A Day at a Wisconsin Dairy farm

We went to the Annual Corn Festival at Schopf's Hilltop Dairy, Door County's largest dairy farm.  They cut the craziest maze into their cornfield. You can get seriously lost in there, and we did. I'm not even kidding, there were mile markers. Look at the map! There's an aerial photo here you just have to see! I have no idea how they even cut such an intricate maze.

The kids were super excited and actually held hands as they ran in together.

And then it was finally time to eat CORN! Asher was disappointed that 

we missed the corn eating contest. He was hoping to compete. 

They had lots of little farm animals to meet, even these newborn cows 

with their umbilical cords still attached. 

Inside we ate ice cream while we watched as the cows were milked! We learned a lot!

They practically milk themselves! The employee pushes a button that opens the gate and 10 cows per side rush in and line up at each station. The employee attaches the milkers. The cows wear a computer chip that records the time, weight and temperature of each cow's milk. When the milk flow slows, which generally takes about 5 minutes, the milkers automatically release from the cow. Once all 10 are finished, they all leave together and 10 new cows enter.

They milk the cows every 8 hours, so with 500 cows being milked 3 times a day it 

becomes a 24 hour job. Each cow produces about 10 gallons per day which is 87lbs of milk!

A few more fun cow facts:

Checking out the milkers. They have an interactive milking display that actually lets the kids hook up the milkers to a display cow. Looked really cool but wasn't working while we were there.

Of course we grabbed a bag of fresh cheese curds to eat in the truck. Delicious!