Details of the Association “Tradition Salers”

The Association Tradition Salers, since 1991, consists of farmers of Auvergne who use the traditional system. The objectives are :

1. market and make known products (cheese, milk, animals) from the traditional system
2. to improve the quantitative and qualitative productivity of milk herds
3. to maintain the numbers and progress the traditional system by offering possibilities for young farmers to set up in the system.

They are now 88 members : 16 farmers producers, 20 in dairy coops, It means 3742 cows.

Tradition Salers is thus a cheese made 100% from Salers cow milk !

Contact :
Hervé Laurent (Animateur) : 04 71 78 05 68
Guy Chambon (Président) : 04 71 69 21 49

This system involves the dual production of cheese and a semi-suckled calf (in local terminology, a “veau maigre” : literally a thin calf). To milk a Salers cow adequately, the presence of the calf is necessary throughout the lactation. The calf gets milk for 3 months, then is at grass. Effectively, as the milk yield declines, the amount left for the calf to suckle declines. Thus about the same quantity of cheese is produced during the lactation.

The milking routine is very characteristic since the Salers cow doesn't let down its milk in the absence of the calf. Thus, at milking, the calf (kept separately otherwise) is led to the mother to suckle a few minutes, this triggers the hormonal response for milk “let down”. It is then attached to the left fore-leg of the mother to allow milking. During the first months of lactation, one entire quarter is left for the calf. The calf then has to be happy with the strippings. In this system, the calves cannot be expected to have the finish of a fully-suckled calf, hence the term “veau maigre” or “thin calf”, they take longer, as heifers to mature.