First off, let me say I LOVE MY COW.
I love her so much, I hope to get a second one at some point.
Since getting her, we have averaged just shy of 5 gallons per day. We have skimmed every ounce of cream from every gallon of milk we've gotten so far. Since we got her almost exactly two months ago, the only dairy products that we have bought is cheese and ice cream. As for cheese, the amount we buy has gone down to almost nothing and as it relates to ice cream, we just haven't gotten the ice cream maker we want yet. (My wife is holding out for the industrial version.)
It would be hard to put a dollar value on all of the milk by-products that we've made. Especially since the way I figure a benefit is likely different than some. But, I have ran some numbers and I will share them with y'all here today.
I've done a spot of research on some small, commercial dairies and best as I can figure, each cow represents ~$750 of net revenues per year. So if a dairy had say, 50 cows, their net income would be $35,000 to $40,000 per year.
However, the dairyman's gross revenues is dependent upon forces completely outside of his control. Sometimes, because of the forces of the market, he might get $1/gallon, sometimes he might get $3/gallon. But the 12-month running average appears to be about $2/gallon. However, the price of milk in the grocery store is very stable. In this part of the world, it has been about $4.50 for quite some time.
That's the number that I'm going to use when calculating the economic benefit of Ella. I am going to price her production of whole milk at the full retail price because every time I forego buying a gallon of milk from the grocery, I forego having to spend $4.50 which that is the amount my standard of living went up by.
Also, I am going to low-ball her production at 4 gallons per day and keep all other figures right down the middle of the average as best as I understand it. Here goes:
- 4 gallons of milk/day x 300 days of milk production per year = 1200 gallons.
- 1200 gallons/year x $4.50/gallon = $5400.
However, to purchase a gallon of milk at $4.50, I first have to earn $9.00, pay the government half and then purchase my milk. So, by simply considering the tax savings, I can double the value of the cow to $10,800.
It costs almost exactly $1 of the type of feed we use to produce a gallon of milk. So $10,800 - $1200 = $9600.
The numbers get too messy after this point so I won't bore you with any further details but she does require a bit of upkeep beyond just feed. There is the occasional bottle of wound dressing for the nicks and scraps she inevitably gets, I might have to pay to get her AI'ed at some point, etc., etc. Even if all those incidentals ending up costing $600, and I'm fairly certain they won't even be a third of that, ol girl is still netting me $9k. And that doesn't even include the value of her calf. The going price for grass fed beef in out part of the world is $4/lb hanging weight. That would easily be another $1-2k per year.
And if y'all have never had raw milk (and I had not until we got Ella) it is a fundamentally different product. Every single thing that we've made with it is materially better than store bought save one thing - the raw cream. The cream that we used to buy at Sam's did taste better in our morning coffee. Sometimes Ella's is just as good but it's not consistently just as good. And that's ok with me. I figure that given enough time my tastes will adapt to this new flavor and will be good again.
So, if you've ever thought of getting a milk cow, I give doing so my strongest recommendation.