Dairy farmers are terrible and lock their cattle indoors for no reason. Right? Well, not so much.

Then why do we keep them in barns where we can control and monitor their comfort levels, ensure their nutrient-dense rations are dry and that they have access to water, brushes and clean bedding?

Because we take animal care seriously. It’d be easy to say because it’s our job and that’s why, but for us, and many farming families, it’s more than that.

Our family has been in the dairy farming business for more than 100 years. At this point it’s difficult to separate “work” from “personal” because it’s so deeply intertwined. That said, farming isn’t a job to us where we clock out at the end of the day and that’s that. We’re always at work - we live here.

We’re on the receiving end of nearly 90 inches of rain a year with most of that arriving between November and February, which also happens to be when temperatures are at their lowest. Keeping our girls indoors during winter months makes the most sense.

They’re warm, comfortable, and spend their afternoons dreaming about that first nap in the pasture come late spring.

Do they run out to pasture on their first day? Absolutely.

Do they then run back inside? Sometimes.

We filmed the video below last year and I’ll share this year’s video on Facebook when it’s time to put the girls out.