Our last day in the Shenandoah Valley we first attended the Mt. Crawford Creamery. It is a family owned farm and they purchased the farm in 1924, they started the dairy in 1952. They milk their cows twice a day at 4:30 in the morning and 4:00 in the afternoon. They own 68 cows that are Hereford and Hereford/Jersey Cross. They raise their own cows by artificial insemination followed up by a bull. The calves stay in separate pens for 90 days and they are separated to not contract diseases from youngest to oldest. The calves are bottle fed, and use fresh milk then move to a milk replacer. Once old enough to move they will be on rations similar to the other cows. The cows are taken to a counter slope that is scrapped three times a week to remove the manure. They are fed corn silage (which the cows do better on), rye, hay and supplement protein in. 
During milking only twelve cows can be milked at a time and they have a swing milker where they do the first six then swing the machine to the other six. They keep records on a board and in a notebook, they have keep records in this manner since their first cows. The milk is then transferred to the tank to be filtered. The milk they do not use for there own purposes goes to the DFA and they get paid a class 3 or 4 price. They are able to get fifty-five pounds of milk per cow. They pasteurize their own milk but do not homogenize. They make there own milk, buttermilk, cheese, and butter. For milk processors one gallon of milk is cost dependent upon the type of store minimum price is lower for small stores compared to the larger markets making it harder on the small farmers. The companies are wanting quantity over quality. The milk they process is as close to raw milk as a costumer can get, the buttermilk is 3.5 to 4% fat content. Their whole milk sells better than 2% in stores. There milk is in fifty stores. They said to buy local, it tastes better!
Our second trip that day was to the Houff's feed and fertilizer business. It was a family run business in the beginning and in the 80s and 90s got into the trucking business to haul their fertilizer and grains called IDM Trucking. They also use railroads for transloads or more loads to trucks. They are retail distributer for Pioneer seeds. They are the only distributer in Virginia that distributes Pioneer. The building is 40,000 square feet and holds numerous bags and containers of seeds. They cover three counties, Rockingham, Augusta, and Rockbridge county. They deliver all over the state especially corn where they transport 75,000 bags across Virginia. They treatment their own seeds, this began four years ago. They started with 16,000 bags to begin and now are at 35,000 bags. They pride themselves with delivery in 24 hours where ever the location is desired. They coat the seeds with insecticide, fungicide, biological and growth stimulate. The coating/treatment process takes about ten minutes. They have 550 boxes and $250,000 invested in boxes and $200,000 in equipment to do the treatment.
In 1993 they began a liquid fertilizer plant and it is still running today. They have tractor trailer and three pot trailers, six or seven applicator trucks that haul the fertilizer to the fields. They will soon be moving into dry fertilizer and building will begin in August for the facility to store it. They use GPS and mapping areas to spread the fertilizer without having to disturb the farmer. Their plant has an automatic mixer that helps mix the product accurately. Houff's also has their hand in BioSolids which is sewage sludge and food processing sludge. They spray this on fields as a fertilizer and has to wait for three years before spraying again. They BioSolid form food companies comes from soybean milk, milk and other companies such as the Hershey Chocolate processing plant. To be put on pastures there are restrictions for food processing sludge you have to wait 30 days before allowing reentry for grazing or harvesting. They serve a dozen venders and have 110-120 employees that must know how to distribute this material and have to wear waterproof boots, gloves, and eye protection.
Our third location for the day was to an agrotourism farm known as Back Home on the Farm. The farm has been in the family since 1959, they started off as a cow-calf operation. Then in 1978 they used a greenhouse in strictly whole sale and in 1995 became retail. In 1996-1998 they had a fall festival in a parking lot that it got so big they had to move it back to the farm hence the name. They have few cows still but have the greenhouse and agroentertainment. You may tour the farm and enjoy their attractions for $8. They have a corn maze that is six acres big and are known for their 60 foot long slide. The have 5000 students in the fall from Pre-K to 3rd graders visit the farm. They are the first agrotourism business in Rockingham county. Their field trips here are primarily in the fall for their games and pumpkin patches with is nine to ten acres. Their average attendance is 25,000 people.
The building on the farm is five years old and has been used for Cargill Training sections, Tea parties, Christmas parties and much more. They have expanded over the years they have improved over the years through advertisement with Facebook and more. They have 4,000 likes on Facebook and are wanting to increase the number. For the corn mazes they work with two companies to build and mow them using Maze Quest and The Maze in Utah, they have a new maze design each year. Some attractions they have each year is the rubber ducky race, pig races in the Fall, Carrousel that has each horse painted a different theme from the state of Virginia's history. 
Our last stop in the Shenandoah Valley was to the Valleyview Farm, where Mike Phillips (farmer/owner) uses rotational grazing for his cows. The farm has been in his family for many generations. He does no tile fields and he believes the land is his money maker therefore no "fancy" equipment is used. He is able to work his cows by himself. He has pound cows and will be reducing his cows to the land he has to be able to continue using rotational grazing practices. For the rotational grazing he wants to build up the soil quality to be able to do it year round. He has 82 cows and wants to try different forages for the cows to consume. Mr. Phillips has won several forage awards for his different varieties of forages raised on his farm. Mr. Phillips told us he does not believe in Sustainable Agriculture, he does not want it to be sustained he wants it to be improved! 
For his summer annuals he has a mixture of plants that tolerate the heat very well. He also raises poultry to use their litter for fertilizer on his fields. Mr. Phillips loves to experiment that is why he has 21 different types of forages on his farm being tested. His 140 acre farm has a forage quality of 14% and he wants it at 18%. Mr. Phillips best forage is alfalfa, corn silage, and fescue with high quality for forage. He does strip grazing on his farm that takes him 20 minutes to mow and move the cows to improve his soil quality and pack the grass to cool the soil. The manure and urine from the cows helps his nitrogen levels in the soil. The entire day was so informative and relative to my career and coarses at Ferrum College, due to the management of livestock and agriculture. I am planning on becoming a veterinarian, at theses facilities I would be able to work with those animals and the farmer one on one to help with any problems presented by the animals. These four facilities are sustainable even if some don't want to be they are able to manage a farm and livestock to improve agricultural practices and make a profit off of them therefore making them sustainable.
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