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We had a milk cow for a while but only milked her for about two years. It is just TOO MUCH WORK. Milking is twice daily, whether you like it or not, and then what do you do with 5 gal/day of milk? You can’t go on vacation unless you get a volunteer to milk her while you’re gone. Also, if you’re not careful and you have a summer pasture full of some weed that local farmers call “bitter weed,” you aren’t going to want to drink the milk after she eats it because it tastes nasty. Then, she has to be bred every so often because milk is for babies so you can’t keep milking the poor cow forever. You have to let her dry up and be bred, then you don’t get milk for yourself until she has calved and weaned her calf. Cows can be ornery and if they’re in a bad mood will kick over your bucket. They’re dirty, too, so you have to clean the udder before you can milk. In Tenn. where I live you can’t sell unpasteurized milk so you’re stuck with the whole lot unless you give away what you can’t use. We ended up giving up on the milking process when my kids became teens, but when I said, “Let’s sell the cow,” the daughters who hated to milk and hated the “stupid cow” said, “Oh no, you can’t sell her, she’s part of the family.” So she wandered our fields til she finally died of old age about 3 years ago. Also, I pretty much agree with the post below now: cow’s milk is for baby cows and adults do not need to drink milk.
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