Behind the milk

Our farm currently has 400 milking cows and 240 followers (young heifers). At Gooseford, we do all of our own breeding using semen from Semex, Cogent, and LIC to create our cow that is like a Newzeland / Irish Friesian crossed-bred cow. We aim for our herd to consist of cows that graze for 8 months of the year on a paddock grazing system where they are on 12-hour breaks. We want our cows to produce up to 7500 litres of milk yearly with high-quality fats and proteins to provide you with quality natural creamy milk. 

At Gooseford Dairy, we use a 50 point DeLaval Rotary parlor that has automatic cluster removers. Our cows are milked twice a day, at 5:30 am and at 3:30pm. This allows us to get an average of 7,500 liters per lactation, which is roughly 27 liters of milk a day per cow! 

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Over the years, we have focused a lot on developing our farm to accommodate our growing herd. We aim for our cows to be grazing for the majority of the year as long as the weather permits us to do so. We currently have two sheds with 440 cubicles that we built to house our cows during the winter months.

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In addition, we have prioritized maintaining a great relationship with our vet and nutritionist to create and provide our cows with the best possible environment throughout the different stages of their lactation. As advised by our nutritionist, we make top-quality forage for our cows; that way, they maintain good body conditions to produce quality milk even through the winter months. We do multi-cut silage, which allows us to cut 4 to 5 times a year to ensure we harvest high sugar and proteins in our silage!