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NW IL | It's kind of impressive how active the small creamery FB pages are. Quite a few people milking under 100 cows and direct marketing.
We are at 60 with a robot, but organic. Cheap labor (my brothers and I) definitely is what has kept this place going.
Brothers and I would like to expand the dairy (we have our own row crop entity). Milking 120 cows with 2 robots is similar labor as 1 robot with 60, but it would mean building a new barn for winter housing and a new manure pit... $200k for a used robot plus a building and pit... $800k+ ?
The cost of getting a self contained bottling or cheese facility in a shipping container is $90-100k, BUT you have to market and sell the stuff...
Expand or direct market. Or sell out, but there is an advantage to having manure and diverse income streams..
I can't imagine trying to do conventional milk. Organic can get tight enough sometimes. | |
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Changing Dairy Industry
