PT dairying?

[tncattle]

Do any of ya'll know someone who does dairy farming on what would be considered a part time scale? I know, from what I've learned it sure doesn't seem like part time at all for any dairy farmer. But I did meet a Menonite man who milks around 12-15 cows and said it was sort of part time thing. Of course he lives without many of the everyday things that maybe some of us are used to. Just wondering.

 

[bigbull338]

what your talking about is some1 that has an off farm job along with the cows.i know people that get up an milk.then go work an 8hr job.then come home an milk.

 

[dun]

Once some friends of ours got some age on them they started milking during the fall & winter and selling everything in the spring and buying springers in the fall. The did that for about 10 years and then they just got too old, (80's)

 

[GMN]

Do any of ya'll know someone who does dairy farming on what would be considered a part time scale? I know, from what I've learned it sure doesn't seem like part time at all for any dairy farmer. But I did meet a Menonite man who milks around 12-15 cows and said it was sort of part time thing. Of course he lives without many of the everyday things that maybe some of us are used to. Just wondering.

I don't know of anyone who milks part time,or could a dairy even be classified as part time, because of the fact that it is 7 days a week, everyday, unless you dry up all your animals at the same time and take a few month break, but still the dairy is still a dairy.
Is your idea based on hours worked, just 20 hours a week as a part time job is considered, can't see how you could make it work without a full time job somewhere.

GMN

 

[TexasBred]

Do any of ya'll know someone who does dairy farming on what would be considered a part time scale? I know, from what I've learned it sure doesn't seem like part time at all for any dairy farmer. But I did meet a Menonite man who milks around 12-15 cows and said it was sort of part time thing. Of course he lives without many of the everyday things that maybe some of us are used to. Just wondering.

That might be common among the Mennonite and Amish people, BUT, it's probably just the first chore of the day rather than the only chore of the day. Even in years past many people had 10-12 cattle but also had large families to help with the milking so it was still a daily thing to be done followed up with another 12 hours of work..

 

[regolith]

Nope.

Mind you, I suppose it depends on your definition of part-time. The farm owners have deemed me in breach of contract for not employing a "full-timer" because I only have them do a 50 hour week.

I suppose if you were small enough and efficient enough the work could be done in 'part-time' hours. I've never run a dairy on less than 50 - 60 hours a week. Standard milking time (get cows to shed, milk, clean up x 2) is 5 hours a day.
I've known guys put the herd on once a day milking, then go and milk for someone else in the afternoons.

 

[novaman]

I've heard of a few guys that milk seasonally. Have all the cows calve in a tight window and dry them all up the same time. Gives you a couple months w/o milking cows. I am not certain but I've been told that if the dairy is shut down (even for just a couple months) it must be reinspected before it can be fired back up. Not sure if that's true or not. If by part time you mean a few hours a day, I think you could do it but it would be extremely tough. It would seem that milking and feeding would take up the bulk of the time and the rest of the day would be "free" for other things. This is not the case. There is all sorts of things going on throughout the day to keep the operation up to speed. Hauling manure, repairs, cleaning, etc etc all get squished between milkings. In conclusion, part time dairying may be possible but if you want to do it right, pting won't work IMO.