Slideshow: Rickreall Dairy

This summer, the Rickreall Dairy Farm, 10 miles west of Salem, won the Outstanding Dairy Farm Sustainability Award from the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

The cows at Rickreall Dairy live in a large open barn.  More than 1,700 cows are producing milk at any given time.

Every day six to 12 calves are born. Males are shipped out to be raised for beef.  Females are kept isolated in small pens for the first 60 days of their lives. The dairy is working to change this aspect of the calves' lives so they have more space.

As calves are weened off formula, they are taught to put their heads through the bars to eat the feed.

After the first 60 days calves are placed in pens with other calves. Their birth dates are written on the tags in their ears.

Once grown, the cows are impregnated every year to birth the next generation of milking cows and to keep their own milk flowing.

Cows spend most of their time eating or digesting.

Each cow is moved into the milking area three times per day.

Every eight hours, cows are led into the milking room stocked with milking machines.

The milkers move up and down the line of cows, spraying the udders and cleaning them with iodine. Then they attach the milking machines.

It takes only a few minutes for the machine to pump out the 2-3 gallons of milk each cow produces during each milking session.

Rickreall Dairy owner Louie Kazemier explains the milking process during a press tour.

After the milk has been pumped it is rapidly chilled and placed in a holding tank.  Refrigerated trucks will carry it to a processing center where the milk will be pasteurized, homogenized and packaged for sale.

To keep the barn clean, water is streamed through the stalls to wash away manure.

The waste water is placed in a holding tank.  Local fruit processors pay Rickreall to take their waste as well. The fruit juice helps to accelerate the decomposition of the manure.

This lake is where the waste decomposes. Fertilizer is harvested from the under the water and sold back to local farmers.