Bloomville dairy farm hosts national virtual tour

Oct. 30—Students in Michelle Somers animal sciences class at Delaware Academy and Central School District at Delhi joined about 880 other classrooms across the United States to virtually tour Del-Rose Farm in Bloomville Monday morning.

Before the tour started, Somers asked if any of the students had visited the farm, and two hands raised. One said his family bought sweet corn from there and the other said his family has bought pies from the farm. In addition to operating the dairy farm, the Hanselman family grows and sells sweet corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash and cucumbers, and Barbara Hanselman bakes and sells pies, sticky buns and other baked goods under her The Farmer's Wife business.

Somers said she has shown students virtual tours of dairy farms in the past and her family has a dairy farm. "This one's special because it's the Hanselman's farm," she said. "I've known Barb Hanselman most of my life."

Kelsey O'Shea, industry relations specialist at American Dairy Association North East, and Emma Andrew-Swarthout, director of dairy industry image at American Dairy Association North East, said the organization has been offering virtual tours of dairy farms to schools since 2018, and looks for different types of farms to highlight. The Del-Rose Farm is a tie-stall farm where the cows are milked where they stand instead of going to a milking parlor. Hanselman said her farm has 60 milk cows, 10 dry cows getting ready to calf and 70 head of young stock. The farm has mostly red and white or black and white Holstein cows and 11 brown Swiss cows.

"Everyone farms differently," O'Shea said. "There are different sizes and scales. Students can see a farm like Barb's or bigger."

Hanselman said in the past farmers may have all done it one way, but there are so many variations to farming now, such as using a rotational parlor, robots, housing the cows in a tie- or free-stall barn and how and what the cows are fed, their bedding and more.

Hanselman said during the high school tour, they feed the cows dry matter such as hay first, then sweep the leftovers aside and then feed a mixture of silage, corn and other wet ingredients high in protein and nutritional value. Hanselman said the leftover dry matter is fed to the farm's beef cows and dry cows. O'Shea asked Hanselman why they mix the ingredients together. Hanselman said "cows are just like people." If it was separated, they would "only eat what they wanted to eat, so they wouldn't get the nutrition they need."

About every 10 minutes during the tour, there was a quiz for students to take. Some questions included: how much food does a cow eat every day — 120 pounds; how much do calves weigh when they're born — 80 pounds; and how many gallons of milk does the average cow give each day — 10 gallons. O'Shea said the quiz was added based on feedback from teachers. Students and teachers could also ask questions, which were answered live by Hanselman.

Many of the questions during the middle and high school tour focused on the financial aspect of farming. For example, one person asked how much does it cost to raise a calf before it produces milk. Hanselman said it costs about $2,000. Another student asked how much money do they make if they sell a cow. Hanselman said it depends on the pedigree of the cow and the age of the cow. She said springers, which are heifers ready to be bred, can bring up to $2,000 each.

The tours were split between middle and high school students at 10 a.m. and elementary students at 11:30 a.m., a media release said. More than 4,500 middle and high school students watched the tour, while the elementary school tour reached approximately 17,400 students, O'Shea said. The date was picked because it was the day before Halloween when many students may not be focused on school work. The organization, which serves farms in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and parts of northern Virginia, has two more virtual tours scheduled before the end of the year, one on Monday, Nov. 20, and one on Friday, Dec. 22, the organization's website said.

Because cellphone service is spotty at Del-Rose Farm in Bloomville, the tour was a hybrid of a live feed and recorded material, O'Shea said. The organization filmed twice at the farm during the summer. On Monday, O'Shea and Hanselman sat in front of two iPhones in the home's dining room and talked about dairy farming while the pre-recorded footage played behind them on the screen.

Students were given an aerial tour of the farm's lands, which were planted with corn, the pasture and the barn. When the drone was collecting video footage, Hanselman said they asked the drone operator to focus in on some bear damage in the corn field. The damage wasn't shown on the tour. The tour also included shots of the cows being fed and milked and footage of the calf barn where the calves were fed using buckets with rubber nipples. Somers said after the tour that her farm bottle feeds its calves, but she found the bucket method interesting and something to look into. Hanselman said after the tour, the nipples on the bucket have back valves which help build the calves' throat muscles.

After the tour, DA student Meredith McCann, who raises show cows, said she learned some things during the tour, including feeding a high protein diet. "Milk comes from a good place," she said. "Farmers take excellent care of their cows."

Along with the virtual tour, American Dairy Association North East provided free lesson plans for participating schools.

Previously recorded tours can be viewed at https://tinyurl.com/4peutwna.

Vicky Klukkert, staff writer, can be reached at vklukkert@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7221.