Blakeslees Milking Camels in Milford
Published: Friday, June 15, 2018
River Jordan Camel Dairy in Milford provides many different camel milk products and opportunities.
Luke and Amber Blakeslee started the dairy in 2015. They both grew up raising horses, cows, chickens, pigs, dogs and goats, but said they never imagined they would have camels someday.
They were looking for a way to make their land more productive and tried boarding horses for a while, but it wasn't what they wanted to continue.
"Just at a chance encounter we went on a camel ride and (that) really peaked our curiosity," Luke said. "One thing led to another and we connected with a camel farm up in Michigan and one in Shipshewana. They were both dairies and we learned from them what people do with the milk. We decided that that would be our goal."
Luke and Amber currently have five camels total and are expecting two calves to be born. The Blakeslees explained that camel milk has many benefits. It is good for the skin because it helps the skin hold moisture and stay firm. It is also 10 times higher in iron than cow milk, which helps fortify skin. Amber makes various products with the milk, including soap, lotion and even dog shampoo. She has developed many different recipes for scents and colors that make the soaps more attractive to customers.
The soap is sold for $7.50 per bar and lotions are $3.50 to $14 depending on the size. They also sell pillows, T-shirts and stuffed animals. The business is rapidly growing. However, when it comes to camels nothing is cheap, and since their products are small, there is not much of a return yet.
The soap also takes four to six weeks to cure, so with the amount they sell, Amber is kept busy scrambling to make more for their next event as well as maintain online sales. Last year, they sold around 3,000 bars of soap, but they believe that number will continue to grow.
Currently, it is just Luke and Amber running the dairy, but if growth continues they hope to add more employees. In addition to producing for River Jordan Camel Dairy, they also do marketing for small businesses.
Luke expressed his hope that their kids would grow up with the camels and continue to gain confidence. He looks forward to watching them learn how to handle the camels and learn about the business side of things as well.
"I think farming in general, and working with animals, is something that adds a really important dimension to people's lives, and the kids will be the only people they know that grew up with camels so whether they run with it or not, they will be somewhat experts by default. That's a cool thing that we can provide," Luke said.
The camel dairy has been a learning experience for Luke and Amber as well. Their original motivation for buying camels was to eat the grass on their extra land. However, they learned that camels don't do a very good job of that. They still have to mow the fields occasionally, even though the camels do eat some of the grass. They have also attended many conferences to learn more about camel dairies and care, and even had a camel trainer come out to their house to assist in the training process.
"It was so exciting to see their transformation and to know that we didn't just ship her out and have her come back trained, it was us," Luke said. "We had the blisters to prove it and a real sense of accomplishment that was very different from anything else we had."
Milking camels is much different than milking a cow or goat. They milk twice a day and produce about a gallon. However, it is much more flexible than a cow dairy because with camels, the calf still nurses.
"She will dry up if she doesn't have her calf," Luke said. "The calf doesn't mind, he just kind of bounces all around. It makes it complicated, so it's definitely a teamwork thing. But it's also really nice because if ever we're not able to milk or we just see that the mom has some issues and just needs to give it a rest we can because the calf will be able to empty her. That gives us some flexibility."
Camels will only let down their milk for about 90 seconds at a time.
"Once they are in the station the baby starts sucking and (once) you see her let her milk down we have 90 seconds to collect as much milk as we can before she basically turns it off," Amber laughed.
For the future, they hope to add more products to their list of things they sell. They are currently working with a creamery in Noblesville in the hopes of selling their camel ice cream commercially. Amber said they hope to have their ice cream on the shelves by the end of this summer. She also has ideas for fudge, chocolate and anything that will make them different.
"It provides a really unique experience for a lot of local people," Amber said. "There are other people, in Indiana even, that have camels but no one who has a dairy like what we have and can offer tours and things like that."
The family also provides tours and goes to shows so people can learn about camel dairies. Last year, the Blakeslees took two of the camels to parades and they recently had their first open house on the farm and hope to continue to do more yearly in the future. This first open house brought out nearly 300 people to River Jordan Camel Dairy.
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