In honor of National Milk Day, I’m putting you to the test!

1.     How long does it take from the time milk leaves a cow until it’s made into a loaf of Tillamook Cheese?

2.     How many pounds of milk are used to make one pound of Tillamook Cheese?

3.     How many pounds of milk does it take to make one carton of Tillamook Ice Cream?

4.     How many pounds of milk does it take to make one pound of Tillamook Butter?

5.     How much does a gallon of milk weigh?

6.     How many squirts are in a gallon of milk?

7.     How much water does a cow drink?

8.     How much milk can a cow produce in one day?

9.     Why is milk white?

10.  How many veggies would it take to equal the calcium in two servings of dairy?

Click here for the answers.

By Loafy

Didn’t your mother teach you it was impolite to stick out your tongue? Well, it’s perfectly normal for a cow.

Grazing animals each have a different way of eating grass. A cow’s method is to use its tongue. A cow’s tongue is long, as you can tell from this photo, and dexterous. Cows are able to use their tongue to wrap around grass or plants growing in a pasture and pull the food into their mouth so they can eat it. Well, if you don’t have hands you need to find some other way to get the food to your mouth!

Also, cows only have bottom teeth. Once they’ve used their tongue to get the grass or other feed material into their moth, it’s “chewed” between the lower jaw and a the pad on the upper jaw. She swallows it down and there begins the rumination process or chewing the cud. But I won’t get into those details, at least not while you’re eating.

Learn a little more about Tillamook cows here!

By Chandra

Thank you, cows, for being so udderly great!

How do we love our 4-legged Holsteins, Jerseys, and Guernseys? Let us count the ways!

We love that they give us the freshest, highest quality milk for use in producing Tillamook Cheese and Tillamook Ice Cream. We love the livelihood that they provide to all the farmer-owners of our cooperative. We love how picturesque they are in the rolling meadows and hills of Tillamook county. Heck, we even love the “dairy air” they provide!

So, to all the hard-working Tillamook dairy cows, as well as their cousins nationwide: We appreciate you!

Join us at the Cheese Factory today to help celebrate cows! For the first 500 people who visit us today, we have a special beanie cow gift for you. Rumor has it that our mascot, Tillie the Cow, will also show up throughout the day to greet our visitors. And don’t forget to sample some cheese and ice cream made possible for you by your friends and ours, cows!

See you at the Cheese Factory!

By Susan P.

Living on the Oregon coast with as much rain as we get, everyone anxiously waits for April when the rains (are supposed to) taper off. The cows are no different. By mid-April we finally had a few days of dry weather and many of the farmers were able to let the cows into pasture. Early one Thursday morning, these Holstein girls were enjoying a breakfast of spring grass after milking. Nothing but the sounds of birds chirping and the occasional car driving by on its way to work.

By Chandra

To kick-off National Dairy Month, I thought it appropriate to talk a little bit about milk quality. After all, that’s how our delicious dairy products begin — with high quality milk. It doesn’t come by accident; milk of the highest quality comes from the healthiest of cows who are cared for by the best of people. Particularly when it comes to our aged cheddar cheeses, we believe our ability to develop the full cheddar notes and perfect texture can specifically be related to fresh, high quality milk.

I thought it would be fun to share a video I took early one morning on a cool spring day of cows as they walk in from the field to their morning milking. I also feel compelled to say that it was the first time I used my handy dandy little flip video camera, so sorry about the poor filming (I’m getting much better now).

The cows in the video are Holsteins. In the Tillamook Valley, about 60 percent of the herds are Holstein with around 30 percent being Jersey cows. The rest are a combination of Brown Swiss, Guernsey and Dutch Belt. The cows on this dairy gave such high quality milk that last year their dairy was recognized as one of the top three in our cooperative for milk quality. The award is based on an analysis of specific quality indicators. It isn’t easy to achieve, and takes a lot of hard work and desire to deliver the best possible product.

By Heidi

Farmer Hiram Smith hand milks a cow in 1912.

Milking a cow is a labor intensive process. When a cow enters the parlor, her teats are cleaned and dried. The milk is visually inspected and the milking unit is attached. About 6-8 minutes later, the unit comes off and the teats are dipped with an iodine solution to prevent bacteria entering the teat canal. At each farm, a milker preps every milking cow the same way. Depending on the herd size, parlor size and number of hands to help, milking takes an average of three hours.

That’s a very condensed version of today’s process. But going back as early as 60 years ago, milking a cow was a little different.

Enter the stool, bucket and hand-power.

Back then, the farmer would sit on a stool within reach of the udder and hand-milk the cow into a bucket. Perhaps they were hoping the cow wouldn’t be ornery and kick the bucket, or worse, kick the farmer. The milk would be poured into a milk can and transported to a creamery by way of horse and wagon. Some of our local farmers also remember their parents or grandparents setting the milk cans in a stream to keep them cool before going to the creamery.

Milking took more time back then and herds were smaller, perhaps only 30 cows as compared to today’s average of about 250 cows. In this photo from 1912, Hiram Smith is milking one of his cows. I wonder if he could ever imagine a faster process. Hmm… he was probably thinking instead, “Take the photo so this cow don’t kick me and I can get back to work!”

Computers feeding cows, automated milking, refrigerated bulk tanks, and 50,000-pound tanker trucks – my how times have changed.

By Chandra

If you’re in Tillamook you can’t help but stop at the Cheese Factory! Our photographers David and Brin.

When we launched the new Tillamook.com at the end of January we also wanted to make sure we had new photos of Tillamook cows to share. They don’t naturally pose and smile at the camera, so how does one take pictures of our lovely Tillamook cows? It turns out that if you go into their pasture, they will come to you! They are curious creatures and like to checkout what’s going on – and that’s just what they did when we visited some Tillamook farms for a photo shoot!

Our photographer, Brin, started off far away from the cows.

Within minutes, they were sneaking closer to him!

She was really curious!

What a nice view of Tillamook the cows have in this pasture!

When you go out in the pasture, rubber boots help!

The sun shines down on Tillamook cows.

What farm is complete without a dog (or several) running around?

By Laura

This January we unveiled a beautiful new addition to our association’s seal – a crimson banner that proudly proclaims that we are farmer owned and have been since 1909.  Being farmer owned means that the farmers in our cooperative guide our decisions and set the vision for the company. Many of our farm families have been co-op members for multiple generations, often farming the same land that was homesteaded by their family in the late 1800s. They are not simply shareholders; they are emotionally vested in creating quality products that begin with high quality milk. To them, it is as much their legacy as it is anything else. They know that the work that they do on their land every day impacts our ability to meet our brand promise.

I always enjoy visiting families on their dairies and seeing this pride in action. It is unmistakable.  You see it in how they beam when talking about the quality of our cheese and when they reference their dairy cows. Last year I sent a photographer out to one of our dairies to take a photo of the family for our annual report. They were one of the families we recognized last year for their high quality milk at our annual meeting. When the photographer got there, the farmer wouldn’t let her disturb the cows with her camera because it was after milking when the cows preferred to rest in the barn! I still get a kick out of that. She had to come back and tell me she took some great pictures of the family but that the farmer, we’ll call him “Jerry,” wouldn’t let her disturb the cows. Love it. BTW…we did get some awesome photos of his cows, just not that afternoon.

By Heidi