Trip to Frey’s Produce and New Generation Dairy
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Matt & I went to Frey’s Produce and New Generation Dairy with the District #9 Young Farmers yesterday. It was a good trip. Though, I would have liked to have seen more people come. It would figure that the lack of rain would put people in the fields early.
Our first stop on the trip was to Frey Produce. They have finished their cantalope season, and are just about finished with watermelons, locally.
All of the watermelons are picked and loaded onto buses. Once back at the packaging facility, the watermelons are unloaded.
They go through a cleaning process and are loaded into boxes to be shipped to stores. Frey Produce ships foods out as soon as they are packaged.
They also grow several other products locally, including peppers, Indian Corn, winter squashes and pumpkins.
We also got to go to the New Generation Dairy, unfortunately, they have a no photo policy for most of the tour, but I did get a nice photo of Matt & Carla’s daughter Ciara with a day old calf.
I did learn a lot at the dairy though. Animal health and welfare is very important at New Generation Dairy.
They milk three times a day, instead of two. This helps to increase production and, since the cows get their feet cleaned before each milking, increase animal health. They use formaldehyde in the water some of the time, more in the summer than in the winter. This helps keep the cows feet clean and healthy.
Pregnant cattle are allowed to go dry two months before they give birth. This helps the cows to rest and have healthier calves.