Brentwood Farms

Review: Initially we brought home a cow #[redacted] along with two bull calves that were going to be destroyed from Brentwood Farm up in Orland, CA. What a disaster. No less than 24 hours after driving a total of 357 miles to pick said cow up and drive her home, I was approached over [redacted] by the dairy owner and informed abruptly that I was sold the wrong cow. Apparently, [redacted] (who we had named "[redacted]"), was part of a breeding IVF program by which industrious dairymen hope to improve their herds longevity, udder capaciousness and other qualities selectively through intentional breeding. So my beloved [redacted], was a petri dish cow, and no doubt was worth a lot of money. And, I was told that she must be returned.I had not dealt with the owner directly during the purchase of this cow, rather he directed me to his foreman/sales guy. The foreman showed us a few cows, [redacted] among them. She stood out because she was a "slipper" a cow that could not handle the slippery floors of the milking parlor,one that would likely have an untimely death because of it. So we latched on to the idea that we were getting a good deal ($1000)and helping a cow out with a better lifeWe paid for the cow, and left. I was told by the sales guy that they would do anything/pay anything to get her back. So, we interpreted this as "We intend to make this right". So, being generous and accommodating (and not wanting to get shafted further and risk them bringing me a cow I did not want) we took time away from work, drove the cow all the way back, next day. We get there, and are told that we are going to have to pay another $500 for pretty much any cow we chose (unless of course, we wanted to pay 1400 for the almost ready to calve old heifer with some serious quality issues). To make matters worse, the only way we were going to get reimbursed for our 2nd trip was by asking the foreman to take it out of his own meager pocket.the owner took ZERO responsibility, in fact he did not even greet us when we arrived but then left. We ended up loosing$700Desired Settlement: We would like to be compensated for at least the money we lost for having to take time off of work, gas,overdraft fees from cashing a check before its post date and our time. Our total losses amount to $700...not even counting the extra $500 we had to pay to get another cow.

Consumer

Response:

Upon further review, it has come to our attention (Via the owner) that he sold us the cow we have now below market price in an effort to offset the costs we incurred. While we still feel that this entire situation could have been handled better, we are pleased with the outcome and wish to move past this hiccup. We believe that it is also relevant that the director of sales whom we were dealing with could potentially have been attempting to make cash on the side, without the owner knowing and therefore it is plausible that we were just caught up in a bad situation that was perpetuated by severely poor communication throughout the entire process. It is our opinion that the owner and the dairy itself are not guilty of conducting bad business, rather that a member of their employ is guilty of out stepping his bound.

Business

Response:

Ms [redacted] picked up the wrong animal which I had selected for her. The animal in question was a special genetic animal that was worth in the $10,000 range. Our dairy manager could not get in touch with me and rather than them making an extra trip picked out another heifer, which he should not have done. I replaced the animal with a beautiful registered pedigreed heifer that was easily worth $3000.00 Commercial heifers are selling at auction for $2200 to $2700, with out and pedigree or records. I informed Ms [redacted] of the situation and the fact that I was giving her much more value than she paid for. She basically paid $400 over what an animal going for slaughter would bring, and this was a 2 yr old Jersey, that was in calf and producing 70 lbs milk per day. Ms [redacted] needs to understand the business and the values, which she does not. She does not have to worry about doing business with us again, it wont happen. No good deed goes unpunished I guess!