Take A Tour: Fort Hill Farms
This week I am featuring Fort Hill Farms in Thompson, Connecticut. The land it sits on has been farmed for over 300 years. The Orr family farm now features a popular corn maze, Lavender Labrynth, pumpkins, a creamery and 500 cows. At any given time, approximately 210 of those cows are actively milking. Kies Orr herself (a member of the Connecticut Farm Bureau Young Famers Committee and a BIG deal in our Connecticut farm family!) was kind enough to give me a behind the scenes tour.
When I pulled up to the farm, I was greeted by Tom Tom the double pawed guard cat. Kies began our tour by showing me their 2,000 gallon stainless steel tank. The Farmers Cow, Cabot Cheese, or other bottling companies who need the milk pick up the product daily. Milking all 210 cows is NOT a quick process! It takes about 6 hours, and at two sessions a day, Kies and her staff are working 12 hours a day just milking. I met Fort Hill farms top producing cow in the milking parlor, she can produce 90 pounds of milk a session!
Next we moved on to see the feed storage. Fort Hill Farms grows corn and hay to produce haylage and earlage to create a total mixed ration (TMR) for their cow’s diets. TMR’s are just like a mixed salad for humans. Groups of animals are fed different TMR’s, depending on their age and if they are milking or not. In addition to the feed grown and processed at Fort Hill Farms, Kies procures potato product from FritoLay (yes, the potato chip company!) to mix in with the cow’s feed. It turns out even cows love potatoes; they can tell when it’s not in their feed!
Haylage
Earlage
The Kuhn Knight piece of equipment is a mixer wagon which is used to “stir” the feed.
Arguably the cutest part of the tour, we ventured to a group of 1-3 month old calves that each occupy their own calf hutch. You can pet the calves, but don’t let them lick you! You can spread germs to them, and vice versa.
The calves pictured are 1 -3 months old
Cows are separated into groups based on a few different things. Kies explained it as being in different grades in school. The groupings allow for the cows to get the type of food that they need in that stage of their life. For example, cows that are pregnant are kept together. Cows, like humans, carry their babies for 9 months. The similarities don’t stop there. The cows at Fort Hill Farms wear fitness trackers! Each animal wears a collar and/or tag fitness tracker. These trackers allow Kies to see on her computer how much activity each cow is getting, how much they are eating, and if the cows are showing signs of illness or distress.
The blue ear tag is this cow’s fitness tracker!
I learned so much at Fort Hill Farms, and hanging out with all of these happy cows made for a wonderful farm visit. Stay tuned for more!
Kies Orr and Jared Lavack