FALL TOUR SEASON IS HERE🍂🐮
Fall tour season at RAW FARM is officially here! This is the first year that we decided to offer Saturday night tours, and boy are we happy we did. The cool weather, the sunsets, and the conversations are so special. Here are highlights from our FIRST ever Saturday night tour.
COMMON TOUR QUESTIONS WE ARE ASKED
A typical farm tour begins with a joyful ride on the tour mobile, a lovely trailer we designed to transport visitors to the milking barn on our tours, because it is a far walk. All of the visitor questions are answered in the milking barn, where we show visitors where we milk our cows and what our process looks like.
HOW MANY cows do you have?
We have over 1,000 milking cows at RAW FARM! That is a lot! We are a single-sourced dairy. All of the milk comes from our very on cows, on our 400 acre farm in Frenso. We have a lot of cows, because we make a lot of milk.
HOW LONG DO CALVES STAY WITH THEIR MOMS?
Thank you for asking about our adorable calves. They stay with their moms for 1-2 days to get all of their wonderful colostrum to make sure they are super healthy. After that, they join other calves at a nearby calf farm who cares for them very intently. There they enjoy warm raw milk every day! At 8 weeks old, they come back to our farm to join the other calves in a group pen where they have lots of room to play.
WHAT IS THE BREED OF THE COWS?
Here at our farm, you will see many different looking cows. Our herd is a lovely mixed herd. Approximately 80 percent is Holstein, Jersey, and Jersey Cross. The rest of our cows are Normande, Montebeliarde, Guernsey, Milking Shorthorn, Scandinavian Red, Brown Swiss, or Fleckvieh. For our Sires (bulls), we use three breeds: Holstein, Jersey, and Normande. We pick only the best sires that are confirmed A2A2. This wonderful blend of breeds make the yummy dairy products for you to enjoy.
wHAT IS THE TEST & Hold program?
RAW FARM raw milk is simply flash-chilled, filtered, and tested. Did you know that milk comes out of the utter warm, at around 101°F? We flash-chill our milk to keep it cold and fresh. You may find it interesting that we have the world’s leading raw milk food safety program, hands down. We met with world leaders in raw dairy safety many years ago, coming from UC Davis, Sweden, the Netherlands, Australia, Michigan, and many others to design our first-ever food safety program for raw milk safety. Over the decades, we have continued to improve pathogen testing technology as knowledge has evolved. The health of mankind is our first, and foremost priority. Your health means everything to us, and we are honored to be your farmer.
IS RAW MILK SAFE?
At RAW FARM, we stand for food safety. Our Food Safety Plan aims to allow people of all ages, in all stages of life to consume our raw milk products safely. Raw milk has so many vital nutrients needed to keep our bodies thriving and healthy. We have dedicated our entire family business to protecting these nutrients only found in raw milk! It is our top PRIORITY to produce the most safe, delicious, and nutrient-dense raw dairy products for you and your family to enjoy. No batch of raw milk leaves our dairy until it has passed our safety program.
DO YOU FEED CORN AND/OR SOY?
WE ARE A 100% SOY-FREE DAIRY, proudly! Our cows seasonally grass-graze, when weather and conditions are favorable.They are NEVER given antibiotics, synthetic hormones, or GMO anything. We also give them a supplemental feed to keep them healthy and their diet well-balanced while they are providing healthy and yummy milk. Their menu changes as per what’s available. For example, a typical supplemental feed is alfalfa, oats, barley, and sudan hay, silage, rolled corn, almond hulls, minerals, and goodies like carrots, yams and oranges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49SQHkMeb1A
We like to say we #dodairydifferent, and are VERY proud of our seasonal grass grazing and dietary program to keep our cows thriving, throughout the year! Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you for your continued support and encouragement for raw milk!
HOW TO BOOK A FARM TOUR
We have all tour dates booked, but we are allowing add on groups to make each tour maximized. We offer tours Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9am and a few Saturdays at 6pm. Email Kaleigh.L@rawfarmusa.com to see if you can be added for a great on this tour season!
