Trystan and Max Sandvoss
East Bethany, NY 14054
Products:
cow’s milk and goat’s milk cheese: chevre, feta, cheddar curds, and jack.
Growing Practices:
All goat’s milk is produced from First Light Farm’s own herd of goats. Holstein cow’s milk is sourced from Lor-Rob Dairy in East Bethany, NY. Organic Jersey cow’s milk is sourced from Brent Tillotson’s Dairy, Pavilion, NY. According to Max and Trystan, “First Light Farm employs meticulously sustainable and humane management in all husbandry and agricultural practices. We believe that cheese should reflect the terroir of the farm, so we never standardize, homogenize or otherwise “mess with” the milk that makes our cheese. Instead, we highlight the seasonal changes to our milk by tailoring our cheeses to that day’s milk. All of the grass and browse consumed by our dairy goats is sourced locally, either through rotational grazing on our 20-acre farm, or from an eight acre parcel we hay three and a half miles from the farm, or from our neighbor less than 10 miles from the farm. We grow a wide range of forage crops, including sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, comfrey, birdsfoot treefoil, dandelions, and chicory. We bed our animals with local straw and use our compost to enrich soil tilth. We never use petro-chemical fertilizers or industrial herbicides on our farm. To manage our dry lot we use an organic-approved citric acid defoliant as well as flame weeding. Our husbandry approach is centered around management that reduces stress and disease. Therefore, we maintain a very small commercial herd, and we will only grow to the level we can support sustainably. Our goats are outside on pasture as much as possible, and are always provided with adequate shelter from wind and rain. We only use antibiotics to save the life of an animal, never employing prophylactic administration of drugs. We never use artificial hormones to improve milk production.”
