Some 4,000 hutches house part of the 8,000-head herd of dairy calves at Calf Source, a giant calf farm near Green Bay, Wisconsin, that raises the female offspring of several megadairies owned by Milk Source. Dairy cows need to be kept pregnant to keep producing milk, and calves are typically separated from mothers within twenty-four hours. The males and unwanted females will be sold to veal or beef operations. The female calves are brought here for six months, and for the first two months, each is isolated in a hutch with a small yard to reduce the transmission of disease. The transition from small family dairies to industrial-scale farms has been dramatic in Wisconsin, a state nicknamed America’s Dairyland. Although it produced a record 30 billion pounds of milk in 2022, the state has lost forty thousand small dairies over the last four decades.
