You get to visit a lot of dairy farms
when you hang around 4-H’ers. Most
of the barns I’ve visited (accompanying Carly and Audrey who are participating
again this year) are pretty dim places despite overhead lights. Milking is a dirty business. Barn floors are often wood or dirt, the
dirt churned into mud by the cows in season. Hoses filled
with pure clean milk wind past floors that can have varieties of mud, hay,
manure and/or cow pee.
Everyone wears muck boots. On
a cold day a barn may feel colder inside than out.
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| The dirt floor turns into mud in season |
The first farm we went to one chilly day
in March is run by Farmer Dan, the same farmer who mows our field, and his
brother. It’s his brother who mostly
handles the dairy cow operation whereas Dan’s income comes mostly (or in part?)
from repairing farm machinery and engines. Dairy farming was in the family, their father before them a
dairyman, and maybe it goes back further than that. His brother is less presentable than Dan: a few missing teeth right up front, a
big belly, and much less of a conversationalist. The cows they have are boarded from one place or
another. They don’t actually own
any of them. This is not an
unusual arrangement.
Dan's brother (right) with Audra, cow expert and 4-H leader
Another farm, and another chill and dimly
lit barn, wooden floor. A newborn
calf (days old) stood shivering in its stall. This seemed to be a matter of small importance to the farmer. After all, cows can be outdoors in all
kinds of weather, while calves are almost always indoors, sheltered from wind
at least. Yet one can’t help
thinking that if the world were different, this calf would have been sheltered
by its mother, and would have been taking its mother’s milk. But that is absurd on a dairy
farm. Calves are separated from
their mothers almost immediately after birth. Mothers need to keep producing milk and get pregnant all
over again. Holsteins are the
preferred milk cow because they are big and produce a lot of milk. One can’t forget this is a business.
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| Something different: a bright cheerful-looking calf barn |
A barn we visited in April had a
different look. We were led around
(“we” being half a dozen 4-H’ers, me, and two other adults) this 1,000-cow
operation by the chief herdsman. (How many people have you ever known with the job title herdsman?) He was a
fairly hip looking guy, the telltales of his work the confetti of hay on
his hoodie. A single light-filled
structure–more Quonset hut than barn–was filled with calves of various ages. The
bright clean space conveys a sense of well cared for calves.
(In reality all cows are cared for matter-of-factly, to my eye. They are a commodity, they have value,
and they are someone’s livelihood.
Cows are big, and they are dumb, and they have to be pushed around
sometimes. I see a cow stumble when it's been shoved, and I say "Oh!" But I'm being soft. Me before you,
cow! Let's not get emotional.)
These calves’ metal cages were filled
with fresh straw and each cage had a pair of clean white buckets with grains
and water. One larger corral held
half a dozen calves that were ready to be weaned. A row of rubber nipples were arrayed on one side attached to
hoses that led to a barrel of substitute milk so the calves could suckle
whenever they wanted. Younger non-weaned calves get their substitute milk via
individual bottles.
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| Chief herdsman, in profile |
The cows in this 1,000 size herd (a
“closed herd,” no cows boarded from anywhere else, all cows owned by the farm)
are housed inside full-time, their milk marketed as Monument Dairy, a
completely local operation.
Along with “local” we like to think “natural,” where natural in this case
would suggest cows munching the grass in the scenic outdoors. That’s the image. And there are many cows in the fields
in Addison County, plenty of them right on our street. But pasturing or not, it’s a personal
decision, depending on the kind of dairying you want to or are able to do. Because it’s a business, these are
business decisions. Pasturing is
cheaper. However, it’s harder to
keep track of or monitor cows that are out to pasture. They have to be rounded up to be
milked. Or maybe there’s not
enough pasture for all the cows. Or
the pasture isn’t right for these particular cows. One has to weigh issues of soil quality and type, the
amount, type and quality of forage (vegetation) to determine how many cows can feed
on how much acreage. Dairy cows,
because they are lactating, need more forage and better quality forage than
beef cattle. An agricultural service elaborates on how soils can
vary:
Soils in "herd pastures" that serve as lounging areas for
cattle often are very high in phosphorus and potassium. However, soils from an
adjacent field where harvested forage is grown may be low in these nutrients.
I like thinking about lounging cattle.
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| Management info at the calf barn |
Dairy has been a major farming business
in Vermont for a very long time. I
remember hearing some years ago how Vermont’s population was described as
consisting of “more cows than people.”
If this was ever true, it isn’t anymore. On the other hand, Vermont has the largest number of
cows in the country per capita, that is, the ratio of cows to people. According to the University of Vermont,
with a population of about 626,000 people, we currently have about 150,000 milk
cows that produce some three billion pounds of milk (one gallon of milk =
approximately 8 pounds; figure it out!) per year.
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| At right, an early (primitive) milk pan and skimmer; at center (quite unrelated!) a boot dryer |
Any businessman, farmer or not, wants to
decrease the workload and increase efficiency. Hence the large number of inventions related to the dairy
business. We heard a talk about
Vermont inventions a while back from a former engineer who collects these
objects. Many of them have to do
with the prime issue of separating the cream. The most primitive form of this was letting the milk sit
until the cream rose to the top, then skimming it off.
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| A pair of butter printers (you stamped on the name of the producer and/or a design) |
The very latest thing in dairy management
was recently in the news in the New York Times. A dairy operation in upstate New York
has entirely automated the milking process. With a transponder around her neck, a cow walks into a
milking cubicle (seeded with specially tempting grains) whenever it feels a
need to be milked. There a laser
guides the milking nozzles to the udder.
There’s hardly a limit to the kind of data about the cow and the milk
that can be collected automatically. This farm also has a robot that functions much like a Roomba vacuum that sweeps
the cows’ feed neatly along the floor for the cows to eat. A smooth concrete floor is needed
for that.
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| Lot of acreage, but the cows stay in the barn (In the distance, the ubiquitous used tires covering manure that will become compost) |
Probably in a few years milking robotics
will come to this area. Maybe it’s
already here, somewhere. Maybe the
floors of all barns will be concrete instead of dirt or wood, and milking will
be automated. Maybe only beef cows
will feed in pastures. Maybe (hey,
why not?) milk will be made chemically instead of taken from cows. Maybe male cows will have a brighter future beyond veal, somehow. In a more perfect world of course.
All things considered, I would rather
farm plants.
*”With
Farm Robotics, the Cows Decide When its Milking Time,” The New York
Times, April 22, 2014.
