Monday, April 27, 2009

Welcome to Dial Dairy Farm!

We're glad you've stopped by to read our blog! This is a new effort to connect our neighbors, both locally and globally, with what's happening on our farm. We hope through this venue, we can promote dairy production as an industry that cares about its animals and consumers. Feel free to ask questions at any time.

In the meantime, allow us to introduce ourselves. Dial Dairy began in its current form in 1982 as a venture between Allen and Diane Hartschuh, who own and operate the farm today. The farm has been in the Hartschuh family for four generations. Allen and Diane have three sons: Greg, Brian, and Jason, all who are involved on the farm in some aspect. Greg graduated from The Ohio State University in 2006 and has been employed full-time on the farm since then. He handles equipment maintenance and manages the farm's crops. Brian is in his second year of vet school at OSU and works with herd health and occasional milking. Jason, the youngest, is a freshman at Ohio State, majoring in animal science and agricultural education. He also works extensively with the cows. Greg's wife, Rose (another Buckeye!), works off of the farm as an agricultural education instructor, but she stays connected to the farm in various ways (especially with the its web presence!) 

Top- Allen and Diane.
Middle- The boys. Left to right: Jason, Greg, Brian.
Bottom- Greg and Rose.

The farm is located in rural Ohio, which enables the fertile farmland to produce crops to feed the cows. Dial Dairy produces almost all of its own feed for the cows, which produce natural fertilizer to keep the crops growing. :) It's a cycle, you see. Right now, we are milking around 150 cows, and we also keep replacement heifers to work into the milking rotation. It keeps us busy!

You can look for updates on our blog to keep current on the latest efforts. Hopefully this will be a collaborative process from all of the family members so you can see a variety of viewpoints! Questions and comments welcome.

Until the next post, email us at DialDairy@gmail.com, check out our fan page on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter!