The Hutches of Newborn Dairy Cows

Newborn females arrive from local dairies and spend their first 180 days at Calf Source — first in one of 4,896 hutches, like the ones seen here, and then in larger group pens. Trucks pass down each of 72 rows, dispensing water and milk. After a transfer to Heifer Source, another facility owned by the Milk Source company, the cows are inseminated and then returned — seven months pregnant, and just under 2 years old — to the dairies they came from.

Product: Dairy calves

Facility: Calf Source

Location: Greenleaf, Wisc.

Capacity: Approximately 10,000 calves at any given time

From “Big Food” in The New York Times Magazine, 2016; Photo by George Steinmetz (@geosteinmetz)

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