Moose Dairy

photos by Bryan and Cherry Alexander

Moose Medicine

Six o’clock on a June morning in western Russia sunshine spills across a farmyard as a woman carrying a pail approaches a milking barn. This classic rural scene is still common in parts of Russia today, but inside the barn the scene changes from common to bizarre. For there, standing in a milking stall is not a cow, a goat, or even a sheep, but Nella, a six foot tall 500kg moose.

Five-year-old Nella is one of the 58 moose at the Sumarokova moose farm. Although moose have also been domesticated in Scandinavia and Alaska, primarily as tourist attractions, what makes the farm at Sumarokova so unique is that it is the only farm in the world where moose are reared exclusively for their milk. Although highly nutritious, the milk is produced not primarily as a food, but for its therapeutic properties in the treatment of patients suffering from stomach ulcers, leukemia and radiation sickness.

Moose Shakes

ORRVIKEN, Sweden – Ever seen a moose shake? You can at a farm in Northern Sweden.

A local tourist spot called Moose Garden is about to serve up milkshakes made with moose milk as soon as their female moose give birth to about four calves.

Once the mama moose give birth, owner Sune Haggemark will collect their milk to whip up the “mooseshakes” for tourists.

He says moose milk is much richer than cows’ milk, which makes for a delicious shake when mixed with crushed ice and blueberries.

However, he admits you can’t get that much milk from a moose, so each of the $5 mooseshakes will only contain about two coffee cups’ worth of liquid.

Mooseshakes aren’t the only unusual product produced at the Moose Garden. Since 1999, Haggemark has been making paper from moose droppings.

Moose Cheese

Sweden’s Moose Cheese is Prized Delicacy

by Tommy Grandell
reprinted with permission of The Associated Press

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) – It’s healthy. It’s tasty. And it’s expensive. At 7,500 kronor a kilogram (that’s about $500 a pound), cheese made of milk from moose cows names Gullan, Haelga and Juna is sold to upscale hotels and restaurants in Sweden.

The delicacy, made in three varieties, can also be bought and sampled on site at the Moose House, a 59-acre moose dairy farm in Bjursholm, in northern Sweden.

“We hope later on to be able also to export more of the cheese, especially the somewhat sour feta-type, which is laid down in oil and easy to transport,” said Christer Johansson, who started the farm seven years ago with his wife Ulla.

They were inspired by similar facilities in eastern Russia, but the Russian farms produce only milk, not cheese, he said. According to Johansson the Swedish farm is the only one of its kind in Europe.

At present, there are 14 moose on the farm, but only three of them are cows that can be milked.

The three cows, which stay outdoors all year around, were found as calves abandoned in the woods around Bjursholm, 404 miles north of Stockholm, and were taken care of by the Johansson family.

The animals are usually wild, but these have been domesticated to make it possible to milk them. “Fortunately they know and love us, because they weigh about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds). They see us almost as their own calves,” Johansson said.

It takes between 30 minutes and two hours to milk a cow and each produces up to 1 gallon of milk a day. But that’s only between May and September, the time from when they calve and when they are in heat again, Johansson explained. “That’s one of the reasons why the cheese is so expensive.”

The milk, which contains 12 percent fat and as much protein, is refrigerated and curdling is done three times per year, producing about 660 pounds of cheese annually.

The Moose Farm attracts about 25,000 visitors a year. It’s the main attraction in an activity center that also offers fishing, golf, canoe tours, riding, sauna and, in winter, scooter safaris.

More information is available at: www.algenshus.se (Swedish) www.algenshus.se/?lang=en (English)