Sacred Spring: The Beginning of Your Meadow Butter

Cow & Calf at Red Gate Farm -- Kriemhild's Farm Partner for Meadow Butter

We’re having a Cow! It’s Calving Season at Red Gate Farm…

Spring is a sacred season on any farm. Produce farms can finally put their seeds in the warm ground, chicks are hatching from eggs, and livestock graze on lush spring pastures. At Red Gate Farm, spring arrives with a hundreds of babies mooing.

Located down the road from Kriemhild Dairy in Hamilton, NY, Red Gate Farm is our sole milk supplier for our seasonal Meadow Butter. It is the second-largest grazing dairy in New York State and is owned and run by the Rivington family who practice holistic grazing management for over more than 1,500 acres of land.

The typical dairy farm produces milk year-round, meaning that calves are born throughout the year on a staggered schedule. Being a seasonal dairy, Red Gate Farm goes about breeding and parturition differently. All the cows at Red Gate are bred in the same span of time and therefore give birth in one short period at the beginning of spring. As you can imagine, it is the busiest time of the year on the farm.

The dairy farm lingo for a cow that has given birth is “fresh”.  At Red Gate Farm over 350 cows freshen over a two month period. At this time, the farm transitions to a maternity ward. It is the birth of  the calves that begins the cows’ natural lactation which will peak through the bountiful grazing season and continue until December.

Some of Red Gate's Calves From Past Seasons Gather for a Group Portrait.

But for as busy and hectic as it is, the season specifically set aside for calving is also reverent. Its suddenness and newness is the ultimate acknowledgement of the fertility and abundance of new life that comes with the spring season.

Meet Ava. She's our first calf of the season!

As we all look forward to another season of fresh grass-fed Meadow Butter, we’re also just as excited to receive the newest additions to the herd. About 140 of the calves born this spring will be the future milking cows of Red Gate Farm, known by the term “heifers”, which is a pretty good gig as cow-jobs go.
So far, more 100 calves have been born this season. As the calf barn fills up with brand new bouncing baby bovines, we’re gearing up to introduce you to them. 

On Saturday, April 29th, Red Gate Farm is hosting Calving Day. Whether or not you have visited the farm before, Calving Day will be a great time to make a trip. It will be a special event highlighting the natural cycle and processes that surround seasonal grass-fed dairy farming. We encourage anyone who wants to know more about where their food comes from to join us at the farm to celebrate the start of the season.

Until then, we’ll be keeping you abreast with our Calving Day COW-ntdown (we couldn’t help ourselves). As our Calving Day event approaches, we’ll be counting-down the days and adding-up the number calves we’ve welcomed to the farm.  Stay tuned on social media & here on our website for the running total of fresh baby calves!