Beginning of my trip

Driving down a long road that seemed never ending I thought to myself how my trip to this dairy farm will be the worst trip I have ever gone to. Learning about cows was not much of my interest and giving up my Sunday was not satisfying.

 As my eyes glazed around the front of the farm all I could see were cows. The smell was horrifying like an overweight person who’s sitting next to you in a  crowded bus on a hot summer day and seemed as if they had not heard of a bath before.

My uncle named Ramon has being working for this dairy farm for about five years and it seemed as if he had gotten used to the smell. I had asked him a week before if he would give me a tour around the farm and see how things work. He gladly said yes and so my trip around this dairy farm began.

                                                                                    

The cows on this farm are fed corn along with cotton and alfafa. They use machines that mixes corn, alfafa, cotton, and little tablets of vitamins together and then they distribute it to each corral. My uncle mentioned that this farm has its own agricultural section where they raise alfafa, corn, and cotton. The farmers at this farm have to take care of the fields along with the cows and the milking process.

Maternity Process

The first corral we saw as we arrived to the farm was what my uncle called the "Maternity". The maternity as he mentioned is where they put the cows who are five days away from giving birth. After they give birth the cows are transferred to another corral to which my uncle reffered to as "Hospital". In this corral the cows are kept for forty days to heal. After those forty days they are transferred to a different corral where they are mixed with bulls to get pregnat again.

How to identify a cow?

He started telling me that they have over thirty thousand cows in the farm and that they identify the cows by numbers and tags which are either green or orange. The green tag represents female baby cows and the orange tags represent older female cows. Each tag has its own number which makes the farmers job easier to identify them.

Calf (Baby Cows)

Once the baby cows are born their separated from their mother an hour after they are born. They are then put inside a small trailer in which they stay in for approxiamtely six hours. There the baby cows are surrounded by red lights which give baby cows warmth and energy.

After they have completed their six hours inside the trailer they are put into these individual corrals. The baby cows also known as calf don’t see their mother after they are put in these corrals. They are fed milk from different cows but in bottles.

Once the calf has reached six months they are put into a special section where they are still being fed milk but in long trays which they share with other calves.

After two months they are then transferred to a corral on the other side of the farm. There the calves are now being fed alfalfa along with different types of corn.

One thing that amazed me during my trip was when my uncle mentioned that when female calf reach one year of age they are injected with cow sperm by a veterinarian to get them pregnat. They are no longer considered a calf but rather a fully grown cow ready to use as production for milk. The red line going down the middle of their head lets the rest of the farmers know that the cow has officially become pregnant.

The cows that have the most amount of milk in their udder are put in the corral in front of the milk factory.

Milk Production

When we entered this building the sound of machines and pumps echoed through my ears. The long narrow hall that was full of pumps was used to milk the cows. These pumps had a chain that connected all the pieces together. This pump also consisted of two tubes that where connected to a circular object which the milk will go through. These tubes led the milk to pipes which led the milk to a big tank which contained all of the milk. Once the milk reached the tank it is kept to a certain temperature until a truck from different milk companies come to retreat it and take it to another factory where it is then put into gallons and sold.

Red Udder Paint

As I saw how the pumps sucked all the milk out of the cows I also saw a bucket full of what looked like blood. I immediately asked my uncle what it was and he responded that they call it "Red udder ointment" and they put that ointment in the cow’s udder before they are milked to prevent diseases from getting to the milk and the cow.