Some of my earliest memories are of my mom and I in the kitchen cooking and baking. While I like cooking, baking has always been my favorite. I enjoy the line it forces me to walk being the rules of science and the creativity of finding the perfect balance of flavors. Initially. I primarily baked cookies, brownies, cheesecakes and quick breads with occasional dabbles in cake and pie. However, per a request from my husband, I ventured into the world of yeast breads.
As I’ve mentioned in previous editorials, learning to make bread has been a true adventure in trial and error. However, now that I have a good understanding of dough hydration, proofing and shaping, the real fun has begun. For example, I use the same basic dough recipe to make a blueberry-vanilla loaf as I do for a chive and cheddar loaf. Not only that, I can also choose how to shape it and put it in a loaf pan for sandwiches, bake it in a Dutch oven for a boule or drizzle it with olive oil and press it into a shallow baking dish for focaccia. In each case, the goal is the same: to make a yummy loaf of bread. So why am I once again talking about bread instead of cows in my editorial? Because once again, I’m finding similarities between the two.
In the years I’ve been an editor for Progressive Dairy, I’ve seen firsthand the ingenuity of the dairy community. From color-coded tags that enable caretakers to rapidly identify sick or treated calves to using a turkey fryer to warm up colostrum, the people in this industry are some of the most inventive and best problem-solvers I’ve met. Dairy farming may come with many rules and benchmarks when raising calves, but as anyone knows, no two calf programs are the same. Just look at Vita Plus calf and heifer specialist Lauryn Krentz’s article “Youngstock facilities: From concept to conception” on page 51. In this roundtable, she points out that “There’s no one ‘right’ way to raise calves, but there are many ways to do it well.”
In the article, she goes on to share how three dairies, all from Wisconsin, take different approaches and value different things as they plan out their calf barns. One farm faces their barns south for better sun exposure, another keeps it simple and has the same number of calves in every group, while the third farm made their pens removable so they can scrape it without barriers.
Like the bread, the end goal is the same: to raise a healthy calf. And just like with bread and its thousands of flavor combinations, every farm will use slightly different ingredients and have slightly different methods to achieve that goal.
