Have you heard about Breakfast on the Farm? We are hosting this event this Saturday, June 17th, at our farm on Lyle Young Road in East Montpelier. At least 1,000 visitors are expected, visitors will come for a FREE pancake breakfast and then go on a self guided tour through our dairy farm. Thank you to the many generous sponsors that make this event happen and to the 100+ volunteers that will help the event run smoothly for our guests.
Tickets to the event are free but they need to be reserved at http://www.vermontbreakfastonthefarm.com.
Breakfast on the Farm will be at Fairmont Farm, Inc., 95 Lyle Young Road, East Montpelier, VT on June 17, 2017
So what might visitors see on our dairy farm? Here’s a quick preview of what to expect:
Visitors will learn about our forages! Did you know that we can produce 60% of our cows diet by putting up high quality haylage and corn silage?
A group of cows get fed in our free stall barn using a mixer wagon. They are fed TMR (Total Mixed Ration) that is made up of about 60% forages we produce and 40% purchased grains.
Visitors will see our new maternity barn, where they may or may not get to see a new mom and baby. Averaging about 5 births a day, we will cross our fingers that some lucky visitors may be able to see a new calf coming into the world!
These two mothers help a baby calf stand up just an hour after birth!
Manure! How can you go to a dairy farm without learning about how awesome our cows are at recycling? Visitors will see our manure pits and learn about how we use manure as the main ingredient to our nutrient management plan which helps us grow excellent crops that will be harvested for our animals diet.
Our “pit crawler” stirs our manure to incorporate the sand and manure together to be spread back on our fields.
When we talk about our manure and cropping, we cannot help but talk about conservation! Visitors will see through a demonstration how our no-till crop system works to improve soil health and water quality. We plant almost 100% no-till and have been using this system since 2008.
Corn is planted directly into this winter rye cover crop without tilling up the land to reduce soil erosion and protect both soil health and water quality.
With manure and conservation practices of course comes equipment, there will be a variety of equipment to check out up close!
This is a sampling of our tractors we use for multiple jobs on our dairy farm, here they are pushing up and packing corn silage!
Cows! There will be lots of cows for visitors to see, they will learn about what life is like on our farm as a cow and how we work hard to keep them happy, healthy and comfortable.
Cows at the feed bunk enjoying their free choice buffet. In our free stall barns, cows are free to eat, sleep and drink water whenever they please. They go to the parlor to be milked three times a day.
Visitors will be able to see our milking parlor where we produce about 120,000 pounds of milk a day, which is roughly 12,000 pounds of cheese! There will be a mechanical cow to try milking and a milk truck to show how our milk is transported from our farm to the Cabot Creamery in Cabot, Vermont.
Cows are milked in our double 15 parallel parlor, we can milk 30 cows at a time. Our parlor runs 21 hours a day, which includes 3 milkings for all the cows. The three hours of down time are spent cleaning our milking system between each milking.
There will also be a station to learn about our 4-H club and summer camps, we have a lot of fun sharing our passion of caring for our animals with local youth and love to see their hard work pay off when they show their animals in the fall.
Our winter calf won her class at the Big E in 2015, our 4-Hers work hard to qualify to show at this event. We are proud of the work they put in to show our animals and the high quality animals we have been producing by focusing on genetic improvements in our breeding program.
The highlight of many of our tours is our calf barn and the baby calves, visitors of course can expect to spend time learning about how we raise our calves to be the future of our dairy herd.
Calves drinking milk in the calf barn, they are housed in groups of 8 and have free choice milk, grain and water. It is quite common to see them playing and snuggling together!
Our family hopes to see you at Breakfast on the Farm this Saturday, June 17th, at our farm on Lyle Young Road in East Montpelier. The event is free but please remember to reserve your tickets by visiting http://www.vermontbreakfastonthefarm.com.
Our family is looking forward to meeting yours for Breakfast on the Farm at our dairy Farm, Fairmont Farm. See you Saturday!