Producer

Five Freedoms Dairy was founded by veterinarian Kevin McSweeney with the goal of creating a small but sustainable dairy focused on providing cows with a healthier and more enriched life. The centerpiece of this enrichment is Five Freedoms’ system of leaving the cows with calves after they are born, an uncommon practice here in the US.

In fact, Five Freedoms’ mothers are allowed to care for and nurse their young for at least five months after birth. Additionally, our cows live outside with access to pasture, shade and soft bedding. Simply put, the cows are treated like the intelligent, gentle creatures they are, animals that so nobly share their milk with us.

BECAUSE OF OUR METHODS:

Our cows typically live twice as long as the industry average.
Our cows have significantly less hoof and leg issue than animals confined to concrete.
Calves stay with their mothers for months instead instead of the standard practice of separation after birth.
We hope to create a model where the small dairy can thrive.

At Five Freedoms we also strive to be as sustainable to our environment as possible. We do this in many ways. First, by our cows living longer, it takes fewer animals to be raised to replace the animals that leave our herd. These replacement animals consume resources and produce methane gas for two years on average before they are old enough to replace older cows. So, by needing fewer of these replacements at our dairy, we require fewer resources to be consumed and less methane gas produced. Older cows also produce more milk, so more milk from fewer resources and less greenhouse gas production!

Our processing plant is located at the dairy, so we have no transportation greenhouse gases produced at this phase of production. And our consumer base is located within one hour of the dairy/processing plant, so there is minimal transportation-related greenhouse gas production to deliver product.