Fair Oaks, Ind.: Cows on parade
'MOO-VELOUS' | Indiana farm covers all the bases in milk production
FAIR OAKS, Ind. -- Where does milk come from?
The Jewel, right? Dominick's, maybe?
(Courtesy)
FAIR OAKS FARMS: 856 N. 600 E in Fair Oaks, Ind., about a two-hour drive from Chicago; (877) 536-1194 or www.fo farms.com. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday-Saturday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for children 3-12 and seniors 62 and older. Kids under 3 are free.
OK. OK. Even we urbanites know that milk comes from cows, of course.
But where do cows come from?
Anybody familiar with the birds and the bees can answer that one, too. But our notion of exactly how that happens is kind of hazy. No wonder: A century ago, about one out of three Americans lived on farms. Today, less than 2 percent of us do.
But here at Fair Oaks Farms, off Interstate 65 between Chicago and Indianapolis, how a cow comes to be is revealed in fascinating detail, right down to a presentation of an actual birth.
I love factory tours -- I've seen chocolate made in Chicago, beer brewed in Milwaukee, cereal toasted in Michigan and snow skis assembled in Austria. But I have never, ever seen anything like Fair Oaks' birthing barn, where visitors sit in a darkened amphitheater and watch as dairy cows, in glassed-in stalls on a softly lit stage, huff and puff and push out their offspring in a marvelous, if somewhat messy, lesson on the miracle of life.
"Are those its feet?" my 11-year-old daughter gasped -- half fascinated, half horrified -- as we watched the business end of a mother Holstein in the midst of labor.
Hooves, my dear. But yes, as it so happens, calves kick into this world head first, their front legs leading the way.
Or, as Fair Oaks CEO Gary Corbett put it, "Like diving into a swimming pool."
Owned by a handful of local dairy farmers, Fair Oaks opened a portion of its 19,000 acres to the public in January of 2004. Since then, some 450,000 people have enjoyed what Fair Oaks calls its "Every Day Extraordinary" experience.
I'd call it "Moo-velous."
Our tour bus rumbled into the countryside, past devices which turn manure into energy by capturing methane, which the farm uses to help run its cheese factory. Great mountains of plastic-covered silage -- fermenting corn grown at Fair Oaks -- rise next to enormous bales of alfalfa hay. (Cows consume 90 pounds of this Total Mixed Ration and a bathtub full of water each day.)
The journey took us through the center of one of Fair Oaks' block-long holding barns, where black and white Holsteins freely walked around or lounged on sand beds. On the day of our visit -- a scorching summer afternoon -- dozens of electric fans blew a 7-mph breeze inside the barn while ceiling spigots unleashed a periodic downpour of cooling rain.
Next, we exited the bus and scaled a flight of stairs to an observation deck in a milking barn, where our dairy safari was presented with a view of an enormous carousel. Large enough to hold 72 animals, the turntable is a testament to the ingenuity of man and, perhaps, the intelligence of cows.
One by one, the trained Holsteins stepped onto the slowly rotating disc as workers laboring below attached sucking claws to the cows' teats, emptying the animals of about 45 cups of milk during the eight-and-a-half minute revolution. At the end of the ride, the cows, which go through the process three times a day, walked backward off the spinning wheel unassisted, only to be replaced by an awaiting Holstein.
"They are absolutely creatures of habit," said Corbett, who explained the animals learn the drill from the other cows. "They love to follow."
Their liquid, 101 degrees when expelled, is cooled to 34 degrees and shipped to processing plants, where it's pasteurized and packaged for stores from Chicago to Indy. Artificially impregnated annually, the cows will produce milk for four to six years before being shipped to, as our tour guide delicately put it, "the feed lot." (Corbett says they end up "in the fast food industry" and I don't think he means as fry cooks.)
Fair Oaks, with 30,000 cows, has 80 to 100 calves born each day. In the public birthing barn, visitors can see about 10 emerge daily -- a 45-minute process that usually unfolds with little or no human assistance. Often, viewers will give the animals "a standing O" after a birth, Corbett said.
"People are immensely respectful of the process," he said, though he allowed that sometimes "you'll see grown men walk out because it's just a little too graphic for them." The presentation also prompts "questions from kids to their parents about where babies come from," he said.
Overall, "part of our mission is to help reconnect people to a little of what's involved in 21st century agriculture," Corbett said.
"Over the last decade or two, animal agriculture hasn't necessarily been the beneficiary of the greatest press," he added. "So we wanted an opportunity to let people judge for themselves."
After we returned home from our Indiana adventure, I bought a half gallon jug of Fair Oaks 2 percent at a Super Tony's Finer Foods in North Riverside.
As I poured a glass for my daughter at our breakfast table, I asked her, "You know where milk comes from, don't you?"
"Cows," she said absent mindedly, immersed in her book.
And you know where cows come from, too?
She glanced up and smiled, shooting me a knowing look.