More than one million students in 50 of the United States have adopted a calf and are learning more about dairy farming.
The Adopt A Cow program began in Pennsylvania and connects classrooms with specific calves.
For example, Karen Doster of Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin said “our initial goal was to reach 75 classrooms or about 1,500 students, but so many schools and educators were interested in learning the real story of where dairy comes from, the program expanded to reach 1,640 classrooms and more than 28,000 students.”
Synergy Family Dairy in Pulaski, Roden Echo Valley Farm near West Bend and Creamery Creek Holsteins of Bangor were the first Wisconsin dairy farms to participate in the program. Their calves Sweetie, Cookie, Ruby, Jemma, Petunia, Penny, Peanut, Sharlamagne, Seroogy and Dorito were all adopted by the classrooms.
The children learn about diets, housing and many other aspects of dairy farming.
