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DAIRY ST R “All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 19, No. 18
November 11, 2017
Moores aim to add value with cheese
Iowa dairy couple opening holiday shop in Maquoketa By Ron Johnson
ron.j@dairystar.com
MAQUOKETA, Iowa – It’s been said, “Necessity is the mother of invention.” That’s true for Brandon and Heather Moore of Maquoketa, Iowa. The Jackson County farm couple began milking their rst cows three years ago. But, like many dairy farmers, they have felt the pinch of rather low milk prices. Their necessity was nding a way to add value to the milk from their 50 cows. Their solution was having cheese made from the herd’s milk and marketing it on their own. Heather and Brandon have rented a small storefront in nearby Maquoketa and will sell their cheese at their Moore Family Farms Holiday Shop. The store is scheduled to open Nov. 11. The thought that it would not hurt RON JOHNSON/ DAIRY STAR to make their milk more valuable and Heather Moore and her husband, Brandon, are the owners of Moore Family Farms Cheese of Maquoketa, Iowa. The Turn to MOORES | Page 5 couple uses the milk from their 50-cow herd to produce the cheese products.
Four Cubs Farm suffers barn, parlor re By Brittany Olson
brittany.o@dairystar.com
GRANTSBURG, Wis. – A deluge of love, support and gratitude has helped to cushion the blow in the wake of a devastating loss for the Peterson family. Gary and Cris Peterson, who milk 800 cows at Four Cubs Farm with their son and daughter-in-law, Ben and Nicki, and 18 employees, just east of Grantsburg, Wis., watched their 122-year-old barn and milking parlor burn to the ground as the snow ew on the morning of Nov. 1.
“We do a lot of tours with nursery school students all the way up to adults, and the barn was an iconic piece of those tours because of its history. We had been milking cows in that barn since 1895,” said Nicki. Gary and Cris rst spotted ames coming out of the barn, which quickly spread to the double-16 parallel parlor. Cris rushed in to make sure no one was inside, and if they were, that they were safe. Turn to FOUR CUBS | Page 7
PHOTO SUBMITTED
Scorched silos tower above the wreckage caused by a re at Four Cubs Farm, owned and operated by the Peterson family near Grantsburg, Wis. Their milking parlor and original barn burned down on Nov. 1.