Aug
10
2017
At raw milk dairy Fond du Lac Farms, the cows come first, in comfort and cleanliness.
By Debbie Weingarten | Photography by Julie DeMarre
Rick Anglin doesn’t remember a time when he was not in love with cows. He met his first love at the age of 9—a Holstein named Inka, bought for him by his father, a lifelong dairyman. In 1987, when Rick was 16, he spent $1,500 of his own money on a Brown Swiss calf from Canada. “I won every show I entered with her,” Anglin says.
Today Anglin and his family run a raw milk dairy on a 30-acre patch of scrubby desert in Casa Grande. The day I visit, the cows are all lined up in the holding area for their 3 o’clock milking. I’m introduced to each one—Fergie, the 10-year-old matriarch, Minnie, Fondu, Juju, Sue—their tongues reaching out sideways to lick our hands. The building is immaculate—the cement floors, the milk lines, and the railings separating the cows kept spotlessly clean. In the cement pit below the milk parlor, an employee is taking his time, carefully checking the underside of each cow, and spraying down legs and hooves, the water disappearing through floor grates.
Read more: The Battle in the Bottle