AZ Caballero Dairy Farm

I recently had an awesome opportunity to tour a family owned and operated dairy farm in Southern AZ.  The Caballero Farm in Eloy, AZ to be exact.  Craig Caballero (owner and 2nd generation dairy farmer) was kind enough to show us [a group of Blended Extended bloggers] all about life on a dairy farm.  I have never met anyone with so much love and dedication to their work like Mr. Caballero himself.  It’s not just his job, it’s his passion & his life.  It’s simply udderly amazing. Yeah, that was a corny pun. Hearing him talk about all the details of dairy-farming was amazing and impressive, I was ready to put on my boots and start dairy-farming myself.  With a job so demanding & challenging, you know they must have good people working there. So if anyone knows a single dairy farmer… feel free to send him in my direction 🙂 ha.

This was actually my very first time at a dairy farm.  I had no idea what it was going to be like. Although, I will admit that I did go thinking I was going to step in cow patties or mud, so I made sure to wear my old tennis shoes. Ha. But I was pleasantly surprised at how clean the farm was.  I was very impressed how they ran everything. Did you know it is pretty much all computerized, from measuring what the cattle is fed to how much milk the cows produce. Seriously beyond amazing!  I never realized all the hard work that goes into dairy-farming.  Did you know they work 24/7? Yup! 365 days a year.  WOWZERS!  With about 8000 cows to care for daily, no wonder they have a tad over 40 employees to help run the dairy farm smoothly.

I think the part of the dairy farm that I was the most intrigued with was the revolving milking carousel. This is like a field trip for the cows. Just a tad over 70 cows get on this carousel at once to get milked.  Although everything is computerized and automatic, a lot of manual labor is involved in the process.

 

Did you know cows have to eat a healthy diet and have a nutritionist as well?  They eat about 100 to 150 lbs per day.  Oh and I found it impressive that their water and food is always fresh.  In order for the cow to produce wholesome milk, they have to keep the cows happy and healthy. I guess it’s pretty much like women. 

 

A few of the many interesting things I learned are that I’m pretty sure dairy cows get taken care of better than I take care of my child, the workers are mandate reporters for animal cruelty, and the next time someone calls me a heifer, Craig told me to consider it a compliment. haha. 

 

 

 

 

Don’t forget to buy local because theses amazing Arizona farmers put so much into giving us the best possible product 

Disclaimer: I was provided the opportunity to visit this farm with the  Diary Council of AZ  through a campaign with  Blended Extended . All opinions are my own.