Day 2: Hoard's Dairy Farm by Wirlein

 

Hey there! Second day of the Summer Ag Tour and here I am, finally, my turn to tell you about what we've been up to and what I learned today.

 

Hoard's Dairy Farm was a great place for me to have not only gained a lot of experience, but it encouraged me to work towards someday owning my own farm. Hoard's Dairy Farm was purchased in 1899 by W.D. Hoard. They went from 100 acres located on the north edge of Fort Atkinson to more than 900 acres of owned and rented crop land. (562 of corn for silage and grain, 205 of alfalfa and 59 wheat all of this so they can be able to feed their cattle.)

 

Hoard's Dairy Farm primarily focuses on the Guernsey breed which is super cool! They also have some Holsteins as well, that's what excited me the most just getting to see these massive, beautiful Holstein’s with great udders and just knowing that will be my little calf one day.

 

These breeds are dairy breeds, so they provide us with milk. In order to do that they have to go through a process.  The calves are born in the barn, then taken out and placed outside where they are fed and worked with. When they are old enough and there is about 16 of them, they place them in a robotic barn in which there is a robotic feeding system, super cool! The calf barns are tunnel ventilated with multiple fans to help prevent disease. Their farm is mostly Robotic systems due to labor issues. After the calves grow out and are ready to be bred, they are bred and put in a free stall barn in which they wait until they calve.

 

When the cows start to produce milk, they are then put in another ventilated freestyle barn and can go in to get milked whenever they want with the robotic milker. The herd avg. is 66 lbs. of milk per day, 4.9% fat and 3.5% protein. Most cows are milked by the robotic system while there are still about 50 who are milked in the traditional parlor.

 

Currently they have about 300 Guernsey’s. After that milking process, they take the milk and ship it out. Some is shipped out to be made into cheese, even though they are starting to make their own cheese in a separate facility. Belaire is a popular Port Salut style cheese from Guernsey’s.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Thank you so much for hearing about what I learned, today was truly amazing.