In most years the milking herd gets 100 percent pasture forage from April 10 until October 15. Each paddock averages three acres and is permanently fenced with one strand of high-tensile wire. The milking herd gets a fresh paddock every 12 hours and is allowed to graze only the top three to four inches. The heifers graze behind the older animals, cleaning up what is left and evening out the stand. Calves graze in separate pastures for higher quality forage and are fed milk with nipple barrels in the paddocks.
Excess forage is harvested as dry hay or balage for winter-feeding.
All of the animals are outwintered on the farm using the landscape for protection from the elements. Prep for each cow before milking is kept to a minimum and one person is able to milk just over 100 cows in two hours. One lesson the Forgey's learned early on was that supplementing the protein-rich pasture forage with a high protein grain mix was detrimental to reproductive efficiency and body condition. A ration containing mostly ground corn is fed in the parlor during milking at a rate equal to 1 percent of body weight to each animal daily. Early in 1999, grain feeding was greatly reduced in an effort to improve conception rates and feed efficiency.