Here in Arizona Shamrock Farms is a pretty popular milk brand because they are local, but if you don’t live here you can find their milk in Subways across the nation.
I’ve heard this tour is a lot of fun for kids and anywhere there is ice cream I am there, so a friend and I took the hour drive over to Shamrock Farms yesterday. The tour itself is about an hour long and you are on a tram for most of the time. They take you into this building where you can view the milking process. I have to say I was pretty impressed. I’m the kind of girl that it breaks my heart to see the documentary’s on TV that show the mistreatment of animals but Shamrock does seem to have a top rate facility and the cows seem to be treated well. Although I’m sure they wouldn’t show you the bad stuff if it does exist.
It’s obvious they take a lot of pride in the cleanliness of their facilities and the precautions they take with their milk. The cows do get milked 8 hours a day but it is not a continuous thing. They get a lot of breaks where they are allowed to step out of the line up, do their business, eat, drink, get sprayed down, and their utters disinfected before going back in. I do try to buy organic milk as much as I can so it was neat to see the organic part of the farm too. They showed us the cows that are given free range to graze all day and said they only get milked twice a day instead of 8 hours a day. That made me feel kinda bad for the regular cows.
Something I always wondered about was how they stand the heat in our hot summers but the tour guide said they keep the facilities at 72 degrees all year long.
The most impressive thing for me was hearing that they do not give any of their cows hormones or antibiotics unless they are sick (but then they don’t milk them until it is out of their system), and the organic cows don’t get antibiotics ever.
At the end of the tour you get to pick a flavor of milk which I chose dulce de leche and it was Deelicious! We also had ice cream which was equally delicious of course.
Eva loved it. She loved seeing the baby cows, playing with the milking machines, saying “moo” all day, and eating ice cream (of course).
I know not everyone lives this close to a dairy farm but I encourage you to find whatever is close in your area and do it. Do all of it while they are still young.
Description from their website
-“Real Farm. Real Fresh. It’s the way Shamrock Farms has done business for more than 80 years. A real farm with more than 10,000 cows, Shamrock Farms is one of the largest family-owned and operated dairies in the United States. A premier manufacturer of extended shelf life (esl) dairy and refrigerated liquid products, including beverage milk, non-dairy creamer, half & half, heavy whipping cream, and seasonal products such as egg nog, Shamrock Farms is a leader in the industry. And all of our products are free of the growth hormone rBST.”
To make myself feel better, and since I love to plan, I wrote down some things we can do this summer so we can still get out of the house and give our daughter fun experiences while still sticking to our budget.
1. We have a pool that I am sure will get a lot of use this summer plus there is a community pool when we want something a little bigger – FREE
2. A short drive away is Tempe Town Lake and the beach park which has a little water play area for little kids and it is FREE!
3. Continue going to story time at Barnes and Noble and the local Library- FREE
4. Shamrock Farms is a local dairy that does farm tours. Adults – $9 Children – $6
5. We can drive to the many mountain ranges that are only 1-2 hours away to escape the Phoenix heat for a day. FREE except for gas and food.
6. Harkins Theater (which is 2 minutes away) has a summer movie program. $7 for 10 movies
7. Since we just bought Disneyland annual passes a couple weeks ago and since my in laws live about 20 minutes from Disney we can drive out to California and stay with them a couple of times this summer. If gas prices stay low it will cost us about $40 in gas and food for the whole weekend will be about $100.
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