CAFO Approved

Today was a major milestone in the development of Catesby Farms. We recieved notification that are CAFO application has been approved and that as of today we are now CAFO certified by the state of Oregon. Confined Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) is one of the most important steps required in establishing a cheese facility (if you milk your own animals) and also one of those that tends to get glossed over or forgotten because there is traditionally no fanfare, or physical 'change' to anything that a picture could illustrate.

Still, it enables us to keep up to 200 sheep on our property and defines the parameters within which we can operate our cheese facility. The next certification is the cheese facility itself and once that happens we are fully registered, licensed and certified by the state of Oregon to start producing cheese. Next week we will be confirming the plans with our engineer for the construction of the waste lagoon which will begin construction this Autumn (Fall). We have not yet secured a general contractor to oversee the operation but once we have one they will take charge of both the lagoon and the milk barn refit.

So, this was the first major hurdle. From here on in the actual construction begins.

On a side note, we have sourced some East Friesian / Lacaune rams for our breeding program, down in Klamath Falls. We are still going to do some experimentation with the Katahdin's, but the aim initially will be to increase the size of the milking flock. This year we will only have 12 East Friesian ewes to breed, next year we will have 25 unless we acquire more. On the plus side we do have 10 Dorset ewes that we can breed either the Katahdin's or the East Friesian rams to depending on what else we are looking for. As I mentioned, the meat from the Katahdin's is good quality, so perhaps we will investigate specialist meat cuts locally as a side business.