My cousin is fighting that fight too. He had to scale up to compete. It’s still a “small” herd, just not as small as it used to be. No way to stay in business without going bigger. Luckily, he has so far managed to expand into dairy products successfully rather than only milk. Local made butter, cheese, etc. It sells well enough, and at a decent enough price to give cushion when one of the cows gets sick so that he can just pull them over to his “retired” cows.
My buddy has been fighting that fight for a while. He is “lucky” that he has an extra few grand a month because he’s got 100% disability through the military (another whole ass fight that someone who came back missing one leg and with a bunch of psychiatric conditions shouldn’t have to fight). He barely breaks even but he loves raising cattle.
My cousin is fighting that fight too. He had to scale up to compete. It’s still a “small” herd, just not as small as it used to be. No way to stay in business without going bigger. Luckily, he has so far managed to expand into dairy products successfully rather than only milk. Local made butter, cheese, etc. It sells well enough, and at a decent enough price to give cushion when one of the cows gets sick so that he can just pull them over to his “retired” cows.
My buddy has been fighting that fight for a while. He is “lucky” that he has an extra few grand a month because he’s got 100% disability through the military (another whole ass fight that someone who came back missing one leg and with a bunch of psychiatric conditions shouldn’t have to fight). He barely breaks even but he loves raising cattle.