| The History Project |
Dairy Farming in Vermont |
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There are a lot of dairy farms in Vermont. In fact, there are (1980 ) farms in the state. In Vermont 2.452,000,000 pounds of milk are produced in one year. Milk costs about 8.00 to $11.00 for 100 lbs of milk. The cows that are used most often are Holsteins. Most of the farmers grow there own feed. Some farmers feed the cows corn, silage, haylage, and hay. Dairy farmers specialize in raising milk cows. The six important breeds of dairy cattle are Holstein, Jersey, Guersey, Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, and Milking Short Horn. Milk that cows produce tastes better if it's not exposed to air in the barn. The milk is stored in bolt tanks. Bolt tanks hold different amounts of milk. A dairy cow can weigh up to 1700 lbs. It will produce 2300 gallons of milk. Cows need a lot of feed in order to produce a lot of milk. Dairy farming first started in the 1600s in Massachusetts. A cow is a female adult animal. Dairy farmers, keep their barns very clean. There are two types of housing for cattle. Confinement housing, and loose housing. It costs $840,000 for a farm with 52 cows. Each cow must produce 1,600 gallons of milk per year in order to cover costs. Back then, cows only produced milk in the spring, summer, and fall when they could feed on open pastures. Farmers churned almost 315 million pounds of butter. Milking time is in the morning at about 4:00 am and at 7:00 pm. BST is another issue in the milking business. For all of you who don't know what BST is it's a drug that makes a cows hormones go faster and the cow will produce more milk. If you drink milk you should care where your milk comes from because it may have BST in it. Each year 200,000 cattle producers make $60 million . Vermont Family Farms is one of the better kinds of milk in Vermont. A lot of people drink Vermont Family Farms milk. The history is very long. Milk and butter were mentioned in the bible. Thats how long ago farming was invented. Most cows have horns but very rarely some don't. 90% of dairy cows have black and white markings. A mature cow weighs about 1150 pounds. Jerseys milk is rich in butter fat. Jerseys are also known for there maturity. Jerseys are the smallest of dairy breed. Butter is a natural fat of milk. Butter is made with butter milk and is churned until thick and creamy . Then they put it into bowls and package it and ship it out. Back then in the 1600s they used horses to pull plows around the feilds and plow. Then they planted the seeds by hand. Most farmers use fertilizer(cow manure) to make the soil rich. Evereybody has different farms not just dairy farms. their is beef, poultry, sheep, chicken, and some people even have horses and turkey farm by Christine and Machelle |
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In the words of Mr. Boyce, an agriculture teacher at Vergennes Union High
School, "Farming is a hard job. A cow is fed up to twice a day. A cow is
milked up to 5 times in 2 days. A cow will live up to 40 years without being
stressed. Some of the diseases a cow will get are mastitis, acute gangrenous
milk fever, and twisted stomach. Some farmers use computers to keep records
about how much the cows produce milk in a year."