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The Rural Voice, 2004-08, Page 28HURON , CONSTRUCTION • AGRICULTURAL • RESIDENTIAL • COMMERCIAL Complete buildings - roofing - repairs - renovations 519-327-8361 519-292-0078 Fax 327-8445 1 Laverne Brubacher 1 PACKERS: WE BUILD RUBBER TIRE PACKER SPECIALISTS Order Now Also large fold -up steel drum packers, lawn & estate rollers, custom manufactured HAROLD NTEROJPRISENES S E RR #2, Arthur, Ont. (519) 848-2799 GA RDI NER 393 Cambridge St., Goderich TIRE SALES & SERVICE GENERAL TIRE ,j2 Service Trucks -On Location Farm Service (Farm • Fleet • Passenger ,/Calcium Equipped Service Truck 1-866-265-5783 524-2118 24 THE RURAL VOICE Then there was the battle of the walls. Officials said the cheese plant couldn't be attached to the barn so he asked if it could be built two feet away from the barn. They grudgingly agreed. He then asked, what if it was a foot away. They agreed. Then what if it was a few inches away. They agreed. So he said he would build a separate wall for the cheese plant that's a few inches from the barn wall then closein the space between the two walls. Then there's the lunch room issue. Regulations require a lunch room in the cheese plant even though Taylor has only one employee helping out. "There was no provision in the dairy regulations for a small plant," he says. He had to build a room at the entrance to the cheese plant that's called a "lunch room" even though nobody eats there. It has proved valuable as a type of mud -room entrance, however. Then there's the kind of guessing game involved in dealing with government officials these days. "Ever since Walkerton (the water tragedy) people will never tell you what's right. They'll just tell you what you can't do." Taylor knew he was in trouble when officials said they would "fast track" his application and it would only take two or three years. He had been thinking of two or three months. It took two and a half years to get the licence. With all their initial reluctance, however, government officials at both the federal and provincial level praise the plant now as a model operation and send others to see it. He gets one or two inquiries a week, many directed to him by government officials, from people interested in setting up on-farm operations. "When I started this there was nowhere to go for information. All the things I had to find out on my own." One of the things he had to learn was how to get small scale equipment. Makers of cheese equipment wanted to sell him 20,000 litre pasteurizers or cheese vats when he needed to pasteurize only 1000 litres a day. A consultant in eastern Ontario helped put him in touch with some small-scale equipment makers in Europe and some equipment had to be customer made. Now, with more interest in small-scale production, companies that formerly only offered equipment in huge proportions are have equipment for micro operations. The effort was worth it financially. If he sold raw milk from his herd of 200 Toggenburg and La Manchia goats (about 120 milking at any one time) he'd receive about 70 cents a litre. By making it into cheese, he gets the equivalent of $2 a litre. The operation is separated into two entities. C'estbon Cheese buys milk from Transvaal Farms at 80 cents a litre. He got started in goats milk production when he bought a top- flight closed herd from New York State. He wanted quality animals all from one source and had to go that far to find the size of herd he needed. The animals get special management (he has one employee to help with the herd side of the operation) to maintain the kind of high protein/high butterfat milk needed for the cheese production. "I control the process from start to finish", Taylor says of his vertically - integrated production. One of the driving issues is what the herd is fed, he says. Feed can be the difference between the off - flavoured "goatiness" of soome goats milk and cows milk. Many people have said they can't detect a difference between the goats milk of his herd and cows milk. The goats don't get any fermented feeds because it can affect the taste of the milk. The does also only get alfalfa hay immediately after milking so they have at least eight hours between consuming it and when they'll be milked. Taylor grows a mixture of field peas and barley to provide high protein without the need for soybeans. The high protein peas can be eaten without roasting and without grinding. While the farm isn't certified organic, all feeds are grown on the farm and no GMOs are included. The herd is under a holistic herd health program with very strict rules on antibiotic use. Antibiotics are used only in management of the kids.