By Luke Runyon
Iowa Public Radio
CANON CITY, Colo. — Past the razor-wire fences, beyond huge metal gates, behind thick walls, you’ll find one of the most unique dairies in the country. The Four Mile Correctional Center in Cañon City, Colo., is home to what could very well be the country’s largest herd of domesticated water buffalo – buffalo milked for their rich, frothy milk.
At the Four Mile dairy, inmates run the milking parlor, not a farmer in overalls. And it’s not black and white cows dotting the landscape, instead it’s water buffalo with big, curved horns.
“I believe we have right at, probably 250 head,” said Steve Smith, director of Colorado Correctional Industries, a division of the state’s Department of Corrections that sets up businesses within prison walls. The plan is to keep adding buffalo until the herd totals 400.
Cheesemakers sometimes blend in buffalo milk to give their cheeses a distinctive taste. The growing herd at Four Mile is really the only place to go for a big quantity of buffalo milk in the U.S.
“People say, ‘How do you milk a water buffalo?’ I say ‘Very carefully,” Smith said.
Full story: Prison dairy serves up buffalo milk