Last week I visited a dairy farm – The Fair Oaks Farm
situated between Indiana and Illinois. It is also the largest dairy farm of the
United States.But we didn’t know about the farm until we reached there. We were just driving to Chicago in order to attend a Holi Party a friend invited us to and to buy some fish from the Devon Avenue. But as luck would have it, we ended up in the farm. How? That’s another story which I would probably tell later. But for now, let me share with you how impressive the farm was.
The farm is Bio-Secure. That is, the places where the cows and the calves live are out of bound for public. However they have a guided bus tour of the entire facility, some dairy adventure sports, a cheese factory that makes award winning cheese and the best ice cream I’ve ever had. And a 4D movie where you can expect the unexpected.
We paid 12 dollars for the bus tour, which would take us
through the farm. As we waited for the bus to come we caught this ten minutes
4D movie about dairy farming. They say it 4D because the usual 3D is
accompanied with vibrations, gust of wind and sprinkled water. We gasped from
shock many times.
Then began our most awaited bus tour. If I had any doubt
about 12 dollars being too much, it was gone now.
The Bio-Secure bus cruised slowly and a recorded voice
spoke about mind boggling things about the farm. The farm owned 25,000 acres,
i.e. 40 square miles of land and over 32000 cows. They produced 250,000 gallons
of milk everyday. A quantity that is sufficient to meet the milk demand of the
entire state of Indiana and major parts of the city of Chicago. The cow waste
is processed to produce methane and energy to power the entire farm and its
activities.
We visited one of ten barns where the cows lived. Our bus
cruised in between of two rows of cows grazing peacefully. We visited the place
where the newly born calves lived. Each of them had a separate den.
Fair Oaks has 10 milking parlours that are operative
24/7. Each of the farm’s cows is milked three times a day. The milking process
is fully automatic. We got off of the bus, climbed a flight of stairs and
reached a viewing area, enclosed by glass, just above the room where the cows
were being milked.
72 cows rode a huge, slow merry go around at a time, in
order to get milked. The cows are creatures of habit. So they walked on their
own into the empty stalls and waited patiently as the attendants smeared the
disinfectant on their teats and attached the suction cups of the automatic
milking machines. Each of the cows wore electronic transponders and the
computers kept track of the milk output of each of the cow. The suction pumps
were turned off automatically when the udders were empty.
The device made a full rotation in about ten minutes. Once
the rotation was complete, the cows backed out of the stalls on their own in
order to make place for a new one.
Like any mammal, cows too must have offspring in order
to produce milk, so the birthing barn at the Fair Oaks is a busy place. Between
80 and 100 calves are born there each day. In the birthing barn the cows give
birth to calves in parlours that are covered in glass. Visitors can see the
entire process from outside the glass partition sitting on seats arranged like a gallery.
While we watched, a cow lay there, grazing disinterested.
Two small hooves protruded from her back. A technician pulled them and after a
couple of mighty heaves, she hauled a wet, bloody calf into the world. It lay on
the straw, still, and from all appearances lifeless. The mother stayed in place
so long that I began to worry whether everything was okay. But then she
suddenly stood, turned around, and began to lick the calf vigorously. It
responded by raising its head and moving its hooves. The technician informed
that it was a girl and is expected to stand on its feet within next 45 minutes!
It was a sight so impact-full that we couldn’t speak for
some time.
The up close view of the 21-century agriculture was amazing.
I had never known visiting a dairy farm could be so much fun!
Hats off to the marketing team! It's a shame that our entrepreneurs don't think that way.
Love
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Riot of Random
