My one acre homestead

[salt and pepper]

I intend to supplement 90% or more of the cow's food supply with hay purchased elsewhere. I know that keeping a dairy cow on 1/2 an acre is iffy, but I am willing to put forth the necessary effort to make it work. For me, it's a lifestyle choice rather than an economic issue. I thought about goats, but I actually don't really care for goat milk/cheese/meat. It has a flavor that I just can't bring myself to enjoy. Are you telling me that keeping a cow on 1/2 an acre can't be done, or that it is difficult? Difficult I can handle.

Is the half acre pasture, or woods? If it is pasture, it will be difficult since the cow won't be able to find all of it's own feed, but at least if you rotate the pasture (cut it into quarters) and move the cow to fresh grass, it can graze. If it is woods, you will have a cow, that can't do natural things like graze or find it's own feed, and will be supplementing 100% of it's feed, which = REALLY difficult, frustrating, and expensive...

 

[punk-a-doodle]

What I'd recommend for a mini cow on 1/2 acre:
-set up a fodder system
-set up a fodder system
-set up a fodder system


There are instructions on this forum for chicken fodder systems, but lots elsewhere too. It will help cut down on your supplemental feed costs and you can produce vats of living greens that way for your cow to graze on. Mold is a common problem that must be addressed in your design and methods if you build one.

Composting or finding a buyer/s for the manure will be vital for you.

On goats, make sure you didn't make the mistake I did, which was assume that all breeds and handling methods produce strong tasting milk/meat. I have since had my eyes opened to how different the taste can range in goat products. Before we moved, we enjoyed one small dairy in particular. Their Nubians produced milk as sweet as jersey milk, but even richer. The ice cream that it made......oh man.

 

[donrae]

You can absolutely keep a cow on half an acre. Sounds like you're just planning to feed hay, and that's what folks are talking about. A half acre won't have enough feed to sustain a cow, but it's plenty of physical space for her. I keep two horses in a small pen on my acre, they'd be thrilled to get half an acre!

 

[MaryMouse]

I would definately research mini cattle if you really want cattle as opposed to goats.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Keeping a cow/calf pair on half an acre is not a problem, it is plenty of physical space and exercise room for it ... keeping the pasture in decent shape is going to be the problem...you would be amazed on how fast one cow can take down the grass in half an acre, like days. You might want to look up horse keeping on small lots, there is a lot written about managing horses in small areas and a lot of the info/recommendations would be transferable to cows so far as rotational grazing, sacrifice areas, housing, etc etc goes. While mini cows are smaller than standard cows, they are still big animals, most of the minis seem to weigh about 600+ pounds unless you get into the really tiny fancy ones,and then there is the price, if it is a true miniature, "wow" is about all I can say for what they want for them.
Agree with the goat milk thing, like different breeds of cows give different types/tasting milk (fat levels etc), so do different breeds of goats... also think that goat milk in general makes the best hot chocolate there is (and, um, goat make the best chili, bar none).

 

[V-NH]

To be fair, there is not much for the cow to ruin in the 1/2 acre fenced in area. It is all woods. There's a very small amount of grass on the ground. Most of the foliage is made up of 100 year old evergreen trees. That is why I mentioned that I expect to provide the vast majority of its food in the form of hay year-round. I am expecting that it'll cost me about $1,000 a year to feed a cow exclusively on hay, but I could be wrong. Any thoughts on that? I'm honestly not looking into any of the mini-breeds, I am wanting the excess milk from a full-sized breed for hobby projects. I figured that 1/2 an acre would be fine because I have seen people keep cows and horses on much smaller areas of land before.

 

[Kelsie2290]

What is the cost of good hay in NH? You are looking at about $80 a month at $1000 a year ... with one cow you will probably have to go with small square bales (unless you can handle large squares or rounds, they are usually less per ton) if hay is $5 for a 60# bale that is 16 bales / 42 days worth for 1 cow, if it is $10 (which small squares went for around here part of the winter) you are at 8 bales or 24 days worth for 1 cow ... We generally figure on about 20 pounds of decent hay and a pound or two of grain for treats per adult cow/steer (800-1000#) per day during the winter ... that is on the generous side for a beef cow compared to what most of the farmers feed. A "real" dairy cow will have much much higher nutritional needs esp so far as protein goes and straight hay usually can not meet them... how well you feed it will to a large extent determine how much milk it gives. It is also really going to depend on what kind of "dairy" cow you get, a breed that is more dual-purpose or a commercial breed that is bred to give a zillion pounds of milk a day, there is a big difference between the needs of a beefy or more dual purpose cow and a "real" dairy cow. The good news is that if hay is really expensive you can give cows hay just for roughage and make up the rest of their ration with whatever grains etc are common to your area... around here it is often cheaper to feed a minimum of hay and feed a lot of corn or spent brewers grains. If you really want to freak yourself out, read up on feeding chicken litter to beef cattle.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

Oops, I confused your post with another about mini cows, is why I wrote mini up there. But the fodder system/manure compost is applicable to standard cattle too. Size wise, 1/2 acre is more than sufficient. It is the food and manure that will be more upkeep than would be needed on a larger tract is all.

Kelsie brings up a good point about nutritional needs for dairy cattle, especially if you go with a breed or individual cow that produces a lot of milk. I had actually just assumed you were planning on inputting grain too rather than feeding straight hay. If not wanting to input grain, I would look into cows that have 'grass fed genetics'....I know standard jerseys have lists for that trait. I don't know anyone personally feeding straight hay to their meat cattle (they get hay and pasture). I don't know personally if it would be sufficient or not, but I would make sure it is.

 

[oldrooster]

My father lived a while in a house in the city he bought he lived there a few years and his next door neighbor couple died and the foster son they raised was their only heir (they willed their estate to him because they had absoluetly no other family what so ever). he didn't want to live or own anything here and he lived out of state and my dad purchased their hose for a song while he was remodling there was a man stop and told him he owned the house 20 or more years before and he had the whole 1/4 acre backyard as a garden, and he turned it all over by hand with a shovel. No tiller what so ever.

 

[krcote]

Comparing the size of your garden to your home, looks like you could grow much more than you are now. I see that it is already raised, so try looking into square foot gardening. You will end up with more produce than you will know what to do with. We have 3/4 of an acre in NH and are living in a similar fashion to you, so howdy micro farming neighbor!!!!