and the subsequent calf, is the
responsibility of the farmer.
Milk & Bottle Calendar
Before your cow
freshens, you need to set up a weekly milk calendar. Each member should be assigned a day on which
she will receive her milk, and that milk should be as fresh as possible. Ideally, a Monday pickup will be getting
Monday’s milk, but there are some logistics to consider. First of all, you may not have milked that
evening before pickup, so you’ll need to bottle Sunday night and Monday morning
for a Monday pickup. Furthermore, you
should have a safety net for the occasional kicked bucket. On our farm, we bottle one day ahead, so
Sunday morning and evening’s milk goes to Monday members. If the cow kicks the bucket, or the load is
otherwise spoiled, we still have Monday morning’s milk as a backup and we can
shift the rest of the week accordingly.
Since you will hold a certain number of shares for your family, spread
those throughout the week, offering another safety net. (Hopefully your mishaps are few and far between,
but you might as well plan for it.)
Again, don’t forget to factor in the calf’s daily ration.
To keep us on
track, each year we create a bottling chart and fill in the shareholders names
below.
|
Bottling Day
|
Pick-Up Day
|
Name & Number of Shares
|
|
Sunday AM
Sunday PM
|
Monday
|
John Smith x 1
Jane Doe x 1
etc
|
Nearly half of
our members pick up their milk at our farm.
With that in mind, we do our best to group members who are coming from
the same direction in the same day, offering them the opportunity to carpool or
alternate pickup. We keep a separate
refrigerator in an insulated closet off the house, for self-service that does
not require folks to come into our home.
The other half of the shareholders pick up their milk at set locations,
to which we deliver for a small fee ($10 per year). We do this two days a week, so the number of
members who can receive this service is limited by our milk supply for those
days.
Milk Bottles
I recommend wide
mouth half-gallon jars with plastic lids; the typical two-part metal lid gets
rusty and damaged easily. You will need
to decide on your system for jars. As
stated, you should assume that you need six half-gallon jars per share. That’s two on the farm to bottle, two at
home, and two in transition (aka rolling around the car). You have two basic
options for how to manage those jars: Use the bottles as they come in, or
assign those specific six bottles to the shareholder and hold the returned jars
until the shareholder’s day comes the following week. The benefit of the first option is that you
don’t have to store the jars; there is a constant flow with only enough jars
for on hand that you’ll need in the coming day(s). The downfall is that it is harder to keep
track of who neglected to return their jars that week. Though you can keep better track of this with
the second option, the downfall is you have to store a lot of jars, so you need
some serious shelf space. We have found
that many people return bottles that have been used for other foods, and the
leftover smell is a concern. With
assigned bottles, only the pickle eaters bear the risk of pickle-flavored
milk. Either way, make the shareholders
responsible for replacing any jars they break.
Bottle Sanitation
We put in our
contract that shareholders are responsible for returning their jars clean. We did this mainly so we don’t have to deal
with stinky or crusty bottles, but we still feel it necessary to wash the jars
again. Our sponge is designated to dairy
only, and we replace it often so sanitation is maintained. Who knows the
condition of other people’s sponges?! We
don’t want to risk the contamination of milk as a result of a dirty jar.
Washing so many
bottles each day is time consuming. We
know a farmer who uses assigned bottles, and he claims that the shareholder is
exclusively responsible for the cleanliness of the jars. He does not rewash. This makes sense, but somehow it feels too
risky to us. If the shareholder were to
get sick, it would be hard to prove that the cause was an unclean jar.
Jar Return
The single most
frustrating factor in operating a dairy share is bottle return (or lack there
of!). Our experience with this has been
the only cause for us to consider closing shop.
We’ve known other farmers to solve the problem by bottling into
single-use plastic milk jugs, but we strongly advise against it. First of all,
the plastic contains BPA, a poison that can leach into the milk. Second of all,
it’s wasteful.
The fundamental
problem is that people are busy and forgetful, and missing two glass jars
doesn’t seem like a big deal.
Apparently, folks neglect to consider the big picture -- that they might
not be the only ones to forget their jars that day, and they might not remember
to bring four the next week to make up.
We’ve calculated that we are missing at least 100 jars from last year
alone. We’ve had days where we had two
cows’ worth of milk to bottle and not a single jar available. We’ve had days where we fed the milk to the
pigs because even our cheese pots were full.
We have sent begging emails and threatening emails, but we finally
realized that we need to change our policy to something more extreme. As much as we hate to clog up precious shelf
space with bottles, we will assign six jars to each shareholder. If, on the day of bottling, there is no jar
for a member, that member gets no milk (though their boarding fee is not
reduced; the loss is on the member).
Sanitation,
Filtration, Storage
Sanitation
Because
you are distributing milk among many families, likely including children,
sanitation is of utmost importance. Raw
milk has a bad rap because of dirty farms and bad handling practices.
Contaminated milk can make people very sick.
On the other hand, clean raw milk is one of the healthiest foods you can
enjoy.
When we
started our dairy share, we bottled in our kitchen (though we kept all
utensils, sponges, etc separate). This
setup never felt clean enough, so we soon set up a separate space altogether.
The “Milk Closet” has a sink and countertop, walls lined with stainless steel,
wire shelves for drying the milk pails and the bottles and lids, soap for our
hands, soap for the various milk vessels, a sponge for the counter, a sponge
for the pails and bottles, and filters for bottling the milk. It is recommended that you wash your pails
with a small amount of bleach or other sanitizer. Water for washing milk equipment should be
165oF when it leaves the water heater so that it is no less than 145oF
when it reaches your sink.
Filtration
No matter
how clean your cow’s udder is when milking (and it should be spotless!), you
will need to filter the milk upon bottling.
This keeps any small hairs or particles of dust from going into the jars
with the milk. I know a cow owner who
filters with cotton muslin, which she washes with very hot water and hangs in
the sun to sterilize. I think this is a
fine system for the herdsman who milks exclusively for his own
consumption. For a dairy share, however,
it is best to use disposable paper filters (see
sources). You can either filter all
the milk at once into a large vessel and then bottle, or filter right into each
jar.
Storage
The key to
a long shelf life for raw milk is quick cooling. Your milk should be chilled to 42 oF
within 45 minutes. Some farmers set the
bottled milk into ice water to chill as quickly as possible. If you are placing it right in the fridge,
make sure to space out the warm bottles (and make sure your fridge is cold
enough, most likely on the coldest setting).
Make sure your members know to transport their milk in a cooler with
ice. Suggest to them that they store
their milk on the bottom shelf of their home refrigerators.
Miscellaneous
Notes
Testing for Diseases
When
purchasing your dairy cow, be sure to get any records of illnesses such as mastitis,
bloat, milk fever, acidosis, Johnes’s Disease, and Tuberculosis. If no records exist, it would be wise to have
her tested for Johnes’s and TB, but be aware of the high rate of false
positives and repeat the test if necessary.
As for
mastitis, be vigilant about checking that your cow’s udder is healthy. You will likely develop a feel for her udder
and would quickly notice if something is wrong.
You can keep a strip cup in the milking parlor to use either daily or if
you suspect the beginning of an infection.
It is also handy to have your own California Mastitis Test (CMT) kit;
they are not expensive. Mastitis is
thought to be transmittable to humans.
Value-Added Dairy Products
Because
your dairy share members own their milk, it is perfectly legal for them to pay
you (for your labor) to transform their milk into a value-added product such as
cheese or yogurt. Even if you’d rather
not get into processing milk for shareholders, it’s a great idea to learn some
basic recipes for you own milk. After
all, fulfilling your family’s dairy needs is the number one benefit of being a
dairy farmer.
Companion Farming
If you
have chosen to be a dairy farmer, you are probably already interested in
livestock. If you have room on your
farm, a couple of animals go great in conjunction with dairy cows.
First are
chickens: If you have a moveable coop,
you can rotate your chickens into the pasture after the cows. In this way, the chickens will clean up the
manure, spreading it for fertilizer (and adding their own), and eat parasites
within the manure. Even if you don’t
have a chicken tractor, let out a few rogue chickens to do the job. They will be follow your cows all day to
spread the manure, motivated by the bits of grain from the dairy feed. Do your best, however to keep the chickens
out of your milking barn, as chicken manure is dirty stuff.
Second are hogs:
Pigs love pasture, so theoretically you could rotate the hogs into the pasture
after the cows. Unfortunately, hogs are also hard on fields with their natural
tendency to root around. Plus, pig
manure is really dirty, and it seems less than sanitary to allow that stuff in
an area where the cows will soon return.
Even so, hogs are great to have on a dairy farm. Give them their own
corner of pasture and woods, and then offer them all your dairy “waste” in
exchange for extra pounds of tasty meat.
It is inevitable that your cow’s hoof will end up in the bucket at least
once a year. Rather than pour it out for
trash, feed it to your hogs. They will
lap it right up. In the same vein, if
you get into cheese making, you will have plenty of leftover whey. Chances are,
you’ll even have some cheese failures, so just offer it up as pig food. Feeding whey and milk to hogs increases their
appetite, gives them a healthy variety to their grain-dominated diet, and adds
flavor to the meat.
Sources for your
Dairy Share
Grain; organic, non-gmo, non soy:
(if they do not deliver your area, contact
them to see if they can suggest a source)
Milking Equipment (including
filters):
Cheesemaking:
Suggested Reading, Books
& Websites:
The Untold Story of Milk: Green Pastures,
Contented Cows & Raw Milk Products
by Ron Schmid
The Complete Herbal Handbook for Farm
& Stable by Juliette
de Bairacli Levy
Fertility Pastures and Herdsmanship and Cure Your Own Cattle by Newman Turner
The Milk Pail Companion: Dairy Farming for
Your Community by Agatha
Grimsley
(Not yet in print; please contact me if you would like to
order a copy: ahgrimsley@gmail.com)
