We are so glad you asked! The Member’s Milk Shed is located off of Jackknife Rd in front of our blue shop by our lower pasture. Members can pull into the parking area and grab milk on their designated day or shop for available dairy products and cheese at their convenience without having to worry about opening gates and barking dogs. The Member’s Milk Shed is open every day from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM or later if needed. Lights inside are on a motion sensor and the parking area is well lit. In addition to your available dairy products, local vendors are set up to showcase their available products as well. From freshly baked sourdough, cookies, and scones to floral arrangements, fresh eggs, and vegetables. Depending on the season, local products are available!

For first-time Herdshare Member’s pick up, we will meet you down by the Milk Shed to go over the process. Located in the Fridge, each member picking up on that designated day has a color-coded lid assigned to them. Your color will be written down on the whiteboard with the amount of milk you are allocated to pick up. If you need more or less milk, or need to cancel/reschedule for the week, you must notify us 24 hours in advance. I only bottle the exact milk that is sold for the day. The rest of the milk goes into making dairy products. No extra milk will be stored at the Milk Shed.

Sanitation practices are critical to any production farm or any location that produces consumable goods. Here at Twisted Oak Farm, the everyday practices and routines that we follow help minimize microbial, chemical and physical contamination as well as ensuring the health of the animal and the quality of the milk is our highest priority.
Milking Preparation: The dairy cows come into the barn at night and at 6 am they are ready to be milked. The udders and teats are prepared and cleaned using soapy water on one side of fresh cotton cloth. The teats are then expressed to ensure the flow of milk is not clogged before a 1% iodine teat pre/post-dip solution is applied and wiped after 30 seconds. The inflations are then attached to clean dry teats.
Post Milking: Once milking has been completed, the teats get dipped again and Dynamint Utter cream is applied. These girls are truly spoiled in their routine. Twisted Oak Farm follows the OSU Extension Service Guide when it comes to cleaning and sanitizing our milking equipment. We rinse our 10-gallon stainless milking container with cold water to rinse off the milk residue. We then use a two/three-step cleansing system to clean the bucket, equipment, and milk line.

1. Liquipfan, a dairy-specific liquid cleanser, is run through the equipment and milking lines. The equipment and buckets are scrubbed in a pattern of three (thank you OCD) to ensure no section is missed. The warm soapy water is then emptied and sprayed down with water to wash off any soap residue.
2. The equipment is then run through a Dairyland Power Team Acid Rinse solution using a tested dilution with 140-150 degree temp water and scrubbed.
3. Every 3-4 weeks we add in third step (Soap, Acid Rinse, then Sanitizer). Again, we test each solution with QAC QR5 test strips to ensure our cleaners are not too concentrated and at safe levels.
4. Upon collection, the milk is filtered through an in-line milk filtration system and placed in the collection bucket with a Rapi-Kool Cold Paddle Chill Utensil to ensure cooling of the milk begins immediately. The pre-filtered milk is then brought down to the house and filtered once more using a dual-screen food grade funnel and non-gauze milk disc filters as they are bottled in pre-sanitized glass jars and finally placed in a 30-degree chiller for 60 minutes to ensure the temp is rapidly lowered.

In addition to onsite chemical and sanitation testing, Twisted Oak Farm is also working with Udder Health Systems, Inc. to test the quality of the milk. The dairy consultation testing services include individualized tests for:
– Standard Plate Count (SPC)
– Total Coliform (TC)
– Somatic Cell Count (SCC)

Our cows are raised on pasture grass, local hay purchased in the fall and winter months, alfalfa, and brewers spent grain (a mixture of barley and malt) from a local brewery, in addition to block minerals and salt. A dairy cow eats around 110–120 pounds of food per day, which is a combination of hay, grain, and protein. The amount of food a dairy cow eats directly impacts their milk production.