Advice on entering cow share agreement for raw milk page

[HERC0]

Hi everyone

I've spent my lunch today sourcing out a few local organic dairy farms to look into acquiring some raw milk. The problem in Scotland is that the sale of raw milk and cream is illegal, so the only way around this for me is to try and enter a cow share agreement so that I'm paying for the 'board' and looking after of the cow/herd in which I have a share, rather than paying for the milk itself. In return, I get raw milk.

But how on earth should I go about trying to do this??? Has anyone reading this done it before? Should I just send an email to the farm (if I can get an email address) enquiring if they might be willing to go through with something like this? I would imagine it's quite uncommon so they might not have even heard of it!

Would appreciate any advice, thank you!

[DinoHunter]

You could try this place, its not legal to sell raw milk in Scotland but apparently you can ship it here from England...
HOME

[HERC0]

You could try this place, its not legal to sell raw milk in Scotland but apparently you can ship it here from England...
HOME

Haha yes I actually bought from Hook & Son for about a month last year but the problem was that it was too expensive! They had to transport it over halfway up the country so it just wasn't worth it, the milk was amazing though.

[Neckhammer]

I do this in the US. Basically you just have to be comfortable with the owner. I personally knew people that were a part of this cow share for over 7 years. The one I belong to has even been checked out by the state and basically they were allowed to continue to operate as is. It aint cheap. I paid $100 for the share plus $32 a month for "boarding" and I get 4 gallons a month for that. But, organic milk is about $8 a gallon around me anyhow so not far off.

[EagleRiverDee]

They call them "Condo Cows" in Alaska. Same idea. You buy a share of cow, and you get the raw milk. I also have a friend who does this with her goats. It's a common way to get around dumb laws.

[DinoHunter]

You could check here, there apparently is a cow share scheme in Scotland but they dont do raw milk.. however its the only thing I could find Scotland - Weston A. Price Foundation - London Chapter (London, England) - Meetup

Looks like distribution of Raw milk is illegal here under any situation, so it wouldn't be legal to do through a cow share ether.

[Shelly6]

I do this in the US. Basically you just have to be comfortable with the owner. I personally knew people that were a part of this cow share for over 7 years. The one I belong to has even been checked out by the state and basically they were allowed to continue to operate as is. It aint cheap. I paid $100 for the share plus $32 a month for "boarding" and I get 4 gallons a month for that. But, organic milk is about $8 a gallon around me anyhow so not far off.

We do this as well. The cow share itself wasn't much (around $50USD) and the milk itself is $5 per gallon, but depending on the amount of shares you buy depends on how much milk you get per week.
Best part about the farm we work with is, if you ever decide you don't want to do it anymore, the farmer buys his share back, so you're basically out nothing...

[ryanmercer]

We do this as well. The cow share itself wasn't much (around $50USD) and the milk itself is $5 per gallon, but depending on the amount of shares you buy depends on how much milk you get per week.
Best part about the farm we work with is, if you ever decide you don't want to do it anymore, the farmer buys his share back, so you're basically out nothing...

Wish it was that way here... only one close that I can find wants 100$ up front, plus 40$ a month, you only get 4 gallons of your cow, plus bottle fee and then they have crap along the lines of (paraphrasing here) 'if there is a waiting list for shares we will not refund your 100$ or milk bottle fees but you may remain on the list until a share(s) open up' and 'if there is a milk shortage from our livestock we will not issue a refund on the monthly feed and boarding fee' and they also charge a yearly 35$ fee for something. Just, lame. Sadly all my friends around here with cows, only have a single cow to handle family milk needs as they are all chicken people... which they mostly only have enough to supply family with eggs. *grumble* I miss when we lived on a house we rented when I was little that was on a small 100 acre farm.

[lopeolinda]

its not legal to sell raw milk in Scotland but apparently you can ship it here from England

[zoebird]

We are in a cow share here in NZ. We pay $100/yr to join the share and then $7 per liter of yogurt, $5 for cream, and $3 for whole milk. We have to make our own butter from the cream (and butter milk), which we haven't started yet (we buy the yogurt, and we buy ready-done butter from a local, non raw dairy). I suppose i could butter and then clarify. hmm. interesting idea.