The Cost of More Milk
By Kate Yegerlehner
It has been said that the only constant in life is change. Far be it from us to prove that untrue.
We have adapted management strategies once more this year on our seasonal grass-fed dairy. In the
ten years since we began processing all our milk on-farm, we have milked the cows once a day. The very
first year I was still in college so although the season began with twice-a-day (TAD) milkings, as the
summer wrapped up and I returned to Purdue, my parents decided within a week that once-a-day (OAD)
milking plus cheese-making would be the new protocol. This eleventh year TAD has made a comeback.
Which I will explain in a moment.
The years of our lives here are classified as BC and AC…before cheese and after cheese. That’s
no joke. On-farm processing and direct marketing adds a definitive dimension of demand on a farm
family’s lifestyle. So we have tried different ways of managing the herd to simplify or improve some
facet of the whole system. I have about concluded that we are still not done experimenting to find the
ideal for us. Maybe we never will be.
As memory serves, the first 3 or so years we let each cow raise her own calf. We tried to let
them nurse for about 3 months, although some at the tail end of the calving window were younger.
They weren’t quite as fat and therefore had less cushion for the weaning process. In general, the calves
did well. The worst part was how little milk they left us with after about the first month. At this time we
kept most of our bull calves for grass-fed beef as well.
Then each spring for the past 6 years we used nurse cows. I would graft one or two more calves
onto each nurse cow, who would be responsible for raising babies, and we did not milk them until
weaning. The other cows were milked once a day. There was a lot we liked about this system, such as
calves learning to be a cow from a cow, and more constant milk supply. Disadvantages included
additional intense management of grafting during calving season, calf performance variation due to
competition, and lower conception rates for the nurse cows.
Another thing about the nurse cows is the need to provide them with top quality nutrition.
They were the hardest working group on the farm, and as I learned about high density stock grazing,
they were the most vulnerable to my mess-ups.
Last summer and fall forage quality declined due to a significant drought, and this played a
major role in our decision to make a few changes this spring. Of the 20 or so cows from last year’s nurse
cow herd, only two of them calved in the first two months. I sold some last fall, lost some during the
cold, snowy winter, and the rest are either open or won’t calve until summer. So we decided that we
needed to take a break from nurse cows, at least until we get better at high density grazing dairy cattle,
if not longer. My lack of complete understanding on HDSG the past few years has on one hand set us
back in terms of cow numbers, but on the other hand after the purging of last winter at least the ones
we have now must be pretty hearty stock!
From a labor standpoint we didn’t really want to return to rearing the calves ourselves (at least
for now), and also there is just so much benefit to a cow doing it herself. But to leave all the calves on
the cows would mean very little milk to harvest for processing. Therefore we opted to sell most of our
bull calves this spring. We have kept a few for veal, and a couple for breeding potential.
Allan Nation says that the hardest thing to fatten is a steer. The easiest is an old bull, followed
by mature open heifers and cows. So we thought that since fattening steers and grass-feeding dairy
cattle is the same in practice, we would concentrate on doing one most difficult thing at least
temporarily. Our beef market may necessarily gravitate towards more hamburger, summer sausage,
salami, and other sausages from culled cows. We currently have a substantial market for these
products, and I believe that could easily grow with more marketing efforts.
But back to calf rearing. We have kept the heifer calves in a six-week window, and left them on
the cows. The oldest calves are approaching the six-weeks-old mark, and are reminding me of how
voracious their milk appetites can be! They are growing well and looking very healthy, but I do wish
they would be a little less greedy on their own accord. Fat chance of that, I know. There are
options…like separating them for a half day. I haven’t ruled that out, but I know I would need to add
more fencing in whatever pasture the calves were put in when separated to keep them there. I
definitely don’t want to put them in a barn and feed stored forage…I’m trying to get them to eat more
grass. We’re still ruminating on that idea, but if we can still meet product demand for the next few
weeks we’ll probably just ride it out. And have some very fat calves at weaning time.
Having had some experience with leaving the calves on the cows and still trying to milk them,
we knew that the cows with a calf would not fully let their milk down for us most of the time. For cows
that produced substantially more than the calf was taking, I noticed before that the front quarters
nursed by the calf would often shrink up in size while the back quarters would tend to stay more
enlarged. I kind of feel like this had long-term structural implications for the udder. Also important but
in a different way, on OAD milking there was only one chance to get that milk out. After milking the cow
will let down her milk once the calf starts nursing, but the daily chance for us to get that milk has passed.
This is one area where TAD milking can gain a little bit for the farmer.
Since our milk supply was down last fall (but milk and butter demand was the same or higher),
we didn’t get our cheese inventory built up as much as we wanted to, and consequently sold out of
every cheese that we had made in the past two years. Our strong, aged cheese inventory was still
plentiful, but once the milk started flowing again we had quite a bit of ground to regain, in addition to
the heavy annual demand for spring butter and customer excitement for fresh milk after a long winter
without. So our whole management decision-making process was in effect trying to balance things like
cow health, calf rearing, and milk supply.
This is why we opted to try, after so many years of OAD, at least starting out on TAD. Truthfully,
we might be a little bit crazy. We fought it. Dad said maybe it would be like when we made the decision
to process each day’s milking that day, instead of storing and accumulating it in the bulk tank for a
couple days first. That it seemed like it would tie us down, when in fact it actually simplified things.
There was more than one reason for that, but the point is that we found the biggest obstacle to making
the switch was in our minds. So we thought maybe milking TAD would be the same way. Seven weeks
into it, and I’m still not so sure! I envision switching back to OAD sometime this summer. One thing I
experimented with this week was milking OAD on Sunday. We milked regular times the day before and
the day after, but waited until about 11:30 am to start on Sunday. This gave us a much-needed slower
pace. Since I’ve only tried it once, I can’t say for sure, but I was pleased with how it seemed to work.
As far as the milk supply goes, we are certain we are getting more milk than if on OAD in early
lactation. It’s difficult to quantify and compare, because this is the first time we have milked TAD with
calves on the cows. I can say that for about the first month of the lactation, the herd was averaging
around 20 lbs/cow/day. Over 60% of these cows were feeding a calf. Two weeks later it has dropped to
about 17 lbs/cow/day, and this average does not include those cows who are now being drained by the
calf. Our experience in the past has also been that once a cow has weaned her calf she will take a
significant hit in production going directly to OAD after having been milked multiple times a day for so
many weeks. Our goal this year is to milk TAD for an undetermined amount of time after weaning to see
if the cows adapt any better.
So far this spring, the grazing is going well, the cows are looking good and gaining weight, calves
are robust, and we’re getting enough milk to meet fresh product demand and get several batches of
cheese aging the required 60 days. Really, the only shortfall is, holistically speaking, in our quality of life.
TAD mixed with on-farm processing makes for some long days.
Tying up a cheese vat for 24 hours doesn’t work so well all the time now. Where we used to
culture the milk after milking and skim off the cultured cream for butter the following morning, we now
run the cream separator and then culture the cream. Which makes for a lot of separator parts to wash
up after use. Evalyn, our neighbor and employee, said one day, “What’s more fun than washing up the
cream separator? Washing up the cream separator twice in one day!”
Dad has been experimenting with a method he read about that is used in Italy, where they put
the evening’s milk in the cheese vat overnight, then add the morning’s milk to it, culture it and make
cheese. It has been successful so far as we can tell, but one batch on a really warm night/day had very
stretchy curds, so he’s not sure how that will turn out.
These things can all be dealt with some way or another, but when you have a small operation
with few employees (Evalyn’s the best, so we can’t afford to burn her out!), it is good to take into
consideration not only the success of the business, but also the bigger picture. Quality of life goals of
each person involved. I feel as if I have become a veritable farm hermit this spring. When you have no
time or energy to do or be a part of other things you are passionate about besides your work, it might
be a good idea to ask yourself how long this season is going to last.
To combat worker fatigue, an obvious option should be to hire some extra help. A high debt
load has kept us minimizing our expenses as best as we know how because we have a goal of getting out
of debt as soon as we can. Still, what if we hired a part-time relief milker so we could continue TAD and
not get burned out? The main question would be, is the extra milk we’re harvesting, minus the
expenses of supplies and overhead, more valuable than the worker’s wages? Because if it’s not, why
not settle for less milk and less work? Dad remembers once hearing Joel Salatin relate this quote from
his father… “I’d rather do nothing for nothing than something for nothing.” Altruism is a noble pursuit,
and has its place even in business, but if that is your business, I hope you have deep pockets to keep it
going.