Last weekend we visited with the Cramers. Alex had a school report to work on called Wonder Indiana. He decided to focus his report on
Fair Oaks Farms so we went with the Cramers to check it out. Everyone had heard of the farm because they saw it on the TV show Dirty Jobs (check your local listings). This is a dairy farm in the northern part of Indiana. There are ten farms that make up this co-op and all together they have 30,000 cows!!!!! The farm produces their own milk, chocolate milk, cheese, and ICE CREAM!
During the visit we of course sampled the above items, took a bus tour of one of the 10 ten farms, and visited the birthing barn, where we saw three calves born.

There are about 80 calves born every day throughout the 10 farms. This one above is brand new!

This calf is just a few hours old. He was the first calf we saw born. At the visitor center they have a traffic light to let visitors know when the calves are close to being born.

It's a boy! It's a boy! Twins born earlier in the day.
One of the most interesting parts of the Farm visit was seeing the milking wheel. The cows are milked three times a day. This carousel holds 72 cows and rotates as they are being milked. It takes the cows 72 hours to learn how to get on and off the carousel. Sometimes the girls like to stay on for an extra ride.