The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: macgro7 on April 26, 2019, 04:10:52 pm
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Hello fellow smallholders!
My dream is to set up a microdairy - mostly for producing cheese - Polish style smoked hard cheeses but the list of possibilities is endless.
I am thinking of milking between 5-15 cows of breeds suitable for cheese production, i.e. NOT Holstein or JERSEY - their milk is actually not the best for cheese production - fantastic for butter obviously. Perhaps Dairy Shorthorn, Albion, Redpoll (there is a guy 10 miles from us who milks around 50 of them and makes cheese commercially!), Shetland, or even WATER BUFFALO, or Lacaune sheep. Traditional Polish cheeses are mix of Sheep (min 60%), Cow and Goat milk actually.
I would love to use movable milking parlour. There is a company in Lithuania that makes really good ones!
I love the idea! I wanted to use mob grazing anyway, and this set up would be perfect. Cows wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the milking parlour twice a day and waste all their beautiful fertilizer on the road.
Have a look for yourselves:
https://milkingsystem.com/product-list/mobile-milking-parlours/mobile-milking-parlor-motech2 (https://milkingsystem.com/product-list/mobile-milking-parlours/mobile-milking-parlor-motech2)
They have videos on youtube as well.
Really cool!
Please dont laugh at me! I know this is not easy to implement but is doable, as there are people who are doing similiar things. All I need to do now is wait for a letter that says I inherited a fortune from a great uncle from America or win a lottery :fc: :innocent:
That's the video:
https://youtu.be/N5D7ay36Rus (https://youtu.be/N5D7ay36Rus)
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Enjoyed the video and started me wondering , buy a used horse trailer ,easy to tow has a ramp and 2 stalls with front opening doors to let the cows out when finished . Then buy a single milking unit with an engine and a small tank which sits in the back of the pickup or front bucket of a tractor loader which pulls the horse box??????
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Have a look at.
https://www.rawmilkproducers.co.uk/ (https://www.rawmilkproducers.co.uk/)
There are all types and of sizes of producers. Worth joining for the all the pooled information.
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Our portable nano-dairy :)
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Our portable nano-dairy :)
That's the best one!
Pray for us that we get enough land soon. We are looking around in Wales as it's sooo much cheaper than around here. But obviously we know the market around Leicester