About Us
Our Farm
Vermont Shepherd is a family owned and operated 250-acre sheep farm in Westminster West, Vermont and is one of the oldest sheep dairies in the country. Here we raise 300-700 sheep (depending on the time of year), milk our flock of 250, and make a variety of aged and fresh cheeses and dairy products. We utilize intensive rotational grazing to feed and care for our sheep which promotes health, sustainability, and many other environmental benefits. Please visit us at our self-serve farm stand if you're ever in the neighborhood and enjoy our cheese!
Work on the farm includes: milking the sheep twice a day (5 a.m. and 5 p.m.), moving the sheep from pasture to pasture, haying, shearing sheep, cleaning to keep everything beautiful, and boxing up our cheeses and other goods and sending them out all over the country.
Vermont Shepherd has won two conservation awards in 2002 and 2006 for the quality of its farming work and improving the soils, pastures, and water resources.
Our Sheep
Over the years our flock ewes, their rams, and hundreds of lambs have raised us to satisfy their every need. They require that we stay up all night during birthing to attend to breach births, plugged teats, or the occasional preemie, and to make a cozy corner of hay for each new mom and her lambs. Later, they employ us shepherds to run a lamb day care on the big flat field after the lambs have grown out of their cute stage and have become annoying, boisterous adolescents. At winter’s end, the sheep’s schedule for us includes a hair job (shearing), and a pedicure (hoof trim). Come summer, the ewes baa for us to make a new pasture after each milking, two pastures for each day of every month. In exchange, the sheep care for us, giving wool to keep us warm, milk and meat so we may live a long life and produce young shepherds who will be here to meet the sheeps’ needs for generations to come.
The Cheese Cave
Our cool and humid cave built into the side of a hill here at the farm offers ideal conditions for cheese ripening. Soon after the cheeses are made, we bring them to the cheese cave to be salted and ripened. During the 2-6 months ripening process, the cheeses rest on wooden boards and are carefully tended to by The Cave's affineur (French for cheese ripener.) The affineur turns and brushes each wheel every other day until flavor develops to the fullest.
The Vermont Shepherd Cheese Cave is home to over 20,000 lbs a year of our artisanal, farmhouse cheeses. This man-made cave is over 4' underground and is naturally damp and cool, the perfect conditions for cheese ripening!
All of our cheeses are aged on wooden boards, an age-old method that helps in the development of natural cheese rinds. Each day we turn, brush or wash the cheeses to cultivate beautiful, natural cheese rinds. These rinds, free of plastic and wax, help to enhance the cheeses' flavor and give our cheeses their unique characteristics.