It's the End of "Dairy" As We Know It?

On the days leading up to Christmas the story of potentially rising milk prices seemed to be the story de jour. I began hearing about it last week and a little searching found this article from the New York Times on December 20th. Then this report from Fox News on December 21st. Just one day latter, on December 22nd, "The New American" shared this opinion piece. And, not to be outdone (although a little late to the game) the local news station in my area posted this article on December 25th. I'm sure you've heard plenty about this as well.

Of course this "possible" rise in prices are completely related to the Farm Bill ... or more specifically the lack of a Farm Bill and the fact that if no new bill is passed our current farm law will revert to the 1949 laws. I don't really feel like discussing the nitty gritty of the fact that even though lawmakers know that things are expiring they really don't make any progress. I don't really feel like mentioning that when I went to Washington D.C. two summers ago it was to talk about the Farm Bill ... the one that still is not in existence. Nope, I don't want to talk about any of that!

What I do want to do though is ask a question. Specifically I want to ask why milk prices will double (that is what they are suggesting) just because there is no Farm Bill? I mean ... aren't we paying the price of what milk is worth right now? Aren't we paying for the real cost of our milk at the stores? Isn't the market (supply/demand) determining the price? Like I said ... just a question.

In completely related news we are beginning to research and prepare to milk our own cows. This isn't something we are doing because of fear. It is something we are doing because we have tri-purpose cows. It was a small part of the reason we chose the Dexters in the first place, and now that the farm is sort of coming together and the fact that we have just had three heifer calves in a row we finally feel ready to take on this challenge. Of course it will be a while as we tame down cows and really focus on our new heifers.

For now though we have a halter on the calves and are working on making them our friends and we will be reading The Family Cow by Dirk Van Loon (it seemed to have good reviews). I'd love to hear any thoughts or encouragements when it comes to milking on a small scale ... or about the coming "moopocalypse".

Virtual Farm Tour :: Dexter Beef Cattle

The great thing about this year is that we have had an extremely severe drought which has led to grass that decided it didn't want to grow back as well ... hay that is scarce and expensive ... and lots fun in the heat! No really ... I think it is fairly obvious that it has been a difficult year in many places and as bad as it has been here there are probably areas that have had things worse. So, we are just plugging away with our Dexter beef.

When the farm began ... and really before the farm began ... I was working towards having the grassfed beef be the centerpiece enterprise of our farm. I read a lot of books on raising cattle, managing grass, management intensive grazing, and so much more. In fact the very first livestock we purchased were the Dexter cows and calves. I really wanted beef to be my focus, but once we really got going and moved to the farm it quickly became clear that the beef was going to be a small side enterprise of the larger farm business.

The reason is very simple ... land! We only have a total of 40 acres and from there probably only 25 or so acres are available for grazing (minus the woods/buildings). Those 25 acres will allow us to do a few beef each year (along with our Katahdin lambs), but with our limited grazing land right now it will never be a centerpiece. And, as things stand right now I don't see renting more land as a viable option ... so our purebred Dexter beef is a smaller part of our farm.

Now that I have that all out of the way ... how are things going? Grazing started out well this year, but it quickly became apparent that the grass would not be growing back. That along with my injury has meant less rotational grazing and more scrambling for grass! Nevertheless the cows and calves seem to be doing well and since we have had only bull calves for the last couple of years we should have more beef offerings the next couple of years.

I believe if you look over some previous posts you would see that I was beginning to question the Dexters because they don't produce as much meat as other cattle their size (Lowlines for example). I have been having some serious thoughts about at least crossing in some more beefy lines. Just this past Saturday though I think I ruled that out at the farmers market when I had multiple customers come up asking for beef and were disappointed that I was out because they said it was the best they had ever had! For now ... we're sticking with the Dexters.

There is my quick rambling on our Dexter beef ... if you have any specific questions I would love to share more!