09/27/05 Ballard Dairy and Cheese

Ballard Family Dairy and Cheese owners Steve and Stacie had no experience when they started their Gooding dairy. Stacie learned how to milk cows by volunteering at a neighbor's dairy. Then the transplanted Californian bought a milking machine and invited an extension educator to her burgeoning dairy. BALLARD "I said I wanted to know how the milking unit works. How do those things work? How does it get the milk out of the cow? And he started cracking up and he says you're the first person who has ever asked me that question." But they still hadn't learned enough. BALLARD "We went to Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota and all over California and asked two questions. What would you do again and what wouldn't you do again." Every day they milk nearly 100 jersey cows. When they decided to start making cheese, it was countless hours of school and picking the brains of locals like Glanbia Foods for tips and pointers. It took three years but the Ballards started producing cheese last year. BALLARD "It took us almost a whole year to get all of the government issues taken care of. Then we started doing our business plan and presenting it to the bank and then it took us another whole year to build the building because we did it ourselves." And tomorrow how the Ballard's market their products. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott