Part 1 of my December 2024 Conversations with Carl & Deborah Chaney – 2024 Newly Remodeled Chaney’s Dairy Barn Operation. This is Part 1 of several unfolding conversations with Carl & Deborah Chaney.  December 10, 2024.

The Chaney’s Dairy Barn, more than Homemade Ice Cream, story as told by my good friends Carl & Deborah Chaney.  I had the pleasure to meet and work with the Chaney family over 20 years ago. This past December 2024 I had the chance to spend 22 hours with Carl & Deborah Chaney; Carl gave me the tour of the recently remodeled and expanded Retail Ice Cream shop, serving Homemade Ice Cream, Farm bottled milk, and wonderful meals. Deborah sat down with me and we had a “Kitchen Table Conversation” about how she and Carl got into the Homemade Ice Cream business, but first, we talked about the Chaney Dairy Farm, which started back in the 1940’s.

Today the Chaney’s process, their own, on-site milk bottling operation,and Homemade Ice Creams.  The Jersey Cattle, on the farm, is a registered high quality milk producing herd. The Chaney’s Milk products and Ice Creams are distributed across the State of Kentucky and beyond.

In 1985 Carl, took over the herd & milking business, and worked with his father James, James later passed in 2011. Carl and wife Debra have three children, all of whom were and still very involved in the farm: Jessica, James Neale and Elizabeth.

Due to poor prices making for poor times in the dairy industry, Carl, with support of his wife Debra and children, began the process of looking for new ideas to help save the family farm. In 2003 Chaney’s Dairy Barn was established allowing for the family farm to continue.

In 2016, the family reached another crossroads and needed to make a decision on the future of the farm. With a strong commitment from the family and Carl’s niece Dore Baker jumping on board as the farm manager, it seemed to be the perfect storm for progress. With a new barn, complete with a compost bedded pack barn to optimize cow comfort and a state of the art Lely A4 robotic milking system, the cows at Chaney’s are truly some of the most happy cows you will find.

In 2018 the Chaney family decided to revisit some of the ideas and goals they had from the very beginning.

With the support of family, friends and her spouse, Carl’s youngest daughter Elizabeth made the move in 2017 to begin the process of being able to pasteurize the milk on their farm from their cows allowing them to sell fluid milk, make value added products such a cheese and yogurt and most importantly provide an ice cream mix to Chaney’s Dairy Barn that is made with the milk from their cows. This will make Chaney’s the only place in Kentucky making an ice cream that comes from their own milk

Links:

Penn State Ice Cream School/Short Course

North America Ice Cream Association

Kentucky Department of Agriculture

Chaney’s Dairy Barn reflects on 20 years of business

Chaney’s Dairy Barn Celebrates Major Expansion and Enhanced Visitor Experience in Bowling Green (KY).

Chaney’s Dairy Barn (Facebook)