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In the 80’s, Helen and Rick Feete went into dairying because as they saw it the profession was stable and they would get to spend more time with each other and with their children than if they worked other kinds of jobs. Both of them had gotten their dairying experience at conventional confinement dairies. In 1988, when they decided to get cows and started their own dairy, they reacted against conventional dairy farming. This was primarily because of the cost of running a confinement dairy; they did not have the capital to invest in the equipment or the ongoing purchase of corn silage to feed the animals. Around this time, they saw an article in Farm Magazine about methods used in New Zealand dairies - grass-fed, rotational grazing - and also a book by Bill Murphy, Greener Pasture is on Your Side of the Fence, came out and they could see a style of dairy that they could afford. As a result, Meadow Creek Dairy - along with a handful of other New Zealand style rotational grazing setups in North America - stood out like a sore thumb in the world of cows milk dairies. The cows are outside on grass 365 days of the year and there are few structures and not so much heavy equipment around to support the dairy. The herd’s pastures are loaded with a variety of grasses- no small feat to create this landscape without the use of chemicals. Six years into their own dairy business, without any non-family employees and not a single milking off, they began to wear out. So they considered their options and decided to try changing over to being a seasonal operation, meaning they would breed their herd within one window. Any cows that do not get pregnant within that window must be cut from the herd. This “break” gave the Feetes a chance to build a small cheese plant so that Helen could begin to take some of the grass-fed, raw Jersey milk from a few cows and turn it into cheese. She began making cheese in the late 90’s and has been going strong ever since. Meadow Creek makes three cheese: Grayson, Mountaineer, and Appalachian.
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