A reminder about milk rationing

We announced a few weeks ago that we were going to begin rationing milk. This is because one of our milk cows had dried off and were therefore limited on milk production.

Since then we’ve been able to make do and most people who wanted milk have been able to get it. Maybe not today, but the next day. Definitely not as much as everyone would like, but at least a gallon. All in all it’s gone fairly well. Except for one thing. We are getting a lot of people who are continually asking us to hold milk for them. As we said in the initial post, we will not hold milk for anyone. It is first come, first serve. It’s also limited to one gallon per family. We have folks showing up with the daughter, nephew, hamster, whatever and claiming one gallon for each.

Let me explain something to everyone. The very first families to get completely cut off from milk is all three families here on the farm. As soon as we knew we’d dried off a cow everyone here switched to Simply Natural milk or went without. We do that so that our customers have maximum availability. When you are telling us hardship stories about needing two gallons, or asking to buy five gallons so you can freeze it because we are running low (therefore keeping four other family’s pets from getting any) you are telling these stories to people who aren’t getting any milk. This means we are a bit jaded. It’s one gallon, per family. First come, first serve.

On another note, I also made mention of prioritizing our regular customers over milk only customers. We haven’t implemented that yet but rest assured we are planing on it. We have customers who get two pounds of hamburger, pork chops, some mustard, and a gallon of milk. We also have customers who are here 5 minutes before we open, who buy 4 gallons of milk and nothing else, ever.

Folks, we love and appreciate all of our customers but we are not in the pet milk business. We are in the farm business. As some point we are going to prioritize our full customers over our milk only customers. Nothing against anyone but if we are limited in our supply we are going to take care of those who fully support us first. I know the four gallon customer is buying food somewhere, and they are choosing not to buy it here. That’s absolutely their choice but that means they only care about getting pet milk, not about supporting our farm. It’s nothing personal, but with limited supply that’s part of how we’ll make the decision of who we have milk for. At some point you may be told to “put your milk back, I’m sorry.” And I am, but when you are shocked I’ll point to this post and tell you that I already told you prior.