Diary animals cows vs. sheeps

[rty007]

here comes the question:

If you were to choose between 4 cows (of a very diary oriented, well fitted for the region breed averaging 3000 kg of milk per lactation) or 30 sheep, to start a small diary, which one would you choose. I hope you could mention:

1. Initial cost of equipment for milking: couse i figure for 4 cows a small milker would do ( even doing that by hand wouldn't be a problem), while a 30 sheep herd would need some more serious setup, or at least a much more complex milker.

2. Labour: I figure a 4 cow herd would take less time to maintain then a 30 sheep herd, to shovel the poo out, check the herd, trim( or whatever you call the process) hoofs, check for some ugly thingies running around in the wool.

3 Potential profit. even though, sheep yield less milk, they seem to have more fat, which means that they yield more cheese out of a gallon.

4 Feed cost comparison

 

[freemotion]

Can't really help you on this, but....

I got a chance to visit a goat dairy down the road from me and it was really nice. Their building has an entrance from the driveway that leads into a small farm store with coolers. There is always a wide variety of flavored chevre and bottles of milk and yogurt. It is honor system, but there often is someone around, working. There is a large plate glass window that looks into the cheesemaking room, and another large window on the opposite wall of the cheesemaking room that looks out into the milking parlor.

The cheesemaking room contains the milk vat, which pasteurizes and cools the milk, and stainless steel everything....sinks, counters, racks, and the cheese vat. There seems to always be cheese hanging in cheesecloth, draining.

The milking room has an entrance in the back of the building for the goats and leads to their pasture and the pasture contains a loafing shed, where the does wait for their turn on the stand. The stand is elevated so that the udders are at a convenient height for people, and there is a ramp for the does. There is a trough made with a section of pvc pipe cut lengthwise, for grain. There are nine milking stations, and the milking machine has nine sets of....er....I think they are called...inflations? that lead to the pasteurizing vat with tubing.

It is all way cool.

On the other hand, my dad milked four cows a day, before and after school, when he was a kid. Equipment: pails.

 

[patandchickens]

Frankly I'm not sure the cost of the milker is a big deal in the greater scheme of things, as there are so many OTHER major startup expenses, particularly in regards to the requirements you need to meet to be able to legally sell your milk or milk products. (Cheesemaking facilities is a whole nother level of startup costs, too).

Sheep are simpler to clean up after, but harder to protect from predators if pastured and require considerable juggling if you are to keep at least part of your herd in milk year-round (since sheep lactations are shorter than cows').

Potential profit depends vastly on your local market.

Feed costs depend a whole lot on how much of what kind of pasture you have; what your winters are like; and whether you will have to buy hay and grain (what are local prices like, on average and in 'bad' years?) or whether you will be growing it yourself.

There is a considerable amount of info available on the Web from state extension agencies and from dairy-animal organizations, regarding small dairy startup and budgeting; a few hours spent with Google would be a good place to start

Just some things to think about, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Wifezilla]

Pssstttt....

He's in Poland

 

[rty007]

Pssstttt....

He's in Poland

That reminded me, to put that information into the profile, which finally did But my English is most definitely not good enough, not to notice that something is off.

Frankly I'm not sure the cost of the milker is a big deal in the greater scheme of things, as there are so many OTHER major startup expenses, particularly in regards to the requirements you need to meet to be able to legally sell your milk or milk products. (Cheesemaking facilities is a whole nother level of startup costs, too).

In Poland that is: registering a cow, and off you go selling milk... To sell milk products you need a certified kitchen/facility. But those can be build and finished inside, without the equipment as a outbuilding, for as little as 30000 ZŁ (10000$), if you pass the inspection, you can use a small commercial tea/coffee warmer with a capacity of about 7-8 gallons that is at the price of about 500ZŁ(166$). Hiring labour especially in rural parts of Poland is cheap, so with a little fiddling and doing some of it on my own, I would be able to dig a 300 sq ft underground cave which I reckon is more then enough. I would be able to finish that cave with shelves under 20000ZŁ(6666$). While a 1-cow milker is about 3000ZŁ(1000$) a 5 stand sheep milker is double or even triple that.

Sheep are simpler to clean up after, but harder to protect from predators if pastured and require considerable juggling if you are to keep at least part of your herd in milk year-round (since sheep lactations are shorter than cows').

The fact that they are simpler to clean up after is one of the reasons why I am so intensely considering sheep, couse the gov require cattle farmers to pour a concrete poo composting, so that it does not leech into the ground while raining onto the heap, which they do not for sheep manure, I do not know why.

There is a considerable amount of info available on the Web from state extension agencies and from dairy-animal organizations, regarding small dairy startup and budgeting; a few hours spent with Google would be a good place to start

I did do my homework, I was just asking someone with more hands on experience. Couse some figures written down by some fella in the capital, is quite different to hearing it from someone who milked cows and shovelled poo.

 

[patandchickens]

LOL, sorry about that, somehow I just assumed "from" Poland rather than "in" Poland! Your English is excellent btw, and your posts better-written than many native English speakers' around here

It still really depends on how you would manage the animals. If they are on pasture, I do not see that sheep would have much advantage over cows in terms of labor etc; but if living confined, sheep could actually be lower maintenance on most days b/c of easier-to-handle manure and the possibility of using deep bedding, cleaned only occasionally with a tractor.

OTOH, 30 dairy-type sheep would eat a bit more than 4 typical cows; and you would be spending quite a lot more time on lambing; and if you wanted to pull the lambs off the ewes and bottle-raise them (for more milk production) that is a lot more work for, say, 30 lambs twice a year than for 4 calves once a year!

Predators are also more of an issue for 30 sheep than for 4 cows; if you already have good fences and a good guardian dog that might not be a big consideration but otherwise you'd want to figure it in.

I guess to me if this were going to be a small, mom-and-pop, supplement-to-some-other-income kind of thing, the cows would make the most sense, simply because the work and expenses are less likely to snowball out of control. Whether sheep might be more profitable, overall, depends entirely on the economics of feed and cheese prices and so forth, in your area.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Wifezilla]

My vote would be for cows for one very important reason...

I LOVE cow's milk!!!

Yes, I have tried goat milk I haven't tried sheep's milk yet. GOat cheese isn't bad but the milk...

I grew up near a cow dairy and I love the flavor of cow's milk.

I would get Irish Dexters if I had room for cows.

 

[freemotion]

If the cows are on pasture and just come in to be milked, the manure handling becomes almost a non-issue. The pit requirement probably has confinement cows in mind. These poor girls never see the light of day or get to eat green, growing grass.

 

[ksalvagno]

If the cows will have to be confined at any time, like in the winter if your winters get bad, then you will probably have to have that concrete composter. I would also go to dairy farms and sheep farms and see what is going on. Take a good look at how much they poo and what it is like. That may help you decide. Also just being around the animals to see which ones you like better. If you don't like taking care of the animal, it isn't worth doing because you spend A LOT of time taking care of animals. Livestock is 7 days a week, 365 days a year with no vacations or holidays.

 

[freemotion]

That reminds me....check out some of Joel Salatin's methods. He doesn't have dairy animals, but had beef cattle. In the winter they stay in a large shed and the layers of manure and bedding build up and pack down. He periodically spreads whole corn on the poo, getting it into all the layers.

In the spring when the cows go out, he puts pigs in their place. The pigs go nuts plowing up the manure and composting it in their efforts to find all the yummy fermented corn. By the time the pigs go to pasture, the manure is ready to spread on the fields. So cool.