Maryland & Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative honored Guffey Farms in Albany, Ky. for achieving the highest quality standards throughout the entire cooperative for 2010. The cooperative recognized the Guffeys and three other high quality farms at its 91st Annual Meeting during the Member Recognition Luncheon held on March 31 in Ellicott City, Md.

The Guffey Family won top honors in Maryland & Virginia’s Federal Orders 5 & 7 marketing area among farms producing less than 300,000 pounds of milk each year. They posted impressive results for 2010, averaging 110,000 somatic cell count, 1,250 standard plate count and 3,100 pre-incubation count.

Paying attention to details is Shelby Guffey’s key to success when it comes to producing the highest quality milk possible. And this year it has paid off! Shelby and his family are Maryland & Virginia’s Quality Producer of the year in the less than three million pounds category for Federal Orders 5 & 7.

A native of Albany, Ky., Shelby focuses on the finer points to ensure that his cows are happy and cell counts are low. He farms with his wife Kelly, parents Bill and Frances and brother and sister-in-law Colby and Sarah. Shelby and Colby are the 7th generation on the farm, which has been in the family since the 1790’s.

Everyone chips in to manage their 700 acres of crops, but Shelby mainly focuses on the 50-head herd of grade Holsteins.

He uses sand bedding which helps to keep the cows cleaner and more comfortable. Shelby also does his best to keep cows out of mud holes between milkings, wears gloves during milking and clips the hair off of udders.

For those that claim spending extra to improve quality isn’t worth the money, Shelby disagrees. “We spend a little extra money but we get it back plus some in our quality premiums,” he says. “We don’t have a new facility. I just consider us an average farm but it proves that anyone can achieve quality.”