Ever wish you could tour a dairy farm? Now you can do it digitally!
Hunter Ridge Dairy in Ault, Colorado, offers an interactive 360-degree view of their farm – from the calves to the freestall barns, milking parlor and more! (Our favorite parts are the bloopers of the curious cows licking the camera.)
For best results, use your smartphone and a virtual reality headset; but you can also click and drag the video to explore on a desktop.
Dr. Chris Mahlerbe’s career path was a no-brainer. He knew from the time he was a child that he was going to have a career as a livestock veterinarian.
“I became a vet because when I was a kid growing up, our family was friends with our local vet,” said Mahlerbe. “I liked the way he interacted with the community and got to be on the farms to help the farmers with their livestock.”
Dairy farmers are essential in America. They provide the product for some of the most delicious and nutritious foods available. However, with only 2% of Americans in agriculture, and even fewer having ever been on a farm, the disconnect between the farm and table is more apparent than ever before.
My name is Raeann and I’m a 4th generation dairy farmer! Both my mom and dad come from very long lines of dairy farming. I was raised on a farm and am so excited to be raising my kids on a farm as well. I, along with my parents, run a dairy farm in northeast Colorado. We have about 2,500 cows and heifers.
Someone once said, “Summer means happy times and good sunshine.” This is true on a dairy as well! Cow comfort is always our number one priority and the summer can sometimes make this easier. Everything from feeding baby calves to milking cows is easier in the summer.
You may not realize the process of how that nice, big glass of milk made it to your table.Thanks to LiveWell Colorado and Dairy MAX, I had the opportunity to tour a local dairy farm in July.
Milk is a common must have beverage. Believe it or not, dairy farms are actually very common here in Colorado. Some people think that the milk that comes from a single cow is unrewarding and therefore takes a while to get a lot of milk. However, that is not the case. Did you know cows can produce up to three and a half gallons of milk in just 15 minutes? That’s one big glass of milk!
We all know milk comes from cows. Some of us even think chocolate milk comes from brown cows. All jokes aside, how does the milk get from cows to our table?
“That’s easy!” you say. “You squeeze the udder and milk comes out!” While this is true, the days of dairy farmers pulling up a stool to milk cows one at a time are long behind us. This was a tedious, yet rewarding task, and dairy farmers have new technology that allows them to feed our growing world!
What do dairy farmers have in common with Silicon Valley? They’re highly innovative, and have been bringing sophisticated technology onto the farm long before it was the cool thing to do! Farmers today are using a range of technologies to improve animal welfare, environmental conservation and production efficiency. Here are three ways dairy farmers are going high-tech, farming well ahead of the curve.
Each morning, Dan Kullot rises well before the sun. As he pours a cup of coffee into a travel mug, he takes a moment to think about the day ahead. Kullot, known as Dr. Dan, is the veterinarian at Westside Dairy in Syracuse, Kansas.
When you picture a veterinarian, you may think of someone wearing a white lab coat, with a stethoscope around their neck. However, jeans, a hat and muck boots became the uniform of choice for Dr. Dan when he chose to work in a dairy and milking parlor over a veterinary clinic in town!
Last year, we explored several of the top dairy myths, but there is still more dairy misinformation out there. New research and technology continue to make dairy safer than when people first started eating and drinking it thousands of years ago.
So, here are a few more truths behind common dairy myths.
To celebrate dairy farmers today on October 12 – Farmers Day – we asked some of our Dairy MAX farmers to tell us what they love about farm life.
