Here at Sellar Farmhouse Creamery we run a calf-at-foot practice where calves spend their first three months nursing from their dam.

As 2024 closes out, it’s timely to reflect on the year.

Join us for a couple of exciting online events coming up!

an update on how the herd is going as we pass the six year mark of milking and four and a half years of selling bottled milk and yoghurt into Castlemaine.

Listen to Tess speak with Allie on the Saltgrass podcast. Plus more milk for sale at market again.

Watch the process of Oli doing an EV conversion on our farm truck ‘Bert’

Hear updates on the herd and learn why Sellar Dairy is about about to go into a milk drought for a few months

Farm open day. Sunday 19th March

Spring has definitely sprung here in Harcourt and what a season it is! La Nina is certainly showing herself at the farm this year. The ground is well and truly saturated, gullies all flowing and more falling from the sky as I write

Get up to speed with managing the risk of foot and mouth disease as a whole community.

CSA dairy pick-ups only from market this week

This is my  reflection on the life and death of our two beautiful steers, Otis and Rupert.

New Castlemaine Market hours 2:30-5:30 starting this week

The people behind Sellar Farmhouse Creamery

Nutritious milk comes from healthy cows, who have a healthy gut function, who eat nutrient dense feed which comes from a well balanced soil.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any farm updates and to be honest it’s been a pretty rough winter.

Waiting, waiting, waiting. I feel like there’s been a lot of waiting for the past 6 weeks.

There’s a lot to consider when planning to have a steady milk flow all year round. Particularly when you are working with such a small herd, one cow can completely throw out your predictions.

Sellar Farmhouse Creamery is very excited to finally launch our yoghurt!

Sellar dairy is committed to running a returnable glass packaging business.

Well it’s no secret that Oli and I are both quite sentimental people, particularly when it comes to our vehicles. A few weeks ago we took a trip up to my family farm to pick up a tractor, but it’s a little more than just that.

Now, with a close to full herd, I thought I’d do proper introductions, as they are at the core of SFC.

Good food safety is not about ticking boxes for compliance, it’s about understanding risks and mitigating them.

We take growing food and feeding our community very seriously.  We love doing it, but for all of us at the Co-Op one of the big reasons we got into farming is because we believe that the industrial and global food system is extremely fragile and when something like the coronavirus happens, we can start to…

Berta the cow really holds a very special place in our hearts. She was the first cow we bought and showed us just how amazing a good cow can be.

Now that we are up and running I thought I would spend this post reflecting on the financial cost of setting up Sellar Farmhouse Creamery to date.

We’ve made a little video to show the process from pasture to bottle. See the mobile milking parlour in action and our shipping container based micro dairy factory.

6/11/2019 WE START SELLING MILK!

Introducing our mobile milking parlour!

Our license has come through!

We’ve been busy getting the factory ready and now we’re so close to calling the inspectors.

The big job we’ve been working on recently is the refrigeration systems

A recent article in The Guardian ‘Drought and low milk prices push dairy farmers to the brink’ got me rather riled up.

We’ve been heads down getting this business off the ground but this last week I’ve started thinking of the big picture again.

I’ve unintentionally created a positive feedback loop.

A key component to Sellar Farmhouse Creamery is to develop and manage silvopasture landscapes; an integrated system where trees and pasture are managed to raise livestock.

Modern dairy tends to involve rather complex engineering and use lots of energy. A micro dairy is not necessarily much less complicated. I am trying to creatively (re)use available materials and renewable energy to help Sellar Dairy move toward a vision of sustainable and regenerative farming.

Reflecting on Oli’s on farm accident; farming is a dangerous career choice.

We start the management of the picnic gully block, which unfortunately from a grazing perspective, was way over our heads in gorse, briar rose, wild plums and black berries.

Now that the milk is flowing, we’ve been busy trying to get the creamery up and running. Then we can get licensed to start selling and sharing this beautiful milk!