Feeding a Family From a Garden

[so lucky]

Well Marshall, that idea will give you something to dream about on these cold winter nights. And while you are planning, you could just get one of those mini-cows--I think they are called Dexters. She would eat only about half as much as a full size cow, and not produce as much milk, naturally.

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh! Mini Cows now?
What'll they think of next?
That's great...poorly named though...Our Cow would be DEXTERETTE.

That'd leave definitely enough room for 1,000 varieties of Beans?

 

[Smart Red]

Dexters are beautiful bovine! They are also affectionately known as Oreos -- black on both ends with a white belt in the middle.

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh! That's similar to Dutch Banded!

 

[digitS']

Belted.

Dexters are shorties and I'd just bet that they'd be real difficult for a guy with as large of digitS' as mine to milk. It would be like the case of my brother getting a Jersey and then "claiming" that he couldn't milk her. She immediately evolved into the cow that I had to milk!

Linn, if you like either those Dutch Belted or Dexters, you can milk them . Well, I don't know about the Belted. Our primary milk cows were Guernseys and there was a Holstein, who wasn't all that big. And, a Milking Shorthorn. . . Why Dad had all these different breeds, I don't know. I don't think we ever had more than 3 cows to milk. You see how that shoulda been one for him and each son?

Oh, the Shorthorn, we called her a Durham, was the prettiest thing . . . maybe Dad had the idea that cows were pretty . . . liked to pretty up the pasture with ones that caught his eye. I remember the vet used to smile when he showed up and looked out in our field. We had quite a few Herefords out there too. Thank Goodness nobody ever expected me to milk them!

Steve

 

[897tgigvib]

I just read about those Dexter-ettes. They make 2 gallons a day. That's plenty for 5 adults. Says their milk comes pre semi homogenized too.

Next thing needed would be one of those contraptions my dad's family had that stayed with uncle Matt in Montana until he sold the ranch in 1970. A cream separator.

That was an old fashioned gadget that stood something like, I don't know, 5 or 6 foot high, made of enameled cast iron or steel I guess, had a gallon sized bowl on the top, and had various smaller bowls on short arms kinda spiraled down. (Come on, I'm going from memory here from like 1961 when I was a kid.) It was kept in the bunkhouse.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Steve, what did your dad do with all that milk? Sell milk, butter, cheese? Holsteins typically give a huge volume of milk but with extremely low butterfat. Guernseys give less volume but their milk is really high in butterfat. The Milking Shorthorn is in between. A typical trick when I was growing up was for dairies to keep a Holstein herd for volume with a few Guernseys or Jerseys to increase the butterfat. They got more money per gallon with that extra butterfat.

Dad never had a purebred milk cow. They were mixes, often with Jersey or Guernsey in them, but the father was usually the bull kept for breeding the beef cattle. Hed just keep a likely looking heifer from the milk cow and make her into a milk cow when he needed one. Wed probably get around 4 to 5 gallons of milk a day from one of them with a reasonable amount of cream for butter.

As far as feeding yourself from a garden, Im not going to try to get too scientific and worry about recommended daily minimums or anything like that. I think the main thing you need is a starch, potatoes, wheat, rice, corn, cassava, taro root, barley, something like that. That will be the bulk of your food. Then you grow a variety of vegetables for vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients, plus to make the starch taste better. You can get protein from beans and such, but youd likely need to supplement that with fish or meat. Poultry can often feed itself most of the year, depending on climate, and give you all those eggs as well as meat. I never kept rabbits so cant comment on how to manage them, especially during winter. Thats Hoodats passion.

If you keep larger animals like goats, sheep, or cattle, thats not from a garden. You need some grazing for that, either a commons area or your own pasture. Pigs are a possibility. You can feed them from table scraps, weeds, garden excess, and all that, but you will have to grow extra grain or something to get your breeding stock through the winter. If you dont have a commons or pasture, you probably have to supplement your garden by some hunting or fishing.

Fats are another problem. Im not sure how youd get enough fats from a garden. Maybe if you eat enough starch you dont need a lot of fats? But I suspect your body would be craving any fats you could get from hunting, fishing, or your kept animals that dont depend on your garden.

Then you have your orchard, which I dont consider part of the garden. Maybe you do. There is a source of fruits and nuts to help out a lot. Id think nuts might be more valuable than fruits for a subsistence lifestyle. They normally keep longer too, which would be good for winter.

I dont think you could totally subsist on a garden. I think you would have to supplement that someway, hunting, fishing, keeping animals, or trading.

 

[digitS']

I am inclined to agree with you 100%, Ridgerunner, but think for a moment about the "modern" dairy. Well, don't think too hard - it isn't all that pleasant of a place :/. Violet would be there with hundreds, if not thousands of other cows. No, they aren't out in a meadow grazing. ALL of their food is brought to them.

That is kind of what I'm suggesting. Except I want Violet to get some good exercise. Maybe Marshall and the Bikini Babes can get her down for a walk on the beach every day. And Marshall, get the babes to milk that little 2 gallon/day cow.

We sold the milk. At times, it was going to the creamery but we made a lot more money by selling it to people in town on a little milk route.

Fats? How about all the butter you care to spread on homemade bread, pan cakes, sweet corn and every vegetable that shows up on the table?!! My Heavens, I'd weigh 400 pounds!!

I loved having the cows. I learned to do chores and that has stayed with me my entire life. I thought we were on our way to having a dairy and that is what I'd do with myself. When I realized that this wasn't going to happen, I had to do some scrambling to come up with something else. My first idea was to be a veterinarian but things change. I think I realized that I was more interested in some girls than I was in other critters . Then, life really got in the way. Having a lot of colorful cows out in a field sure wasn't gonna happen.

Oh, back to the field . . . or, garden. Obviously, you can't feed Violet potatoes every day of her life. Honestly, I didn't start off thinking about a milk cow at all. Still . . . . . No, we used silage for awhile on the farm . . . alfalfa hay . . . see, I haven't quite figured out how the cow fits in real well on 1 acre. Could be workable but I have a feeling that the family would be working dang hard taking care of that 1 cow's food requirements . I don't know if the babes would forgive me for showing up with Violet.

Steve

 

[Nyboy]

My father was a child during the depression, He often said they always had food on the table because of my grandmothers garden, and this was on a small city lot.

 

[bobm]

Where my ranch is in Central Cal. , just 4 miles west , there is a 160 acre beef cattle ranch that has a carrying capacity of 10 Brahman cross cows. The annual rainfall for the last 5 years was less than 7 inches / year and only in the winter / early spring time. There is a hardpan just at or just below the surface. The very deep well (over 360 feet deep ) produces only 2 gals. / min. drinkable water , while nearby wells produce salt water. There are only 2 oak trees on the property. How is a family of 4 going to have a productive garden there ? Just 2 mile E of my ranch there is a 5,000 acre ranch with a carrying capacity of 200 ( Hereford, Shorthorn, Beefmaster ). There are 3 wells on the property and each produce from 5-14 gals/ min. They only have about 10 fruit trees and a small garden that would have a hard time producing enough food for a family of 4. In Turare county just 70 miles S of us is a new dairy with 42,000 cows ( forty-two thousand ) All under shade sheds and all of their food ( alfalfa hay and/or green chop with cor n added and in season corn with stalks all choped up., as well as silage ) is provided into traughs brought in by tractors with augered trailers. The average dairy in Tulare county is 7,000 cows and it seems there is a dairy at every corner .