May 28, 2019
After almost wrapping up our second week in Iowa, today’s foray into farming started off in an unexpected way. We are currently staying at an organic dairy farm in Lansing, Iowa. Since Luke and I woke up early, Mr. Kruse, one of our hosts, showed Luke and I where he milks his cows, where they graze in paddocks, where he feeds the cows grain, and where they keep the cows during the winter. The overview of the operation was interesting, but my favorite part of the morning was feeding milk to baby cows. We filled the bottles with milk and as soon as the calves saw us with the bottles they came running toward us and stuck their mouth on the bottle. We were told to make sure to remember which calf you gave milk to because if they are fed twice it will give them diarrhea.
Once we finished feeding the calves, we had a quick breakfast and made our way to an Amish Farmstead in Waukon, Iowa. We saw the Paint Creek Bulk Food Store and Bakery, and their dairy cows. The food store and bakery sold various products such as chocolate, gum, pies, cakes, doughnuts, and bread. We also saw where they set up their cows for milking and where their cows graze. While they were grazing, we were able to see some of the kids and their dog chase one of the cows who got separated from the herd. It was cool to see kids knowing how to react and what to do in this situation–a skill I never learned as a kid.
Our next venture of the day was to Jeremy Peake’s organic grass-fed diary operation. On our drive into the farm, we noticed a sign on front stating that they are members of the Practical Farmers of Iowa. While on their farm we headed out to the pasture and were able to see how they herd their cattle and interact with them.
At the end of the day we headed back to Lansing to visit the Welsh Family Organic Farm. It is an organic beef, hog, and chicken operation. This was a great stop since two days ago we saw a very differently run hog operation. On Sunday, we were able to see a hog operation where they were kept in much more confined areas in crates whereas today’s operation the hogs were kept in different outside sections based on weight with much more space to move around and be free. We were also able to experience what a hen operation looked like from the inside, something we have yet to see on this trip. Overall, it was nice to have a comparison of the animal practices of different operations.