It will take more human effort and time to keep the family cow than it takes, per cow, to care for 60 or 100. It’s on this basis that a lot of people decide that the family cow is not “economically feasible.” That’s fine if a person wants to direct his or her life on that kind of time-is-money philosophy. But that person had better board up the kitchen and the laundry. And by all means forget about vegetable gardening and canning and freezing, because these are all areas where the family is throwing money away.

Dirk van Loon, The Family Cow