When milking 600 cows three and four times a day-- the manure pits are about the only way. The bad thing is the farmer has 5 tanker semi’s running round robin to the field and actually probably 80% of the loads are water. They don’t shovel out the gutter each day, they hose everything down and thus all the water in the pit. TomC
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Yes I agree with the tied down thing but even worse is the long winter . A cow will eat a bale of hay a day but will last a goat a long time. I bought a quart of organic goat milk to try it. At $4.00a quart it seems much more lucrative to raise goats for milk.
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Jim the key word there is “organic”. It is many times more work to produce “organic” anything than to produce it the way most farmers do. TomC
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I must be getting good deal, 7.00 gal milk
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Yes you are right Tom. But that is why I raise as much of my own food as I can. Most of what I find downtown I don’t want.
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We have two goats and fresh goat milk is delicious. We just do not buy cow milk anymore. All the grandchildren have been raised on it. The goats love to eat our polar tree leafs even in the fall when they coming off the trees. A different kind of wood supply for goat energy. Producing goat milk.
Bob
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Good to know Bob
No shortage of them poplar weeds, I mean trees around here. I am just afraid of what else they will eat or destroy around here.
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When it comes to weed and brush control they are great, we tether lesh them around the outside of our yard and they eat it up.
We do have to feed them hay durning the winter months.
Bob
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Actually back in the 90s they pretty much required the wet manure system for all larger scale farms in the usa as a matter of regulation. We where milking 120 head at the time and for about 5 years the milk inspector would come and tell my uncle that he needed to put in a wet system each year he said well if I can’t sell milk without it I will sell the cows tomorrow. For 5 years they filled out a waver the 6th year my uncle sold the cows before the inspector came that was the fall of 1995 when I went off to my senior year of college. My uncle told me you left on Sunday and the cows left on Monday.
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Oh, that is OK Chris. I only comment on my own experience. Two relatives love milk and two hate it. One that hated it lived almost to 100 the other is working on it. One that loves it had 3 bypass heart surgery and the other prostrate cancer, spine problems and in a nursing home extra early and they both got their mike from raw farm milk. Adult animals normally do not drink milk.
https://saveourbones.com/osteoporosis-milk-myth/
Hey, this subject is a lot like global warming…
Cheers !
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We had goats when the younger boys were coming up and my wife did the milking mostly. Then we had a cow when the younger ones were coming up and the older children did the milking mostly. Now we have part of a community cow wherein we share a cow (cost and milking duties) for the milk we get when we milk. But the brother who owns the cow has a bigger family now, so we are probably going to get another cow in the next year or two so the younger children can learn to milk. There is no comparison between fresh raw milk and store bought milk. But it’s real hard to justify having a cow to feed and milk when milk at the store is only $.98 /gallon.
Minimum wage is $7.25… But there are lots of people here who don’t believe in having a minimum wage. Lots of efforts to get rid of it. For now Alabama is gearing up for the special election to replace the senator who left to be Attorney General.
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We grew up on goats milk, yogurt, chese, cream… had 3 goats and it was more thain enough to feed our family. Most dont like the taste but we got used to it. Its more economical thain raising cows on a small scale. A cow eats about 5 times the food of goats, but produces about 3-4 times of less quality milk. We talk about pure pasture or hay feed, no soya or corn aditives.
Chris, l need to agree with Jeff here. Milk is not food for adoults. My grandfather is a veggie becouse of 2 heart surgerys, caused by vene calcinations, with a diet of a lot of raw strong cow milk.
I love milk and milk related things too. I guess we just need to sign a life shortening contract and enjoy the delicious treats from our anymal friends 
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So it´s time to fetch a cow then? $4.75 a gallon here.
However it’s a lot cheaper than it used to be. For decades milk and gasoline have had about the same price but for the last 10-15 years milk got cheaper. Gasoline is about 50% more expensive now. Still an avarage salary pays for twice the amount of gasoline it did in 1970. So I guess both are cheaper now.
Wood is about the same - a gallon of sweat a year 
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Jeff, you asked me a while ago about loading logs onto the tractor trailer. I forgot to post these pics for you.
I fabricated a small winch a few years ago. The sturdiest log was 24" in one end and 16" in the other. These green birch logs weigh like lead.
I´ve learned a saying from Mr Wayne: “Poor folks have poor ways”
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JO, thanks for the photos ! !
I like your idea of using flat strap and the winch make from the ratchet is a home run ! ! Now you have me thinking about the flat strap ratchets that get welded to the side of a trailer. That sure is a nice trailer.
Thanks !
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Are you going to use these for “saw” logs? I know that birch is nice to split for fire wood, but don’t know how is is for construction wood. TomC
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JO that reminds me of my old side-loader log trucks when I had my logging business when I was ateenager. We used a pto on the truck transmission to run a homemade winch made from a hub and spindle from a big truck and used the brakes as a clutch system. The winch would quickly wind a cable o n a spool that pulled arms like your little poles upward and threw the log into a rack on the truck. You ahd to know whe n to release the brake so the log would be throw into the rack properly. If you didn 't nhold it lo g enough the log would end up sideways on the load or who k nows where. If you held it a little too long it would throw it all the way over the truck. Good times. Thanks for the memories. Thank God they are memories.
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Thanks, guys.
Haha, I just edited the log size above. You were all polite enough not to mention I claimed the log to be 40"- 60" in diameter. Ha, that was cm of course
Jeff, my father welded that trailer in the early 70s. It’s been at work ever since. You just need a constant supply of used 12" car tires.
Tom, I could saw those logs but not much demand. 90% of constructional lumber here is spruce. Pine for interior, porch floor decking and simular. However I have sawn birch and you get excellent sturdy boards. Hard and heavy though. Very good for furniture.
Billy, that’s why I like to keep things small scale. When scaling up with a lot of heavy equipment comes maintenace and other worries that rob you of the fun. Expences for example. I don’t like them
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Here it will be 11.60/hr starting next month.
So that would only buy about 10.3 litres of milk (about 2.75 US gallons) on an hours work in Ontario.
But you could buy over 7 gallons for an hours work in Alabama!
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Geez . . . I look-a-way for few days and you guys are quibbling about milk!?
It is simple.
We humans are omnivorous. Just like the other worldwide adaptable critters.
This as species give us the ability to eat damn near anything to keep our species, reproducing forward, trundling on. Other non-omnivorous species use multiple births to get a going forward to reproduction survival rate.
Species survival is not about individual survival; or any one individual thriving.
Those who voluntary chose to limit their options by “organic-insisting”, vegan or vegetarian insisting; push come to shove will not be going forward. Self-correcting affectation. Those with also assumed religious foods restrictions in needs-must situations have shown to choose to die. Or, adapt and live. Moving forward. Again it self-corrects.
Those with true food-groups sensitivities need to fight, fight as much as possible out of those. Bread yeasts give me gas and diarrhea! Whadda’ I do? Eat a little anyhow to keep introducing the yeast-trigger to my systems to eventually desensitize to them. Quit, freaking out, over reacting, body!
Far too much anymore in our modern cultures we cater to Identity-Uniqunesses. Identity self-grouping.
This is contrary-survival. Exact opposite of balance and stability we should all be working towards.
I refuse to buy into a vehicle that would ONLY run on the Premium grade of gasoline. Be ONLY usable at a special Grid-plug-in charging station.
My body is the same. YOU WILL eat anything, as I can provide. Including GMO salty milar-bagged chips if that is all that is available. Here is more water to quick purge out the too-much salts.
If you allow your self to be bugged by super special filtered/buffered water “needs” Only . . . you will weaken and die sooner than me. It is the psychological component that will sap your thriving far before an actual physical element. If you think it is BAD, your body will respond believing you.
tree-farmer Steve Unruh
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