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Becoming a cow By age 13½ to 14 months, a heifer—a young female bovine that hasn’t yet had a calf—is ready to be bred using artificial insemination, which allows for more genetic selection. “We don’t keep any bulls on the farm because bulls are dangerous and expensive,” Desrochers says. If the pregnancy is successful, a calf is born nine months later. The heifer is now a cow, or a lactating bovine.
Madeline Desrochers, who works at Yuba County’s only dairy farm, says cows produce “nature’s purest food.”
Caring for cows Dairy farmer calls it ‘amazing’ work
Story and photo by Ching Lee
Having grown up on her family’s dairy in Michigan, Madeline Desrochers says she can’t imagine her life without cows. It’s no surprise that she works as a dairy farmer, though thousands of miles from her Midwestern roots. At Tollcrest Dairy in Wheatland—Yuba County’s only dairy farm—Desrochers helps owners Sean and Kristin Tollenaar manage 2,400 milking cows, plus 2,100 heifers and young stock that are not yet producing milk. “It’s amazing and a privilege to get to work with these wonderful creatures,” she says. She describes bovines as “nature’s original recyclers” because of their ability to eat what “would’ve been thrown away” and produce “nature’s purest food, as we call milk.” With thousands of cows to milk, the parlor is busy around the clock. The first shift starts at 5 a.m.—when Desrochers arrives at the dairy—and ends around 2:30 p.m. Another shift starts at 5 p.m. and goes until 2 a.m. Though her days may be long and sometimes hard, Desrochers says she’s also grateful for the health benefits life on the farm has given her. “You get to enjoy being outdoors watching the sunrise and the sunset and the different seasons,” she says. “It’s just a beautiful way to raise children.”
Breakfast of champions To be good milkers, dairy cows are treated like athletes, Desrochers says. They eat a strict diet formulated by a nutritionist, who ensures the ration has a balance of fiber, starch, protein, minerals and vitamins. “Every morning, we clean out the feed bunks. If there’s any leftovers, we weigh that to see how much they didn’t eat. Then we recycle that feed to the heifers or our lower-producing cows. Nothing ever goes to waste.”
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Summer 2024
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