Frequently Asked Questions

No, I can't! In the state of Colorado, sale of raw milk to the general public is illegal. However, according to C.R.S. § 25-5.5-117, you ARE allowed to get raw milk via a herd share.

A herd share is, according to statute: "an undivided interest in a cow... herd of cows... created by a written contractual relationship between a consumer and a farmer that includes a legal bill of sale to the consumer for an interest in the... dairy herd and a boarding contract under which the consumer boards the... dairy herd in which the consumer has an interest with the farmer for care and milking, and under which the consumer is entitled to receive a share of milk from the... dairy herd." In layman's terms, you buy into a herd of cows (becoming a partial owner), which entitles you to get raw milk from your part.

However, I can sell you raw milk for your pets outside of any herd share agreement, but per Colorado's public health department, I would need to add a blue food dye to it. Any old blue food dye, like what you can get at the store. The raw pet milk is only available for on-farm pickup (in Mack, CO).

One share is one gallon a week for a month. So, a half share would be a half gallon a week for a month, and so on from there. I don't do quarter shares since I bottle into half gallon jars.

And yes, it's whole milk. I won't ladle your cream off and leave you with the skim milk. We also do not homogenize the milk.

The fee everyone pays:

• Herd buy-in fee (pays for the Bill of Sale to buy into the herd):

  • One-time $50, paid upon signing up, returned upon exit of the herd share

Location determinant fees:

• • On farm pickup in Mack ($25/month per half gallon):

    • $25/month for 0.5 gallon/week

    • $50/month for 1 gallon/week

    • $75/month for 1.5 gallon/week

    • etc.

  • Fruita/Grand Junction/Palisade delivery (same as on farm pickup, but add $5 for delivery):

    • $30/month for 0.5 gallon/week

    • $55/month for 1 gallon/week

    • $80/month for 1.5 gallon/week

    • etc.

  • Edwards/Frisco/Golden/Lafayette/Wheat Ridge/Littleton/Aurora ($45/month per half gallon):

    • $45/month for 0.5 gallon/week

    • $90/month for 1 gallon/week

    • $135/month for 1.5 gallon/week

    • etc. 

I'm not going to just post addresses openly on the website for anything but the farm, but I'll give you the nearest cross streets!

Western Slope (delivered every Thursday):

• The farm

  • 1574 10 Road Mack, CO 81525

    • Pickup Hours:

      • 7am-9pm every day

• Fruita

  • East Aspen Avenue and North Peach Street

    • Hours: Variable, but typically 

      • Thu 10:30 AM–5 PM, Fri10:30 AM–4 PM, Sat 10 AM–2 PM, Mon 10:30 AM–4 PM, Tue-Wed 10:30 AM–5 PM

• Grand Junction

  • Main Street and North 5th Street

    • Pickup Hours:

      • Tu-Thu 11am-4pm, Fri 10am-5pm, Sat 10am-4pm

• Palisade

  • US Highway 6 and 34 1/2 Road

    • Pickup Hours:

      • Thu-Sat 2pm-5pm

Front Range and I-70 (delivered every Tuesday, and also Friday for Frisco, Edwards and Littleton):

• Frisco

  • One location on West Main Street and Creekside Drive

    • Pickup Hours:

      • 24/7

  • Other location near East Main Street and 7th Avenue

    • Pickup Hours: Variable, but typically

      • Mon, Wed 10am-6pm w/ lunch from 1pm-2pm, Tues 2pm-7:30pm, Thur 8am-1pm, Fri 8am-2pm

• Edwards

  • • • • Located at Riverwalk At Edwards (a business center off of Highway 6 and 1st Street)

          • Pickup Hours:

            • Variable, email me about it

• Golden

  • Johnson Rd and S Golden Rd:

    • Pickup Hours: 

      • 24/7

• Wheat Ridge

  • West 32nd Avenue and Pierce Street:

    • Pickup Hours: 

      • Tue-Thu 8am-7pm, Fri 7am-2pm

• Lafayette

  • Nyland Way and Baseline Road

    • Pickup Hours:

      • Tue 3pm-9pm, Wed all day

• Littleton

  • South Pierce Street and West Ottawa Avenue

    • Pickup Hours:

      • 24/7

• Aurora

  • South Kalispell Street and South Joplin Street

    • Pickup Hours:

      • Wed 11am-6pm, Thur 11am-6pm, Sun 8am-2pm

Go pickup your shares whenever your chosen delivery spot is open! Just grab the jars from the fridge and leave your rinsed jars and lids from last week behind. The jars have a number on them, which is the day the milk came from the cow, but that's about it. 

All invoices are sent to your email from Quickbooks, the accounting and payment processor I use. You can pay them with e-Check, Credit (including Apple Pay), Debit, etc.

I bill in advance, so payment for the month is due on the 1st of that month. These monthly invoices are sent out seven days in advance so there is ample time to pay them. I also send out a late payment reminder at three days past due. If the monthly invoice is not paid within 10 days, I buy you out of the herd share and return your bill of sale less the unpaid boarding fees for however many days you're late on payment. This is all in the boarding contract, of course.

As an example, the invoice for the month of November would be sent out on October 25th and due on November 1st. Should it remain unpaid, the late payment reminder will be sent on November 4th.

Yep! Per Colorado statute, you will need to fill out a bill of sale and a boarding contract after you have paid the invoices. I send these out via Docusign so you can just sign from your computer or phone.

I don't offer any holds or refunds for any absences/missed pickups shorter than three weeks. The reasoning behind this is twofold; one is that it creates an undue burden on me to keep track of everyone's one or two week vacations and create refunds for those, and two is that even if a shareholder is away for a week, their interest in the herd remains the same and the herd still needs to eat. Even if I went on vacation, someone would still need to feed the cows. Since shareholders own an interest in the herd, it's much the same.

However, if you miss a pick up, and you tell us BEFORE we deliver the new week's milk and there is space in the fridge, you may pick up your older milk with the new week's milk. We will label your old milk for you with your name on it. Otherwise, we take the milk back and feed it to our calves. 

As for the scheduled delivery days, it's true, sometimes we deliver a day early or a day late if the weather on the actual delivery day is too dangerous, or the freeway closes, stuff like that. In the case of an altered delivery, we inform shareholders as soon as the decision is made. Further, if the delivery must be made early, we will leave the previous week's leftover milk with a label on each jar indicating such.

For reference, the Frisco/Denver delivery day is Tuesday, with an extra delivery day for Frisco and Littleton on Friday, and the western slope delivery day is Thursday.

The reasoning is twofold; but mostly it's to avoid human error. If I'm changing numbers on the packing list every week then there's a higher chance that I'll accidentally undercount how much milk I need. If that happens and I send my husband off with the wrong numbers, he can't just come back to the farm to get more since Denver is 4 hours away one way It's safer to have consistent jar counts every week, that way no one ends up accidentally missing a week of milk. The farm is also 30 minutes away from our Grand Junction and Palisade pick up sites, too, so we don't want to waste an hour having to drive back and there again for one missed jar.

The other part of it is that cow's milk production is fairly consistent week to week. For example, every week the cows could make between 220 and 230 gallons. If I have every other week pickups, I might need only 200 gallons one week, but the next week I could need 230 or worse, I could need 220 gallons one week and 250 the next. So I'd be either consistently low on milk or I'd be having too much extra and needing to dump it, which is a shame. Plus, if there's a big storm in the mountains and we need to leave early, it's much simpler to have consistent jar numbers every week so that we'll be ok even if we need to leave for delivery on a Monday instead of Tuesday.

Unopened, I'm not sure! The oldest one I tried was 21 days old and it tasted just fine, so at least that long.

Once you open and start drinking it, you've got about 14 days before it'll start to get a little more sour every day until it's too sour to want to drink, at around day 18 to day 21. The colder you keep the milk, the longer it'll last. Not drinking directly from the jar lengthens shelf life, too.

All sorts! Jerseys, Holsteins, a Holstein/Highland Cross, a Dutch Belted, a Jersey/Angus Cross, etc. I like all breeds of dairy cow. I want to find a Brown Swiss, Guernsey, and Ayrshire someday as well!

That would be telling 😉