My husband grew up around agriculture – his grandparents farmed when he was little. So naturally, when he got old enough, he wanted to farm, too. At this point in time, we farm because we want to raise our children in an agricultural lifestyle, not to support our family (both my husband and I have off-farm, full-time jobs).
Our lifestyle farm mainly consists of purebred, registered shorthorn beef cattle. This past fall, I convinced Jim that we needed to expand and diversify our operation. I had this great idea, that if we purchased a dairy cow, we could use her milk at home and make cheese, butter, drink fresh milk, etc. After going online to Ebay to purchase all of the required equipment (bucket milker, 2 gallon pasteurizer, butter churn, cheese press, etc), Dolly the Holstein cow arrived and became part of the family.
When we bought her, Dolly was bred and close to the end of her production cycle. She was producing about five gallons of milk each day, and we could barely keep up processing and drinking! I knew that once she calved, we would never be able to use all of her milk ourselves, so we decided that we would purchase some calves to feed as veal.
Currently, Dolly is feeding three calves. Our first calf goes to slaughter at the end of next week. Although our children have named all of the calves, they understand that those calves will all leave the barn eventually, and make room for new animals that will be born.
Yesterday afternoon, as we entered the barn to do chores, we spotted four new animals in the barn – one of our cats had kittens – right in Dolly’s stall.
It’s all part of the circle of life.