Kansas: The Dairy Field Trip

We were blessed to go on a mini (as in kid-oriented) field trip to the Santa Fe Trail Dairy, LLC, located twelve miles from my hometown of Ulysses, Kansas. The temperature was a "balmy" (hehe) 26 degrees when we visited.

Jillian was being a grouch and we were not sure she would be able to go in with us. The tour guide told us on the phone that the "girls" (the cows) don't produce as much milk if they are spooked.

Santa Fe Dairy is a 6,000 cow-operation! The milking barn milks 120 cows at once (60per side.

The "ladies" are so used to their milkings, they know just what to do. They file in line into the milking barn, where workers clean their teats and attach the milking machine to the them. Josh Rottinghaus (pictured) is the dairy manager and '04 and '06graduate of Kansas State University (my and Travis's alma matter!). Sensors "know" when the cow has given all the milk she can and automatically release from the cows udder. Each cow produces up to 200 pounds of milk per day. The one we were watching had already given 25 lbs. of milk during a single milking!

The milk comes out of the cow, through the milking machine and to the basement where a series of pipes pump it directly into these big, silver tanks for cooling.The milk in the big, silver tanks is cooled to 38 degrees before it is pumped into the semi tanker. The walls of the semi tanker are very thick to keep the milk cold during transport.

The cows must continue being pregnant and have babies to continue producing milk. About one calf per hour is born at this dairy! The calves are immediately taken from their mothers and placed in the nearby calf nursery. The calves and mothers are monitored by workers. An on-site animal hospital keeps the dairy's cows in good health.

A bull (male) calf is worth a whopping $10. They will not grow up to produce milk! A heifer (female) calf is worth $500. She will be able to produce milk when she grows up! The dairy cows continue to give birth and produce milk for the dairy for about five years. They are then sent directly to slaughter and, according to our guide, probably end up in a fast-food burger somewhere.

The dairy ships out 8-9 semi tankers of milk per day! Most of the tankers of milk area shipped to the Hutchinson, KS, area and used to make cheese. Some is shipped around the tri-state area and a few tankers take the milk "way down" to the southern states.

The calf pictured in the red wheelbarrow was just-born and was loaded up and being rolled to the nursery as we walked out the nursery door. Warming bulbs in the nursery kept the calves warm until they could be loaded into a trailor and taken to be fed. Many of the calves we saw in the nursery were still wet from birth.

The cows "live" in the "open air" barns while they are not being milked. Their job is to stay healthy and eat much. Each side of the cow barns is cleaned while the cows are away being milked. They cows return to a nice, clean barn when they return from milking.