Lost Hollow Farm

"Lost Hollow Farm - Where the cows are red and the tractors are green."

  

 

My second SAE visit with a student was with Delaney Musser. Delaney is a 7th grader who hasn't started an SAE record book yet, but is extremely involved in agriculture. Her older siblings have all been through the FFA program and have record books. Delaney is very active in the day to day activities of the farm. She is already used to being in the show ring with her heifer, calves and dairy beef.

 

Delaney and I talked about the possibilities of her SAE project. It is looking like she will have an entrepreneurship SAE with one of the animals she shows. She was working with her dairy beef when I arrived at the farm. Delaney and her sister Stacey showed me around the rest of the farm and I had the opportunity to learn a lot about how a dairy farm works.

 

First we fed calves and I learned about hutches. The girls explained that every cow, calf, and heifer had a name and a number. They were known by their name though. Whenever a cow has a calf the calf's name will start with the first 2 letters their mother's name did. It was so amazing to see how everyone knew each cows name. Stacey then explained how each of the younger kids had a job that they did everyday. The kids rotated everyday so they wouldn't have to do the same thing 2 days in a row. The kids who were still in school had evening chores throughout the week, but not during the mornings because of the early school day.

After finishing the feeding we went to the milking parlor where I learned about how they milk their cows. This was an extremely foreign concept to me. Each person on the farm has one main area that they cover. Delaney and Stacie care for the younger calves. Mark and his Mom do most of the milking. Mitchell makes feed, handles the crops and fixes machinery with his Dad. The farm is a first generation dairy farm and they are extremely proud of that. It wasn't hard to see how dedicated each and every person was to the farm. Thank you for reading!