Welcome to Dublin, Texas. The cows are in the left rear of the photo under the shed roof.
Cows feed on their rations in their stanchions. Note the fans on the shed’s ceiling.
Moo. Where is the grass?
Organic regulations require access to pasture. Cornucopia’s direct observation and interviews found no physical evidence that any grazing had occurred during this growing season.
Hauling in more stored feed (TMR).
Keeping cool in the Texas heat. Is this an appropriate site for organic livestock production (not for local marketing and consumption, but to instead ship around the country undercutting prices of locally, sustainably produced milk).
No cow pies in the pasture but manure piles in the feedlot.
A total of 3000-5000 cows are managed at the Aurora factory-farm.
A section of the Aurora factory-farm viewed from the distance.
A little while after starting to take photographs from the road, in front of the farm, the manager drove out to inquire who we were. He was familiar with The Cornucopia Institute and turned our request down for a tour (he was not authorized to do so without approval from the Colorado office). He then immediately got on his cell phone (presumably with the corporate office) who probably told him to “get some cows out there and pasture!” It took another 45 minutes or so until 6-10 vehicles, from on and off the farm, (cars, trucks, tractors and four wheelers) all converged on one side of the feedlot complex. A short while later just over a hundred cows headed to a relatively small (small if you’re milking 3000 cows) paddock.
In dusty conditions and scorching dry sun, with temperatures in the 90s, about 100 cows head out to graze, with questionable access to water in paddocks. All that time and effort for about one 30th of their herd. Seems like they would be hard-pressed to replicate this 90 times a day with their 3X milking schedule (not every organic dairy producer grazes between each milking—but many do—however, we only know of a couple legitimate family-scale organic farms that milk more than twice a day).
Do the images and language on this milk carton, a private label package supplied by Aurora, match what the photos show above?
