Dairy Farm Tour

Activity: Dairy Farm Tour
Location: Holter Dairy 34425 Dairy Lane Pomeroy, Ohio 45769
Name of Agency: Holter Dairy Farm
Speakers:
Allison--Director of American Dairy Association, worker for "3-A-Day"
The Holters(grandparents, parents, and 2 Hotler sisters)--owners of the dairy farm















Planning, Evaluating. It was a wonderful experience today to know how milk is produced. The Holters introduced us the places where cows grow from babies to milk producers. All animals in the farm are treated nicely. I was very surprised that a cow which was just 2 days old looked so big. I noticed that the place for the youngest group in this farm seems concern the health of cows very much. There was a plate outside the house signed "keeping away from disases". Different age group of cows in this farm are provided different diet. Those milk cows who are 15 to 18 months old are offered two kinds of forage which contain 14% protein and 20% protein, respectively. The farmers value nutrient supplement very much. I observed that the forage for cows is blended by hard corn, millet sprays, and hay. They add more vitamins, calcium, and magnesium for pregnant cows. They provide enough nutritious foods for cows every day, but can hardly measure how much exactly each cow consume. People in this farm have information for every cow in their computer. It is significant to manage the cows by using computer because there are 180 cows need to be feed every day. An interesting thing is that there was a equipment connecting with computer which could know how much weight the cows get when they are eating. Additionally, we visit a liquid manure storage which was built in 1988 by the government.
In the end, I am very pleasure to get a chance to step into the core of the dairy farm--milk house! The milking apparatus, tank for cleaning milk were in front of us! One of the Halter sisters explained the whole process how milk is get from the cows to milk that can be drinked and shipped. At last, we had ice cream, souvenirs provided by the Holter's Farm and "3-A-Day", more important, we had bottled milk made by them.
Roles of RDs: From today's experience, I noticed another important role of dietitians. Allison is a dietitian who works with Mike for the program of "3-A-Day". She plays important roles in the dairy farm such as recommending and directing nutritious forage, formulating nutrients for differenct age groups, and publicizing the idea of "3-A-Day" through marketing of dairy products.

After this tour, the important function of dietitians in food industry draw my attention. Rather than nutrition programs of NGOs or government, food factories are more practical and elementary places for RDs to be helpful.