{"id":53096,"date":"2019-06-16T16:53:38","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T16:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/?p=53096"},"modified":"2021-06-29T18:06:32","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T18:06:32","slug":"dairy-diaries-its-all-about-the-ladies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/2019\/06\/16\/dairy-diaries-its-all-about-the-ladies\/","title":{"rendered":"DAIRY DIARIES: It&#8217;s all about the ladies"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4_3n0QS9Tcw\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By KENNEDY GAYHEART <br \/><\/strong>Paul Laurence Dunbar High School<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As the scenery on Nashville Road changes from suburban to country, a big red barn looms off the side of the road. This is Chaney\u2019s Dairy Barn where the Chaney family has been milking cows every single day for 79 years. Holidays aren\u2019t on a dairy farmer\u2019s calendar.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Inside, visitors can buy sandwiches, ice cream and tickets to tour the farm. The family created the agritourism business when they realized the farm couldn\u2019t survive on milk sales alone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the farm you can treat yourself to lunch and top it off by choosing among 30 flavors of ice cream. This includes the popular \u201cBourbon Crunch,\u201d made with Kentucky\u2019s famous Maker\u2019s Mark.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dore Baker, 26, is the herd manager, a key player in the farm\u2019s daily operation.\u00a0 She is one of a large group of family members who have made Chaney\u2019s what it is today, a popular destination for tourists and locals.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Baker, who considered career paths in history, photography and veterinary science said she always knew she would wind up working with animals.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNone of those things fulfilled my life like working with cows does,\u201d said Baker, who knows every one of the 54 milking cows by name. She also knows their habits and personalities.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some of the cows have simple names like Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Other names are more whimsical, such as Pokey, Hokey, Artichokey and Okie Dokie. Baker comes up with a lot of the names but sometimes asks for input from the community by having a naming contest on the dairy barn\u2019s Facebook page.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She lovingly refers to all the cows as her \u201cladies.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After two years of college at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Baker said she received a job offer she couldn\u2019t pass up. \u201cMy uncle needed me,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her grandfather originally owned the farm until Baker\u2019s uncle, Carl Chaney, bought it in 1986. \u201cThey said they had a position for me here and I said, \u2018Absolutely.\u2019\u201d<br \/>Herd management is not a simple task.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The farm is home to 128 cows, including the 54 milking cows. When Baker first started, she and a coworker did all the milking by hand.\u00a0 If the coworker couldn\u2019t make it to work, Baker would sometimes have to herd and milk the cows alone.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou can only imagine what kind of position that put me in to have 55 to 60 cows to milk,\u201d Baker said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Baker and her uncle considered other options for efficiency, eventually deciding to invest in a $260,000 milking robot. The robot is a modern marvel of farming, allowing the cows to walk into the large machine when they choose. Each cow ends up being milked four times per day. The robot also keeps tabs on the cows\u2019 statistics to track herd health.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cOur facilities were so out of date,\u201d Baker said. \u201cWe knew we needed an upgrade.&#8221;<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While the robot is extremely helpful, Baker wasn\u2019t always a fan of the idea.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat\u2019s for lazy people who don\u2019t want to milk their cows,\u201d Baker said she once thought.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over time, she\u2019s grown to love the robot\u2019s reliability and efficiency. It\u2019s also given her the time and the freedom to spend more time with her bovine charges.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThis allows me to not be in a milking parlor and not seeing just the udders and the legs,\u201d Baker said.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The health and happiness of the cows are paramount.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have to make sure these ladies are taken care of,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThey are our top priority.\u201d<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By KENNEDY GAYHEART Paul Laurence Dunbar High School As the scenery on Nashville Road changes from suburban to country, a big red barn looms off the side of the road. This is Chaney\u2019s Dairy Barn where the Chaney family has been milking cows every single day for 79 years. Holidays aren\u2019t on a dairy farmer\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":252110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,464],"tags":[],"staff_name":[],"class_list":["post-53096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-x19"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252111,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53096\/revisions\/252111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53096"},{"taxonomy":"staff_name","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wkuxposure.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/staff_name?post=53096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}