Cydelle’s Ghost Hunt takes place on a dairy farm, very much inspired by ran by a distant cousin of mine. While I only visited once as a young teen, and the farm has since been sold, something about the place captured me. I blame the cute little calves we were introduced to.
While researching this books, I ended up learning a lot more about dairy farms than I ever imagined!
- US dairy farms produce 21 BILLION gallons of milk a year.
- A single cow can produce about 6 gallons of milk a day.
- 98% of US dairy farms are family-owned and operated.
Cydelle’s family’s farm has belonged to the Booths for generations, starting with her great-grandparents. At the time of the story, the dairy farm has 300 cows, a mix of the black-and-white Holsteins as well as solid brown Milking Shorthorns. It’s bigger than most Wisconsin dairy farms (the average is 150).
If you want to take a look at how dairy farms work, check out these links!
- A virtual field trip to Mapleview Dairy Farm
- This documentary series highlighting Wisconsin dairy farmers
When I looked at the technology used in dairy farms, one of the cool things I researched was automatic milking machines. I think they’re amazing from a technology standpoint, many of them require no, or little, human help to milk the cows. Cows walk into the machine, the machine milks her, and when done the cow is free to go back to the pasture or barn!
These machines can go fast – milking a cow in 7 minutes or less – and cows to walk into the machines themselves with no human guidance. As cows get milked 2 or 3 times a day, it makes sense they’d get used to the machine so quickly! Plus, they get some tasty food to eat while being milked. The farm Cydelle lives on has five robots.
If you want to see these automatic, robotic milking machines in action, check out these videos!
- Acres & Avenues
- The Astronaut A4
- Robotic Milker Barn Tour (tour starts at 3:00)