From June 24 till June 25 we stayed at Zlystra Dairy Farm located in Modesto, California. I feel after visiting the farm it is a hybrid between an organic and commercial farm. The cows were milked by machine and identified by number but the cows were fed very well, got the best medical care when they were sick and their stalls were cleaned a few times a day so the cows were not standing in their own poop for too long. The farm has 2,000 cows total on it.
The front of the Zlystra Farm with house in backround and van in driveway.
Photo Credit: Chris Novellino
Each cow on the farm eats about 100 pounds of food each day and drinks about 1-2 bathtubs of water a day. The farm is dependent on outside feed sources which come at a high cost. They even are required by law to seek consultation from a nutritionist to make sure the cows are getting the proper nutrition- they eat such things as corn, cotton, seed and alfalfa.
In order to get milk from a cow it must be pregnant. The cow grows the baby for 7 months while getting milk and then the last two months it is dry (no milking-save the milk for the baby). The calves are sent to another facility to be raised. You do not want to be the last owner of a cow so you look at cows feed intake and milk production and if you are losing money you sell the cow for beef. The cows actually learn how to stand in the automatic milker. They are milked twice a day. The average milk a cows gives a day is 75 gallons and it can go as high as 120 gallons.
Cows at the Zlystra Farm
Photo Credit: Chris Novellino
The farm can have a negative effect on the environment in a few ways. First, the silage pile, the pile of hay that the farmer has on the property for the cows to supplement with their other feeds sources, gives off VOCs (volatile organic compounds); only a portion of the pile can be exposed at a time. Of course methane is released into the atmosphere from the cows and ammonium nitrate from cow urine is released into the groundwater.
Overall, it was interesting to see how a dairy farm works up close and personal, smell and all.
On the morning of June 25, we went for a tour of the Hilmar Cheese Company right down the road from the dairy farm. The company is the world’s largest wholesale cheese farm; it creates over 1.5 million pounds of cheese a day.
The one cool thing about this company is that it uses a recycling process with its products. The cows give milk which is curds and weigh. The curds make the cheese and the whey protein is made into whey protein and lactose. The water used to clean the plant is sent to a water reclamation facility which then can be used to water the crops that feed the cows.
Cows form the methane digester and cheese farm.
Photo Credit: Trish Seelman
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