How others do it

We’ll be milking ten goats this year– more than we’ve ever milked before, but not enough to keep our equipment busy. So we’ve been looking for a cow dairy from which to buy milk for making other varieties of cheese.

This week, we came to an agreement with a dairy out west of us. It’s a huge facility with state of the art equipment– and the owner has a reputation for doing things right.

Here’s a look at how a large but ethical dairy does things.

The dairy has several huge barns. Each side of the barn holds over 350 cows.  At present, they have about 1,600 cows on the premises.  One of the workers told me that they won;t expand the herd any more until they finish building barns to put them in.  No overcrowding here– and no exposure to the weather.

Unlike some large operations, these cows are not held permanently in a confined space. Each barn has an exercise yard, where the cows get fresh air and sunshine each day. Here, cows wait at the doorway for their time in the sun.

At milking time, the cows need little urging– they run down the corridor toward the milking room.

A team of workers guides each cow into a milking stall, washes the back end, strips the first bit of milk from the teat, and dips the teat to kill any bacteria. Then the milking machine is attached.

The cows wait patiently as the turntable spins. The table holds 80 cows at a time. And as the cow’s udder empties, the milking machine automatically detaches and shuts off.

While the barn is empty (or at least mostly empty), an automated system washes manure and other waste from the concrete floor. The waste water gets pumped into a separating system. The water gets recycled, and finally used for irrigation on the hay fields. The manure is captured, composted, and used as fertilizer.

The farmer has a reputation for growing some of the best hay in the area, and he does it using manure as fertilizer rather than petroleum-based commercial fertilizer. And, one of my friends tells me, unlike some farms, on this one the best hay goes to the cows, not for sale to other farmers.



This is a beautiful sight: manure composting in long, covered piles. That’s because composted manure generates CO2, while slurried manure (found on most factory farms) produces methane. Methane is more than 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas.

Plus, composting means that the manure is tilled back into the soil. Farms that use fossil-fuel-based fertilizer produce manure as a waste product. This is recycling at its best.

I’ve seen large dairies whose cows are crowded, get little exercise, and have no shelter from the elements.  This dairy is different.  I hope we never get so big we know our animals by number rather than name. But it’s nice to see that a large operation can be operated in a humane and eco-friendly way!