Frequently Asked Questions

As of the end of September 2023, we have a limited number of shares available.  However, we typically have a long waitlist and are going through our waitlist first.  

To be added to our waitlist, please send the following information to us at wimofarms@gmail.com:  

Subject Line:  Waitlist 

City where you live: 

How much milk you need each week (1/2 gal, 1 gal, etc.):  

Phone #: 

Best email: 

Extenuating circumstances (if any): 

When shares become available, I will contact you via email and you will have 1 day to respond before I move on to the next person on the list.  

Unfortunately, with ever-increasing costs we have seen many dairies shut down in recent years.  We also both have full time jobs and, given that we have kids, we want to stay small on purpose.  Our milk is offered as weekly on-farm pickup in SW Berthoud and we have no plans to grow.  Because of this, we are intentionally small and want to stay that way.  Combined with the high demand for real food and the ever-decreasing options for raw dairy, we have a waitlist.  

When shares become available and you've been contacted, we will arrange to complete the paperwork either electronically or I will print it out and leave it here for you to sign.  

...there's A LOT of paperwork... we are registered with the CO Dept. of Public Health and Environment, so in order to become a shareholder, the paperwork has to be completed.  

Unfortunately due to work schedules & kids' activity schedules, Mo isn't able to make farm visit appointments as easily as she once was, so it's easiest to sign folks up via email or printed documents.  Since I use a free website, this is the best I can do for now!  

We currently accept cash, check and Venmo.  We do not have any plans to accept credit cards at this time.  

The State of Colorado only allows raw milk to be made available through a shareholder program.  Therefore, there are no "sales" of raw milk for human consumption allowed.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a food-free state.  

The only way raw milk is legal in the state of Colorado is through a shareholder program which is similar to a CSA (community-supported agriculture) where the consumer shares in the growing and harvest "risk" with the farmer or in our case the dairy. 

There are two separate components to getting raw milk.  

The first is the Herd Share Buy-in.  This is where a consumer pays to purchase part of the herd of the cows in order to be part of the program.  

The second is the monthly boarding fee which varies depending upon how much milk a consumer wants or needs each month.  

With costs continually rising for all farmers and ranchers, we do expect price increases unless we start to see fuel, feed, and other input costs decrease.   

Our current costs are: 

Herd share buy-in:  $40

Jar fee at start up:  $10

Boarding fee:  $40 per half share per month.  This is equivalent to a half gallon of milk picked up each week regardless if there are 5 or 4 weeks in a month, the monthly cost remains the same.  

We can do any multiple of half shares.  A full share is equivalent to a full gallon of milk each week, and so on.  

Another nuance of getting raw milk in CO is that you are not purchasing the milk, and milk is only available via the shareholder program.  

And, there are a couple of noteworthy things to keep in mind with a shareholder program: 

1.  We cannot "make up" missed milk, so if you're out of town and someone can't pick up your milk for you, you miss that week of milk.  The cows don't produce more on weeks when folks are back from holidays or vacations.  

2.  We cannot do every other week pickups as the cows don't produce more milk one week to another week.  

3.  We only offer on-farm pickup and have no plans to add delivery locations.  

Raw milk is a perfect medium to grow bacteria - good and bad.  Only you can decide if you want to consume raw milk.  

I can tell you with certainty that we are a small family and we do this for our family first.  Even if we didn't have our shareholder program, we would still have cows for ourselves and still milk exactly as we do today. There's not a jar of milk in our pickup fridge that we wouldn't drink ourselves!!  

With 3 young children the health of our animals and our milk is of paramount importance to us.  We test our cows for WAY more than the two tests the state requires (TB and brucellosis).

And, we also test every cow's milk every time she calves before the milk is put into our tank for distribution to our shareholders.  We do a full bacteria screen along with contagious pathogens and bacteria to ensure the milk is clean.  

We cannot make any claims to the safety of the milk so it's important that you feel comfortable with us as your farmers.  Please ask us questions!!!  As mentioned above, milk is a perfect medium for growing bacteria so it's important to go into any raw milk consumption relationship knowingly and with as much information as possible. In the ten years we've had the dairy, we've never had a milk recall.