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To ensure Wagon Creek Creamery products are top quality, the Crains only use milk from their own dairy. The Crains have been dairying in Northwest Oklahoma for many, many years, and they treat their cows with special care. We have never given our cows growth hormones (rBST). Our cows' diet consists of fresh pasture and hay--no grain. Replacement heifers are raised right on the farm. The cows are vaccinated against disease and are treated if they become sick. Milk from doctored cows is discarded, not used in creamery products. With only fifty to sixty cows in the milking herd, there's lots of opportunity for personal attention! The farm is divided into 28 paddocks, each of which has its own water supply so that the cows can be kept in the pasture when they aren't being milked. The cows are moved to fresh pasture regularly. They live in the field and the fresh air, as cows are meant to. There is growing evidence that milk from grass-fed cows is healthier than that from grain fed cows. (link to research: http://www.stockmangrassfarmer.net/cgi-bin/page.cgi?id=455 et. al.). The original herd was all Holstein, but now the cows are a mixture of Holstein, Jersey, Milking Shorthorn, Normande, and others. Crossbreeding produces a heartier animal that is better suited to a grazing dairy. And they are a lot more colorful! |
Ron and Barbara Crain Helena, OK (580) 496-2447 wagoncreek@wagoncreekcreamery.com |