Cow comfort drives dairy philosophy at Crèmerie St-Édouard

Saint Paul, Alta. (Rural Roots Canada) — A third-generation, family-run dairy farm in St. Paul, Alberta, is taking a different approach to dairy farming, prioritizing animal welfare and product quality over conventional practices.

As part of the recent Alberta Farm Writers’ Association farm tour, Rural Roots Canada stopped at Crèmerie St-Édouard, where calves remain with their mothers rather than being separated shortly after birth. It’s a practice owners Richard and Nichole Brousseau believe benefits both the animals and the quality of their dairy products.

“The cows want to raise a calf, and most of them do a really good job at it, so why should I try to interfere?” said Richard.

Instead of bottle-feeding calves in a separate barn, the farm allows them to nurse naturally. Brousseau said the approach reduces transitional stress, requires less labour and produces healthier replacement heifers.

The family’s focus on animal welfare extends throughout the barn.

The facility was designed with cow comfort in mind, featuring natural ventilation, exposure to natural sounds and soft resting areas made with compacted clay beneath deep straw bedding. In high-traffic areas, grooved rubber mats cover the concrete to reduce slips and to help prevent hoof and leg soreness. An automatic cow brush is a unique tool which provides behavioural enrichment while allowing cows to groom themselves. During the summer, the back door of the barn is left open for cows to roam and graze freely within the exercise lot.

“The cows come and go as they please, and they absolutely love the automatic brush; they will line up to use it,” said Nichole.

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The same high standards that are set for animal care continue into how the family produces its milk.

Crèmerie St-Édouard chooses to sell milk with its naturally varying butterfat content instead of standardizing it for greater profits. Richard said the fat percentage changes throughout the year depending on the cows’ diet and how much fresh grass they graze.

The family could earn more by separating the cream to sell as a separate product, reducing the overall fat percentage in the milk, but they have chosen not to.

“We will accept a little bit of a pay cut to keep that higher quality,” Nichole explained.

The idea for this small family creamery began a decade ago after community members repeatedly asked whether the family sold products directly from their dairy farm.

“The answer was always no, but one day I finally said to Rich, let’s find a way to make this happen,” she said.

Between taking over the family farm, raising their children and obtaining the required licences and equipment, it took 10 years for the idea to become a reality.

Today Crèmerie St-Édouard milks approximately 30 dairy cows, with the help of five employees, producing between 800 and 1,000 litres of milk a day.

Because the farm does not yet have the equipment to process all of its milk, it’s cooled in a bulk tank before being transported to Edmonton for processing. The creamery currently processes between 600 and 750 litres of its own milk each week, while the remainder is sold through the conventional system.

The family’s long-term goal is to process all of the milk produced on the farm, allowing them to keep every step of production local.

The post Cow comfort drives dairy philosophy at Crèmerie St-Édouard first appeared on Rural Roots Canada.