My great-grandparents lived in Pennsylvania coal country. My great-grandfather worked for the coal mine. My great-grandmother raised 7 children. In 1908, when she started having kids, my great-grandmother got one dairy cow for her backyard. The cow’s name was Betsy. She got Betsy so she would have milk to feed her family.
(No, this isn’t Betsy. This is a Holstein cow from Kelsay Farms in Whiteland, Indiana. No one has any pictures of Betsy that we could find.)
Betsy made enough milk so my great-grandmother’s family of 9 had fresh milk every day. In fact, she made enough milk that there was extra for some of the neighbors. Sometimes she would trade milk for a few fresh eggs from the neighbor who had chickens. Most of the time, the milk was sold to the neighbors for a nickel per quart. Anyone could come over with a quart-sized bucket and a nickel, and my great-grandmother would fill their bucket with fresh milk. As it turns out, my great-grandmother wasn’t all that picky about the size of the bucket; she would just fill up whatever bucket she was given. And the neighbors started to figure this out. Pretty soon, the buckets got bigger and bigger, but the nickel stayed the same.
Cows need to have a baby to make milk (just like people do). And after a while, their milk dries up. So about 2-3 months after Betsy had her calf, it was time to get her pregnant again. My great-grandmother would take Betsy up the road to the neighbor who had a bull. Betsy would live there with the bull for a few weeks, until they were sure she was pregnant, and then they would bring her back home. My great-grandmother would still walk up the road to milk Betsy every day.
For most of the year, there would be fresh milk every day. Cows are pregnant for 9 months. In that last month, they work very hard to finish growing the baby inside them, so they don’t make very much milk. When Betsy was close to giving birth, she would “dry up,” or not produce any milk. During this time, my family would go into town to the market to get milk (like anyone else who didn’t have a cow handy). Since they only had an icebox (not a refrigerator), they had to go to the market every day or every other day to get food for that day’s meals. They couldn’t just buy a gallon of milk and keep it around for 2 weeks, like we can today!
After the calf was born, it would stay with Betsy and nurse for the first 2-3 days so it could get colostrum from its mom. (Colostrum is the “first milk” – it is chock full of antibodies and other good proteins for the calf, but isn’t very good for people to drink.) Then the calf would be sold so Betsy could provide milk for the family.
Once all the kids were grown enough that they didn’t need quite so much milk, Betsy was sold to be butchered. As part of the sale, my great-grandmother got some of the meat to feed her family. (Remember, they didn’t have a refrigerator or a freezer, so they could only keep what they would use in the next day or two.)
This doesn’t sound so bad, does it? A backyard cow as a pet, and a way to provide a little bit of income for the family. Milk for the neighbors at only $0.05 per quart. (That’s $0.20 per gallon!) You could get fresh raw milk every day. You knew where the milk was coming from, you knew the family who raised the cow, you could see where she lived, and you might have raised some of the food that she ate. Your kids could probably see Betsy when they walked to school every morning. Sure, it sounds wonderful – idyllic, even. And some parts of this were great. Stick with me for the next few weeks, and we’ll talk about Betsy and my great-grandmother’s “dairy” a little bit more. We’ll compare this to how we get milk today, and take a look at how things have changed.
{This post was sponsored by Indiana’s Family of Farmers. All thoughts and opinions are my own.}
- Other posts in this series:
- Milk from our backyard
- Food safety and milk
- Dairy farm sizes
- Food costs
Mmmm, milk! Can’t wait to read more.