Jerry Dell Farm Tour

JerryDellView_v2_1200
Originally uploaded by dmakar.

I got up early (again!*) and met Jeremy at his house at 7am for a tour of his parent's farm - The Jerry Dell Farm. The Jerry Dell farm is an organic dairy farm and was one of the first organic dairy farms in Tompkins County - becoming organic in 2000 after working for four years to become organic. The farmland has been dairy land for over 60 years and Jeremy's parents have owned the farm since 1976 - when they bought the farm from Jeremy's grandparents.

We toured the milking parlor, the pre and post milking barns, the top of Gee Hill where we got a great view of Dryden (See picture above), visited the new heifers (new born to 6 months), visited the 6 to 12 month old heifers, the new borns (born today!), the 12 to 18 month old heifers and then stopped back in at the milking parlor to have a glass of fresh milk.

The milk was smooth and creamy and delicious. All of the Jerry Dell milk is sent to western Massachusetts for processing and packaging and then sold as milk (as opposed to being turned into cheese, yogurt or ice cream). The Sherman's have been very successful and seem to enjoy the hard work (getting up at 4am everyday!) of running a 340+ head dairy farm. Some of my favorite pictures are here:

The new born heifers (female cows) each get their own tent and water bucket. This field had probably about 30 female calves age new born to 6 months or so. They are so gentle at this age. They looked like they were camping out in this green field.

These cows are a little older. They are between about 6 and 12 months (or so). They eat and look and moo and hang out in the open air breezy barn. This one - 1693 looked right at me and then went back to eating.

This is a newborn bull (male cow). New born as in just a few hours old! He and his brother (sitting about 10 feet behind him) were just chilling on the floor. Jeremy said they'll ship out the bulls - only the females stay. At this point in time they are having on average one new born every day! Most of the moms have their young without any help from the farm staff. About 30% of newborns are heifers - so they have to get rid of 7 out of every 10 newborns.

The milk tastes great, the vet bills are lower, the animals seem to be happy grazing and the business is local and is providing a few jobs and dollars to the local economy.

Full set of pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmakar/sets/72157594242483386/

*Thursday morning I got up at 5:50 for a 7am BNI meeting, followed by customer meetings, a short nap, dog walking, development work, vvfc training, going away party at benchwarmers, blog updates and email and then sleep a little later than I wanted to.

Comments

[Mysterious Lady]

I only drink organic milk. I do not recommend drinking milk with a truck load of hormones in it. I remember when milk went from glass bottles to plastic. Ruined the taste.

Hopefully all of Ithaca will support the organic farmers. The food is so much better for you.

[gr]

David this is an AWESOME post. Last night the wife and I drove through Dryden and made note of 2 signs for organic dairies and wondered how many Dryden has, and how many famers in all? I mean, it is a big town, part villages, part suburb, part woods, part pasture.
Your pictures are super dooper too.