2,400 students attend virtual field trip on dairy farm

HUDSON, Ind. — More than 2,400 students attended a virtual field trip to a dairy farm during National School Breakfast Week.

Ashley Stockwell, husband Kyle and their four children milk 750 cows on their family-owned farm in northeast Indiana.

“We’re a third-generation dairy farm,” Stockwell said. “My husband’s grandparents started the farm in 1958. My mother and father-in-law took this over, and now my husband and I are continuing it with our four kids.”

The field trip started in the calf barn — called “Grandma’s barn,” because of their grandma’s love for caring for the little ones.

There, calves start their first few weeks of lives in individual pens to prevent viruses from spreading and to keep each calf safe.

“We have curtains on the sides of the barn,” Stockwell told students. “When it gets warm, we lift those curtains up so that air ventilates through. In the winter, they’re down to keep the calves warm. When it gets really cold, we have cute little blankets to put on the calves.

“When we feed them, it’s important to be consistent morning and night. They eat breakfast like us. When they’re little like this, they get milk morning and night. When they get bigger, they are introduced to food.”

The students met Milkshake, a friendly 4-H calf, before learning how the farmers use radio frequency identification tags to monitor the cows.

“The RFID tag registers to our computer system and allows us to track how much milk each cow produces and helps us better understand how each calf is doing,” Stockwell explained.

In the free-stall barn, the grown cows have more room to explore — but still have individual beds to rest in.

A talented team helps the family provide the best care for their animals.

“Just as the Indy 500 drivers have a pit crew, we have a pit crew for our cows,” Stockwell said. “We have a nutritionist that creates specific diets for them that’s nutritious and delicious for them to produce the highest-quality milk.

“We also have a veterinarian that visits the cows every week. We keep health records on our cows. We also have a hoof trimmer give our cows pedicures each week.”

From there, the students learned how the cows are milked — and how nutritious the milk is for the end customer.