When I was in my hometown back in August, one of the highlights was visiting my classmate's dairy farm. I wanted my daughters to see first hand what it was like - to learn where their milk comes from (at least the milk that goes into the cheese we buy.) This is Dirk and Amanda Rohne's dairy. They are suppliers to Tillamook Creamery.
Here are some of some of his cows. They are primarily Jersey cows which have the higher milk fat content that is helpful in cheesemaking. There's just enough of a breed mixture here to keep them all looking unique.
We were at the farm just in time to watch a milking take place. (It took several shifts of cows for me to get all the pictures I wanted...)
The cows walk themselves into the milking parlor. If you've ever nursed a baby, you will know the physical relief that getting "milked" gives.
Into each individual stall, the cows wait patiently while everything happens.
First, Dirk and Amanda examine the cows. They squeeze out a little bit of milk from each teat to make sure it looks healthy.
Then, they use an iodine spray to wash each teat before connecting the suction cups. The whole process is very automated with each cow's ear tag being logged into the computer so that they have a perfect record as to how much milk each cow is giving.
When the group of cows are done being milked, they are released as a group to go back out to the field or whatever they were doing before.
(This first one was very shy of me.)
(She's wondering who this weirdo is with the strange black box...)
(A little less shy, just curious - or maybe slightly more drama-loving!)
One of the things that was notable was just how clean everything was. Okay, you're not going to want to eat off the floor, but they take huge efforts to keep everything as clean as is possible on a farm.
Of course, this was also summer time... The winter in Oregon can be very long and usually very rainy. That's when the cows will remain in the barn for the majority of the time. Of course, even cows get bored, so Dirk bought them a special Christmas present last year - a special brush that they can operate themselves. Apparently, they loved it!
(Haylage - bigger than silage, but just as fermented and just as yummy - if you're a cow, anyway!)
In the spring/summer, the cows will get much of their nutrition from the grass which grows plentifully in that area. For the winter, they eat grain, spent malting grains (from a brewery) and haylage, which is fermented hay (fermenting makes the hay much more nutritious - as well as flavorful for the cows.)
Here is the tank where the milk is stored between milking and collection.
My only objection with how Dirk runs things was the separation of calves from their mamas. I know that it's hard to justify keeping them together because you need all that milk to sell, but healthwise and socially (these are social animals), the calves need their mamas!
Still, this little one looks happy enough (and yes, all dairy cows are a bit bony - and this one is a baby, hasn't had time to put on a whole lot of fat/condition yet) - and she has plenty of space to turn around and sleep just fine. She's well looked after!
And that was the Rohne's dairy in Brownsmead, Oregon.
Photos taken (with permission) by myself in August 2019 with my Pentax K30.
[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 46.221828 lat -123.526125 long Rohne Dairy d3scr)
Crossposted at Steem, Whaleshares, WeKu, Hyperspace.
Lori Svensen
author/designer at A'mara Books
photographer/graphic artist for Viking Visual
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