D’Ranch Life

A 19 year old with no land and no money built a 40-cow dairy on somebody else's farm. 300 families were buying milk off that rented ground before he ever paid for an ad. Nathan Vergin got in by managing one of Joel Salatin's rental farms in Virginia: income off the beef herd, an apartment, access to equipment and a shop. He found customers before he had a parlor. He called everybody he knew, told them he was starting a raw milk herd share, and asked them to pass it on. No ads. A list. About 30 said yes. While the parts sat in transit he milked five cows by hand for five days straight, by himself. The parlor: old tie stall stanchions bolted to a hay wagon chassis, a vacuum pump hooked to a lawnmower engine, a box around the engine to keep the weather off. He pulled it into the field, fired it up, milked into a bucket, carried the milk to the cooler. It was ugly as a mud fence. It milked cows. There is a big difference between I don't have the ideal setup and I can't start. Those are two separate things. Word of mouth did the marketing. Somebody drank the milk, told a friend. He bought another cow, needed more ground, more people called, more cows. No five year plan. Demand pulled him forward one cow at a time. Virginia won't let raw milk sit on a store shelf, so the herd share is the road in. Customers own a slice of the herd and pay a boarding fee. The milk is theirs as owners. Nobody handed him a farm. He found the grass, then the customers, and the customers set his size. That is a business a middleman cannot shut off. Your rancher, Jason Hanley | 208-714-0478