The quality of the milk we use for our cheese is (unsurprisingly) one of the most important factors in our cheesemaking. Back in 2013, when we were looking for a new site on which to build our dairy, we had a check list of essentials. This included finding a single source of milk from an organic certified farm and we found this at Puxton. The herd of one hundred Friesian-Holstein and twenty Jersey cows are milked twice a day, giving us a beautiful starting point for our cheese.
We maybe obsessed with our attention to detail when it comes to making our cheese, and that's no less true for Neil, Puxton Farm Manager and Herdsman. Every aspect of the milking parlour and cow shed has been thought through to ensure the cows never want for a thing.
Each morning at 5am, a special mix of feed known as TRM (Total Ration Mix) is laid out in the cow shed, like a hotel breakfast buffet. As each cow finishes milking, they move into the shed to tuck into this fantastic smelling mix that Neil has carefully blended. It’s a special recipe made of 40% grass silage, total crop barley and wheat, total crop maize and some straw for roughage, all grown organically here on the farm. The cows spend most of their time outside, but come into the cow sheds and milking parlour twice a day, where it can take up to two hours to milk them all.
And it doesn’t stop there...
The design of the cows bedding means that they have soft rubber mats, covered in saw dust. The lengths of the beds are sized so that the back end of the cow just reaches the edge.
Add in cow massagers, scratching posts and a six monthly pedicure - these really are some pampered girls! If you have any questions you would like to ask us about the dairy, the farm or our cheese, just drop us a line and we will try and answer - info@trethowanbrothers.com
