A Day Dairy Farming in Wisconsin

Joe spends a winter day following the Julian Dairy Farm, a small family farm in Wisconsin,

Joe begins explaining the recent travails of the small dairy farm. They are becoming scarce. Milk prices have dropped dramatically making all the hard work that goes into a operation like this unprofitable.

Joe starts the day with Jason and Katrina

4:45am
Check the detached wood burning stove that heats the house and water in the house and that used to clean dairy equipment. He then checks on the horses. He feeds the cows and watches for signs of any sick cows. Katrina heads to the parlor to ready the equipment for milking.

Jason also scrapes manure from the barn (every day) and adds to the manure pile. He removes and spreads the manure each Saturday.
He adds fresh bedding to the barn every 12 hours.

5:30am
The boys wake to their own alarms and get up to do their own chores before school.
Jason and Aaron mix grain, haylage and dry hay in a large mixer to feed the cattle. Jason explains why dairy cows need a very consistent diet and how he manages their own feed to achieve this.

6:30am
Jason starts his horse barn chores. He puts the horses out in their coral and gives them some hay. The boys get ready for school.

Jason goes out to the woods to log with his draft horses every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Katrina cleans barns, does afternoon milking and book work during the day.

We see how the entire family works together to make this small-scale dairy farm work.

Joe talks with Jason and Katrina about the loss of the small scale far and the ramifications this has on our communities, food security and families. They also discuss how the consumer can support them.

STACY LYN
The episode concludes with Stacy Lyn demonstrating how to fill your kitchen compost bucket and then takes it out to her compost pile to talk about composting.