It’s 18 degrees below zero when Egide (pronounced ee-jid) Dostie II steps into his Skowhegan barn at 5:30 a.m. First task: get a newborn calf on its feet. It’s a male, a disappointment.

“Boys don’t make milk,” Dostie says wryly.

Then the real work begins – move the cows, clean the pens, feed.

“I do this every day, seven days a week,” says Dostie, with his trademark grin. “Last year I got three days off because my wife said we had to celebrate our anniversary. We went to Moosehead [Lake].”

The cows stir at Dostie’s arrival, letting out streams of urine that collide with the frigid air and create a pungent fog that hangs over the Holsteins’ heads. Their breath has frozen on their nose whiskers, making them look like they’ve each bitten a white porcupine.

The cows are wide-eyed, silent but curious that a stranger is in their barn, while the lone bull bellows his displeasure.

Dostie moves quickly, nearly running from chore to chore. It’s cold and he has work to do, and farmers have learned to be efficient.

Stars shine in the 6 a.m. sky, showing through the barn roof which collapsed two winters ago under 20-inch snowdrifts. “We were going to build a new barn this summer,” Dostie says while moving cows from pen to pen. “But with the prices the way they are, that’s not going to happen.”

There are 140 cows, bred heifers and young calves at Dostie’s Back Road farm in Skowhegan. High on a ridge with spectacular views on all sides, the farm is one of two family operations. Dostie’s sons, Egide Dostie III and Robert Dostie, run the milking operation 30 miles away in Fairfield.

In 1998, the Dosties expanded from Skowhegan by purchasing the Fairfield farm. At the time, milk prices were solid and expansion was recommended in the dairy industry. “He wanted a future of his own,” Egide II says of his oldest son. “We went from 100 cows to 270.”

But in the five years since then, the Dosties and Maine’s remaining 410 dairy farmers have watched as their livelihood collapsed. Milk prices today are the same as in 1978 and dropping.

“I don’t regret it if Egide has a chance to farm,” Egide II says quietly.

Farming is what Dosties do. Raised on a dairy farm in Augusta, Egide II’s dad milked cows and had a daily delivery route. His father before him was a butcher and raised swine. The pig farmer’s father was a farmer, and so it goes – as far back as anyone can remember.

Dostie stops reminiscing to pour warm fuel into machinery where the cold has gelled the diesel fuel. Dawn begins to peek in through the open roof. Six attempts later, the tractor starts.

In Fairfield, a similar scenario is being played out. Egide III knows that his father’s hopes and dreams rest on his ability to make the milk pay, and he rises at 3:30 a.m. to begin milking the herd. He is joined by his wife, Carrie, his brother, Robert, and Robert’s wife, Rachel.

The cows silently lumber into the milking parlor, jostling for position. The hum of the compressor provides a melody while the suction of the vacuum system provides the beat. Twenty at a time, the udders of 270 cows are cleaned, the machines positioned and the cows milked, each one taking just 10 minutes to empty and giving on average 60 pounds, or slightly less than 7 gallons, of milk each day.

“We’re having a hard time,” Egide III says simply. “We cut down on labor to save money so we’re doing more work ourselves.”

The four family members milk the cows, care for 260 replacement heifers, plant and harvest corn and grasses, and tap maple syrup in the spring.

The Dostie farm family is not unusual or unique – it is typical of most Maine dairy families in both farm size and determination. It is also typical of how the state’s farm families are suffering – they’re postponing repairs, cutting outside labor and dipping into savings. They are selling off their land and not renewing medical insurance policies.

Studies show that for every hour they work, Maine dairy farmers are losing $8.

Milk is the most heavily regulated product in this country, with prices based on a complicated formula rooted in butter and cheese supplies.

Prices for milk are set on a federal level, with the Maine Milk Commission setting a minimum price for Maine milk. In 1997, six New England states formed the Northeast Dairy Compact, a fund that was paid for by processors and that provided payments to stabilize the industry. When milk prices dipped below $16.94 per hundredweight, the compact paid the difference. One-third of the time, the prices stayed above that minimum, but when they did not, the roller-coaster pricing system was evened out by the compact, allowing farmers to plan ahead.

But the compact was not reauthorized in the fall of 2001 after huge Midwestern farms complained to Congress that the program gave New England farmers an unfair competitive advantage.

The farmers’ safety net disappeared and meetings of the Maine Milk Commission began feeling like wakes.

The average price per hundredweight for the past 14 months has been $11 to $12, while a University of Maine study says it costs at least $16.94 to produce that amount. In 2001, dairy led all Maine agriculture commodities with a value of nearly $109 million. But also during that period, milk prices crashed and those same farmers lost $22.77 million in income.

Rodney Hemond, 85, of Minot took $100,000 from his savings account to pay his help.

Galen Larrabee of Knox said he felt guilty because he brought other members of his family into the dairy business, a business with no future.

Dairy farmer Wayne Field of Greenwood began to cry when asked whether his children would have a future in farming.

And in a desperate measure, farmers dumped 12,000 gallons of milk into a manure pit in central Maine, milk that had a commercial value of $36,000 but was worthless to the farmers: They were losing $4 on every 100 pounds.

State officials have determined that last year, 60, or 10 percent of, Maine dairy farmers quit; another 80 to 100 are expected to sell out this summer.

Regional economists say this is the worst they have ever seen the dairy situation, and they predict the crisis will continue without reauthorization of the compact.

In an effort to help, Maine agriculture leaders are proposing legislation that would simulate the compact by making payments to dairy farmers on the one hand, while replenishing the general fund through a milk-handling tax on the other hand.

A one-time handout from a Maine Milk Commission fund also has been proposed to provide a bit of relief.

And Maine’s agriculture commissioner, Robert Spear, continues to press for reauthorization of the compact.

Meanwhile, the Dosties keep milking cows – from dawn to dark each day, following the seasons and the cycle of production, dipping into savings, extending their credit.

“Why?” they are asked. Why not sell the cows, stop planting corn, and go out and get a 9-to-5 job?

“We just love farming and we love the cows,” says Egide III. When pressed, he finds it hard to explain the generational chain that binds him to farming. “I knew when I was a little boy that I was a farmer. I grew up doing it,” he says. “I guess it is just who I am, not what I do.”

Referring to his 15-hour workdays and seven-day workweek, Egide III says, “If I took a normal job, I’d have way too much time on my hands.”

Looking at his brother’s 2-year-old son, he says, “If that’s what he wants, to farm, we’ll all work together to make it happen. We’ll hold on.”