Yes, tours of our farm run from spring through fall.

Tours are available through the Marin Agricultural Land Trust (www.MALT.org). Tours are limited in size and are held once a month from Spring through Fall. Our last tours of the year is usually in September. You can check for more information as well as sign up for a tour on the MALT website at www.malt.org or by calling them at (415) 663-1158.

Another suggestion is to visit Cowgirl Creamery, which makes fresh award-wining artisan cheeses with our milk. They are located in the Tomales Bay Foods building which is located in the town of Pt. Reyes Station. They are open from Wednesday through Sunday. You can watch them make the cheeses through a glass window. Call ahead to find out their cheese making schedule. Their phone number is (415) 663-9335.

The town of Pt. Reyes and Tomales Bay are both beautiful with the Tomales National Seashore as its backdrop. There are plenty of parks and Bed and Breakfast inns scattered throughout the area.

Places to eat nearby:
Tony's Seafood Restaurant - Marshall (415) 663-1107
Indian Peach at Tomales Bay Foods (take out food, mainly organic) - Pt. Reyes (415) 663-8478
Station House Cafe (sit down B,L & D)- Pt. Reyes (415) 663-1515
Bovine Bakery (pastries and sandwiches for takeout)- Pt. Reyes (415) 663-9420

Places to stay nearby:
Inn on Tomales Bay (B and B on Tomales Bay)- Marshall (415) 663-9002
Marconi Conference Center (family rooms) - Marshall (415) 663-9020
Chileno Valley Ranch B and B (working farm a bit inland) - Petaluma (707) 765-6664
Or check the Pt. Reyes Lodging Association for more suggestions on food, lodging and activities.

Can't make a Straus tour? Check these other places:

Nicasio Family Farms at (415) 662-9100
Slide Ranch at www.slideranch.org
Hidden Villa at www.hiddenvilla.org

We have 270 cows in our milking herd. We also get milk from three other family farms near us. One has about 600 cows (with over 1,000 acres of pastureland), the other has about 40 milking cows on 150 acres and the third is just getting started with about 20 cows on 75 acres.

There are two types of dairy cows: Holstein and Jersey.

Holstein cows are the black and white colored cows you see dotting the hillsides here in the Tomales Bay region.  Jersey cows are brown colored and are also seen throughout the region. 

At the moment, we have primarily Holstein cows. Holsteins tend to give more milk and less cream. Jerseys tend to have a higher cream content in their milk which is great for making butter and ice cream. At the moment, about one-third of our herd is Jersey cows.

The average age of our cows is 6-7 years old. We have some cows as old as 10 in our herd. On a conventional dairy farm, cows stay in the herd only until they are about 5 years old.

We believe that our animal husbandry practices reduce the stress on the cows which helps to ensure a longer, healthier life for our cows.  Plus, we really like them!

Because of our status as an organic milk producer we must have organic calves; however, it is very difficult to buy calves from another source due to the limited number of calves raised as organic throughout the state.  As a result, we prefer a ‘closed’ herd so that we can breed our own organically-fed cows with organically-fed bulls. You might say we’re matchmakers of a different ilk.

Since the taste of our milk reflects the feed eaten by the cows we not only make sure our cows are healthy, but that our milk keeps its great taste.

While most people think that cows eat only grass, it is just a part of an overall nutritional program designed to keep the cows healthy and happy. Our cows eat a balanced organic vegetarian diet.

To help us determine what’s best for each of our cows, we work with an animal nutritionist, Dan Giacomini, who spends his time creating the best mix of organic feeds available (all vegetarian, of course) to keep our cows healthy and producing high quality milk.

Besides grazing on organic grass in the fields, our cows also eat organic silage (a fermented combination of organic grasses including oats, rye grass and vetch – a type of pea) alfalfa hay, corn and other grains, as well as flax seed oil. Each nutrient provides something essential to the cow’s particular life stage – for example, calves have a much different diet from milking cows, while pregnant cows have an entirely different nutritional regiment than a dry cow.  Knowing each of our cow’s individual needs helps us determine the best diet for each.

At the Straus farm, we grow about 50-60% of our own feed, with the remainder comes from certified organic growers. And we are always on the lookout for new growers and feeds closer to our farm to keep fuel costs down as well as maintain the flavor of the local grasses in our milk.

Some of the more interesting feeds we've given our cows include organic almond hulls and peanut meal. And because milk is so rich in calcium, milking cows need to replace it. So we add powdered calcium to their daily feed.

In general, medical treatment guidelines on an organic dairy are as follows: vaccinations are allowed; antibiotics and hormones are not allowed.

Aspirin is allowed for use on organic dairies and is given to cows to reduce fever and inflammation. In addition, we use homeopathy to treat our cows when they get sick. Homeopathy is essentially diluted herbs.

Albert Straus originally heard about homeopathic remedies on cows in 1992 when he met one of only two large animal vets in North America who were using homeopathic medicines. Albert then began administering homeopathic remedies on our family's own herd with good results.

On an organic dairy, cows are not given antibiotics unless it is the only way to save a cow's life. At that point an organic dairy is allowed to keep the cow, but withhold its milk from sale for a period of 90 days. At any of the Straus Family Creamery dairies, if a cow is given antibiotics to save its life, it will then be removed permanently from the organic milking herd.

The most important aspect of keeping cows healthy is to minimize their stress.  We accomplish this by providing clean bedding (we add clean rice hulls regularly), room to move (our cows graze from Spring through Fall when the fields are dry), a balanced diet, plenty of space wherever they are, a cooler climate (which is more comfortable for cows since they don't sweat) and individual bedded stalls for each cow.  It’s a pretty good life for a cow.

When a cow no longer produces milk, she is sold to a local auction house. From there the cow is purchased by a thrid party.

A cow eats 90 pounds of food a day and drinks 25-50 gallons of water a day. Though it would be nice to be able to keep them all, it would be financially unfeasible to keep a cow on a dairy until it has lived its full, natural life. 

Testing thus far indicates that milk and dairy products do not transmit Mad Cow Disease, also known as Bovine Spongiform Encephaly (BSE or its human cousin variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease).

Mad Cow is a disease that affects a cow's nervous system. It is transmitted to a cow by eating feed containing animal by-products from infected animals. Organic standards do not allow the use of any animal by-products in feed. All cows on our farm and the other family farms that supplies us milk, are only fed a 100% vegetarian, organic diet.

In addition, we have a closed herd, which means that we do not bring in or buy any animals from outside suppliers. Therefore, transmission to cows of the disease, by its only known method, would be impossible.

To date, there has been no record of any Mad Cow Disease on an organic dairy farm.

Our farm is 660 acres of organic land with about 270 milking cows.  Each cow has over 2 acres of pasture to roam.

 

One of the other organic family farms that provide us milk has about 2,000 acres of organic pasture with 850 milking cows.  The adjacent family farm has 1,600 acres of organic pasture for their 210 milking cows.  Our newest farm family has 180 organic acres available to the 10 milking cows they currently have for organic milking.  They will be adding more organic milking cows every month until they reach about 90 milking cows.

 

All in all we have access to over 1,300 organic milking cows roaming more than 4,000 acres of organic pasture lands.

When you drive through dairy country and see a big tarp covering something that is usually silage.

 

Silage is a combination of grass, oats, peas and beans. It is an annual crop that is planted in the Fall and harvested in the  Spring while it is still green.  It’s covered and left to ferment over the Summer while the enzymes in the plants break down the cellular walls and release nutrients. The fermentation (anaerobic - without air) keeps it moist and nutritious. It will keep for about a year. The cows absolutely LOVE to eat silage, plus it’s really good for them.

 

Yes, they do.

Our cows graze in our fields from Spring through Fall (when the rains stop). Interestingly enough, only about 11% of dairies allow their cows to graze.

During the Winter the cows are kept in an open-sided barn that allows them to move around or sleep in individual clean beds. Keeping the cows inside during the wet winter months keeps the fields from eroding and the cows from getting soil-borne infections or injuries from slippery conditions.