Diary Farm Tour

Peeper and I toured a local diary farm with the MOMS Club this morning.

Hello, ma'am.

Looking at cow food, and calf baby teeth.

Farmer Todd showing us how they milk the cows.

Peeper checking out the "pumper."

This baby is less than an hour old. Mama was in labor when we started the tour.

Some other calves, born last night and in the past couple of days.

This is the part I don't like. They are separated from their mothers pretty much immediately. They are bottle fed her milk for three days, and then she goes back on the production line and the calf gets milk (from the tank, with contributions from all the cows) in a bucket.

The males are sold (to other dairy farms, they said) and the females live in little huts all together until they are old enough to be bred, give birth and start lactating.

I try not to think about that part when I'm eating cheese and ice cream.

They also had a petting zoo, with chickens, bunnies and a sheep.

And a small play area.

And photo ops!