Choosing a house cow

Before you can keep cattle at all, (even one!), you have to adhere to a few legal requirements. Actually, it isn’t a few, it’s quite a lot, but these are the basics. If you don’t all ready have a County Parish Holding (CPH) number then you must register for one right away as this number is used extensively to track you and your farming enterprises whenever you contact official bodies such as DEFRA or the Cattle Movement Tracing Service plus others. There is no charge for this and it will be applicable to all types of livestock.

You will also need a herd number. This can be obtained from Animal Health Officers via DEFRA and consist of the originating country, (UK) followed by the individual herd number. Animal Health Officers are part of the State Veterinary Service and are regionally based. DEFRA should have details of the one that covers your area. Apart from issuing herd numbers, they are responsible for inspections, compulsory testing for diseases such as TB, keeping records of test dates and notifying you when they are due. By the way, TB testing needs to be done whenever you move cattle between holdings and markets. It is not free and only lasts for a 60 day period. All cattle these days must have a cattle passport which is issued by the Cattle Movement Service. If you have correctly registered your holding and received you CPH number it is an easy matter to register with the BCMS. Telephone their help line on 0845 050 1234. Once registered, you will receive a cattle keepers handbook which has detailed information on keeping cattle. If all this red tape hasn’t put you off, when you take possession of your house cow you will be given its passport and will have to notify the BCMS that she has arrived on your farm. You can do this via a pre-printed card in the back of the passport or online at the BCMS website.

Keep in mind that to obtain milk from a cow, she will need to calve every year so you will have to buy appropriate ear tags and remember to register the birth of the calf with the BCMS within 20 days of birth. (Diary cattle at least one tag within 36 hours of birth).

Next to consider is land and buildings. As a very rough guide one to 1.5 acres of land will keep a cow, her calf and last year’s calf which you might be fattening for meat. This is very arbitrary though as much depends on the quality of the ground. Very much more than this would be needed in some of the barren uplands of Scotland for instance.

You will also need a suitable building for milking although you can milk outside. Our weather being what it is, you might want the comfort of a barn. Wherever you milk, cleanliness is vital. Milk goes off very quickly and if you are hoping to sell some of your produce, tainted cheese and butter will not do a lot for your bank balance.

Even if you intend to consume all your produce yourself, you still need to maintain a good standard of hygiene. Having a good clean milking area which you can wash down will be a real boon.

Assuming you are still keen to go ahead with a house cow, what sort of animal should you get? The one thing to remember is all newly calved cows give milk so in theory you could buy any cow! In practice you could be buying yourself a lot of trouble! Like people, cows can be quite tempermental. So the first thing to consider is the animal’s nature.

For a newcomer, the best option is to buy a well handled cow that is used to being hand milked. As cows are herd animals, you will also find life easier if you buy one with a calf at foot so she has some company of her own species. You needn’t worry about the calf having all the milk. Most cows will rear two calves so there should be enough for you and the calf. If you do buy a cow in calf or without her off-spring, be prepared for some upset when she arrives. It’s advisable to keep her in for a few days until she is used to you and has settled down. When you do turn her out, make sure your field is well fenced and if there are cattle near by, don’t be surprised if you find her gone! In spite of their seeming docility, cows are excellent jumpers. Last summer, one of ours did a standing jump over a hunting gate!

As said earlier, in theory any cow can be hand milked for the house, but popping down the lane and asking the local diary farmer to sell you one of his Holsteins would not be a good idea.

These cattle are fed large amounts of high protein cattle cake and are designed to produce huge quantities of milk Apart from the expense, they need expert management to avoid the attendant health problems they often incur through the stresses of producing so much milk.

A better option is to go for one of the native breeds. These are much more hardy, good tempered and often well handled by their breeders. The Dexter has long been a favourite with smallholders. It is small, kind natured, but very milky. One of our Dexters, after losing her own calf, happily reared a pair of twins for us and did them very well. Although they are small, they can be crossed with full sized cattle such as an Angus or Welsh Black. These are excellent crosses producing quality beef. The Jersey is also a popular house cow. Their milk is very creamy and rich and they produce a lot, up to two gallons a day after calving.

I remember an uncle having two as house cows and when we visited the first thing my aunt would do is give us a big glass full of their milk. Quite delicious.

Crossing your Jersey cow with a Hereford will produce a good beef calf. If you want to breed pure Jerseys and get landed with a bull calf you can leave on the cow for four or five months then have him slaughtered for rose veal. The Shetland is another good smallholders’ choice. It is small to medium sized, can be crossed with larger breeds, including continentals and is very efficient at converting poor grazing into milk and beef. This thriftiness makes it easy on the pocket as it doesn’t need a lot of concentrates to keep the yield up.

The British White is one of the most popular native breeds and although officially designated as a beef breed, they do give a good supply of milk. I have a couple of these at the moment and although I don’t milk them, they are very quite and easy to handle and wouldn’t take a lot to persuade to part with some of their bounty.

Talking of which, if you have never hand milked before, don’t take your new purchase home without being shown how to do it.

I had a friend who got herself in a near break down state when faced with milking her frantically bleating goat for the first time. You also need to remember that milking has to be done at least once a day and twice if the cow isn’t rearing her calf.

This is the one factor that puts many people off, including me. When my children were small I milked our goats twice daily for years, but now they have all flown the nest we don’t need so much milk. Also, it is quite easy to get volunteers to take care of stock which only needs feeding and watering. Milking and cleaning buckets etc is another matter entirely.

Assuming you are still keen to go ahead, where is the best place to buy stock? If you are inexperienced, definitely not your local livestock market.

The best thing you can do is to take a look at the native breeds and see which take your fancy. Contact the breed society secretary and ask if they know of any stock for sale, preferable animals that are all ready in service as house cows.

Another good place to look, if you have internet connection are the farming forums. When I wrote this article someone was advertising a very nice Shetland cow and her in calf daughter. Mum was a house cow and the daughter was well handled. Yes I was tempted, but with a three week holiday coming up, I thought better of it.