The book is called Keeping a Family Cow: The Complete Guide for Home-Scale, Holistic Dairy Producers, 3rd edition by Joann S. Grohman. I’ve known about this book since before I even thought of adding a cow to our farm, but for some reason I never bought it.
I thought I would be just fine without it, and I suppose I was, but now that I have it, I can’t imagine navigating the waters of dairy cow ownership without it!
A new version came out in October, so I broke down and ordered a copy from Amazon
This book contains information on everything from feeding, to milking to making cheese. It also talks about making hay for your cow and it breaks down the actual numbers in regards to the economy of owning one.
Without this book, I would not have known that I needed to give Beulah a calcium supplement the day Bellatrix the calf was born. (Consequently, I wouldn’t have worn half a tube of the stuff, but it was good advice nonetheless!) I also wouldn’t have known that I needed to change her diet when the calf was born.
There is so much good information in this book that I’m sure I’ll refer to it for years to come! If you have recently acquired a dairy cow, or are thinking about it, go grab a copy of this book. If you’ve been doing this for awhile, you probably already have it on your shelf, but you might want to check out the new edition or get it on your Kindle
Enjoyed your book review. It gave me many memories.
Sixty years ago (I’m 69) my folks bought 3 acres with a house and 3 out buildings, a chicken house, a low shed, and a boxcar off its iron. And they also bought us one crossbreed, Jersey/ Guernsey cross, springing heifer. My dad was a city slicker, outside sales employment, so the cow was not for him to milk, but for me, if I wanted to or not. By hand, four-seasons, twice a day, every day. Then my maternal grandpa gave them a Polled Hereford heifer. Then they bought some “leggerns” and a pg gilt pig. Guess who got to “farm” these animals? You guessed it, me. But this is while I was help raising 6 siblings. I’ll bet I changed a million clothe diapers before they all stopped arriving, 11 of us in all. My Mom was an RN nurse and worked nights most often. And Dad didn’t like getting his hands dirty. Yeah!, the farm was all my Mom’s idea. When I was a high school sophomore they bought a120 acre farm as the animals were all multiplying, like the kid numbers. Yep, I learned to farm — from the neighbors, — who felt sorry for me. But not quite as much as I did for myself. We bought hay and grain, easy and cheap to do in Dubuque County, Iowa. I hired out to the neighbors for cheap labor. I remember thinking $7 for 8 hours of throwing hay bales was pretty good money back on that acreage, before we moved to a real farm in Wisconsin, about 20 miles away.
No goats but we got orphaned lambs from the neighbors. As I said they, felt sorry for us. So then we had sheep. I remember gleaning a corn field that the farmer told me his combine didn’t pick very clean. Now that was back breaking work, picking up the corn, husking it, and shoving it in the sack. Then dragging the sack the length of the field and until it was full.
O yeah, I almost forgot the darn garden, and we had a big one. I hated all the work, but knew I loved to eat, and Mom “put up” a lot of garden gleanings, after we ate all we could fresh. Usually amounted to 100 qts. of tomatoes, that were always gone by Christmas. I also remember Mom chopping up a a large crock full of sauerkraut. That didn’t go as fast as the tomatoes, I don’t think, because we didn’t learn about washing the excess sauer out of the kraut. But it was always gone by spring. Mom probably knew, but the sauer was like a natural serving limit for all the kids we had. The folks watched us like hawks in the garden, as we boys always were throwing dirt clods at each other and at the sisters. “Don’t wanna put out an eye,” was always the admonishment.
Mom baked bread often. Skillet fried bread, in lard, on bread making day was always a big treat because we could dip it in whatever sweetener we could find or buy. We all got a terrible sweet tooth. And most of us have always had a lot of rotten teeth problems thru the years. But I did notice that by the time I was done losing teeth to decay all I had left in my mouth was also the same teeth my dad had left in his. So… teeth are a genetic thing, aren’t they?
We raised pullets and roosters, you know what they call “straight run.” We’d maybe even get an extra free 50 roosters when we bought a bag of chick starter. The chickens pretty much ran free, but learned to stay out of the play yard as they would get clods thrown at them, or anything that wasn’t tied down, is more like it. Guess who got to butcher the chickens? Yep, me. I got pretty good at it too. Again, I really liked to eat, especially fresh farm raised fried spring rooster. Again, Mom found a way to limit our intake of too much fried chicken, fry it in lard. A growing boy could inhale 3 pieces pretty easily, but the fourth piece would get’cha, make you sick, and give you the stinkiest burps imaginable. Could not eat over 3 big pieces or four small ones. Try to imagine the noise a shy dozen kids and 50 to 100 spring roosters starting all to crow made at our place! Wow! we never had enough kids for our own teams but we sure could “crack the whip.”
Can you imagine trying to dribble a basketball on a rural icy yard in January in Iowa? (No concrete) We did, especially our runt brother Greg, number 2 child, who became a Hall of Fame football coach in the state of Iowa years later.
Our folks were very well educated for their time, and believed in getting all us kids a real good private schooling. those of us that wanted to go to college had to then find our own way. For that I’m grateful to them.
If this has been the least bit entertaining and there is an interest I can continue at a later time to tell how I incorporated all this agricultural homesteading into my adult life. In other words somebody just gave me a chicken house for half a dozen chickens. A natural regression/progression?!?!?!
I just cannot tell you how much I enjoyed reading your trip down memory lane! Feel free to brighten my day anytime by sharing more!
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