Bree-Z-Knoll Farm, nestled in the beautiful pastoral hills of Leyden, MA began in the early 70’s when Warren and Sandie Facey purchased their first cows for their children, Lisa, Scott and Randy, to show in 4-H. Warren and Sandie grew the herd to 40 milking cows with a focus on rotational grazing and in 1997, Warren and Sandie became founding members of the Our Family Farms Cooperative - a successful, local brand of milk found throughout Massachusetts. By 2000, their youngest son, Randy, had taken over the day-to-day operation of the farm and increased the herd size to 70 milking cows. Angie joined the farm partnership when she and Randy were married in 2004. Angie grew up on Royal Crest Farm in Spencer, MA and she and Randy doubled their herd with the purchase of her family’s milking herd that same year.
Randy and Angie peaked at 190 milking cows in 2018 but by this time facilities were stressed. Work began on a robot facility and in December 2019, two Lely A5’s were fired up. The expansion of the main free stall was finished in the summer of 2020 and 2 robot manure scrapers were added in November of 2020. The farm also has a robotic feed pusher that runs once per hour, 24 hrs. per day.
Today, the herd is currently made up of 120 milk cows averaging almost 90lbs per cow per day with 4.0% Butterfat, 3.1% protein and a somatic cell count under 100,000. The robots have enabled us to manage our cows so intensely that they can be comfortable, productive and healthy. We have about 25 dry cows and springing heifers and another 100 youngstock. The farm consists of 550 acres including pasture, hay/haylage and corn for silage. Warren also does Maple sugaring in the spring. A milk processing plant is currently being built to open fall 2021.
Lisa and her family live next door and still help on the farm regularly. Her children, together with Randy and Angie’s children, make the 3rd generation on the farm.
We are proud of our cows and know them all by name. We are proud of the state-of-the-art facility we have built where cows are spoiled and happy. We are proud of our employees who care for our cows with the same care and concern that we do. We are proud to produce a very high quality, nutritious product that feeds our community. We are proud of the ingenuity that has kept us alive in this tumultuous dairy economy. We feel blessed to live on our beautiful farm and raise our family here as we were both raised.
