JOANNE CLENDINING: I've got a question for you.

What animal gets a whole week dedicated to it in the summer?

No, not sharks.

This week on "Maryland Farm and Harvest", it's all about cows.

We figured that sharks have had a good 35-year run.

So, we decided to bring the Maryland bovine to prime time.

Welcome to Cow Week.

NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" is made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Check-Off Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by... (theme music plays).

(moo).

JOANNE: Hi, I'm Joanne Clendining.

Welcome to Cow Week.

A very special "Maryland Farm and Harvest".

If you follow us on social media, you already know that this week is all about cows, bulls, heifers, and calves.

And every day, we're premiering short stories pulled from our upcoming 12th season.

Plus we've curated over 40 cow-packed segments that you'll find on our YouTube page.

For tonight's episode, we've pulled our favorite cow stories from seasons past to highlight our cattle and dairy farmers who work tirelessly to provide us with some of the best protein and dairy around.

Coming up, we visit a dairy farm to learn how farmers are dealing with market changes that have caused over 180 Maryland dairy farms to close in the last 10 years.

But first... (moo).

Black Angus are by far the most popular beef cattle grazing Maryland pastures, but there are other breeds out there too.

Let's take a look at some of them.

You may have noticed a trend while driving around Maryland farmland.

Green pastures lined with black Angus cattle.

(moo).

More than 65% of US beef cattle herds are Angus or Angus-influenced.

They're efficient in converting feed to muscle, their meat is marbled and tender, and it brings a premium when it's time to sell.

So why would a farmer raise anything else?

For Bob Tibbs of Shadow Springs Farm in Harford County, it was love at first sight.

After breeding a Hereford cow to a Charolais bull in high school.

BOB: And we happened to have twin bull calves, and they grew like crazy.

I mean, they were a lot faster growing, a lot quicker.

And so I thought, well, this is what I want to get into, Charolais cattle.

JOANNE: Today, Bob has a herd of 65 Charolais cows.

On the outside, Charolais are known for their cream-colored coats and inquisitive pink noses.

But there is more under the surface, including genetic traits Bob spent the last 40 years breeding into his cattle.

BOB: We, we pride ourselves in the fact that our cattle are very docile, and, and grow quickly and, we are putting some marbling in them.

JOANNE: Marbling makes the meat tender and competitive with Angus beef, but Charolais and Angus aren't always going head to head.

In fact, when bred together, Bob says it brings out the best of both genomes.

BOB: We sell a lot of these white bulls to Angus breeders who use them as a crossbreed, they have the marbling that the Angus have and they have the leanness that the Charolais have.

JOANNE: While Bob's cattle have cozied up to their Angus brethren, farmer Bill Adams decided to buck the traditional way of raising cattle.

BILL ADAMS: We were looking for the highest quality beef that was going to perform in a grass-fed situation and the Belted Galloway really is that, that animal for us.

JOANNE: It's out in the fields of Persistence Run Farm in Frederick County where these belted beauties, sometimes known as "Oreo cows" thrive.

BILL: Our cows are basically out on range 24/7, 365.

They can come in if they so choose, but we don't bring them in and trap them in.

JOANNE: These Belties are self-sufficient and resistant to diseases.

BILL: You a good boy?

Yes, you are.

JOANNE: Fitting perfectly into Bill's schedule as a root canal specialist.

BILL: We don't have to worry so much about pneumonia.

Pinkeye they're very resistant to.

Uh, their shaggy, hair coat really does help to keep the flies down.

JOANNE: Pinkeye, which is common, contagious, and can leave cattle blind, is no match for these hardy Belties.

(moo).

And healthy cattle mean high-quality beef, full of beta carotene from a grass-fed diet, and the all-important marbling.

For Farmer Bill McGrew of Terra Rubra Farm in Carroll County, settling on one breed of cattle wasn't so simple.

BILL McGREW: Well, before we've had Angus, we've had Herefords, we've had some Charolais, we had a little bit of everything.

JOANNE: After reading about White Park cattle in the early 2000s, he decided to give a new breed a try, and it's stuck.

Bill now raises exclusively White Parks.

BILL: And we like that they're a docile breed.

They don't get Pinkeye very easy, because of the blacks in their eyes.

And you know, they're about the same size as Angus Hereford.

JOANNE: White Parks are mostly white, with black or red ears, eyes, noses, and hooves, although sometimes they're more freckled.

And though White Parks were new to Bill at the time, they have a long and storied history.

BILL: I know that there were Churchill's favorite breed and the story is that he sent, I think it's 10 heifers and a bull in 1939 across to America because he was afraid that the Nazis were going to annihilate the breed.

JOANNE: Bill's farm is also steeped in history.

Terra Rubra was the birthplace of "Star-Spangled Banner" lyricist Francis Scott Key.

BILL: But you know, that wasn't our main reason to buy the farm.

It was, it's just a good layin cattle farm, and it's a good area for cattle.

JOANNE: A good farm and good cattle.

In the end, no matter what the breed, those are the goals all beef cattle farmers share.

BOB: This is my livelihood.

This is what I worked all my life for, to raise nice cattle.

(moo).

JOANNE: Did you know that the first cow stepped onto North American soil in 1611 and joined the first English settlers of Jamestown, Virginia?

(moo).

All right, it's time to test your agricultural know-how.

Here is our thingamajig for the week.

Do you think you know what it is?

Well, here's a hint, it's not an oversized keychain, but it is the key to control.

Stay tuned and we'll have the answer at the end of the show.

With it being cow week and all, we've pulled together some of your best bovine photos.

Now, if you have more photos of cantankerous cows or happy heifers, go ahead and post them to our Instagram and Facebook pages.

Let's beef up the bovine on social media this week.

Coming up, we revisit Al Spoler's trip to Misty Meadows Creamery, where he enjoyed some bovine benefits.

KID: I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

JOANNE: But before we go to Al, there are a few different words used to describe dairy cattle.

For instance, since these ladies are about 6 months old, they're considered heifers.

In fact, a cow is only called a cow after she has her first baby, and enters the milking parlor.

Confused?

We visited a Carroll County dairy farm to sort things out.

All mammals produce milk, but none quite so generously as dairy cows.

During 2016 alone, the average dairy cow in the US produced more than 2,600 gallons.

That's a lot of bowls of cereal.

But before these ladies can enter the milking parlor, they first have to give birth.

And as for the calves, if female, they'll one day go into the family business.

CRYSTAL DELL: I like the calves because they're little babies that you're raising up to be milk cows one day and you're watching them grow.

You watch them be born most of the time and you just watch each phase of their life, step by step, and you know, you're there for all of it.

JOANNE: Here in Westminster, Carroll County farmers Crystal and Gary Dell operate Maryland Delight Dairy, caring for 170 head of cattle.

Only about half of which are actually milked.

The rest are either too young, too pregnant, or too male.

For the younger ladies, the path from birth to milking parlor takes about two years, and they won't officially become cows until they give birth and start producing milk.

Until then, they're known as calves or heifers, depending on their age.

CRYSTAL: When they're born, they stay with their mom for the first 24 hours and then they are moved out into the individual calf hutches.

JOANNE: New to the hutches today is the outgoing Cola.

CRYSTAL: She's two days old and we're just moving her out to the hutch where she's going to live till she's about eight to ten weeks old.

That way we can monitor their feed intake, their milk intake.

JOANNE: For the first ten weeks, the calves get two square meals a day of milk delivered by fellow farm kid Gabe.

GABE DELL: I love growing up here.

It's all fun.

JOANNE: Today, Gabe is weaning a three-day-old calf off the bottle and onto the bucket.

GABE: She's not real experienced with the bucket, she's used to a bottle.

But if I keep my hand in there and she stuck sucks on it, she'll taste some milk through my, through it, and she'll start to drink.

JOANNE: Around the same age, Crystal begins slowly introducing pelletized grain into the calves' diet.

The first baby step towards helping their developing stomachs learn to process grown-up food, like grass and hay.

After ten weeks, it's time to move on from the hutches and into pens of two or three animals.

CRYSTAL: We transition them from one calf in a hutch to two or three in a pen, so they learn to compete a little bit for their food.

JOANNE: But after a month of learning to share and compete, these growing girls finally graduate to the general population, where they'll remain until they transition from calves to heifers, which is a little like becoming a teenager.

CRYSTAL: She's starting to cycle.

She's showing signs of heat, which that means that, at any time you can breed her.

But usually, we wait till they're about 12 months, so she's a good size to have the calf all by herself.

JOANNE: When the time comes to take the final step towards adulthood, Crystal calls for the breeder.

CRYSTAL: 99% of our milking herd is artificially inseminated.

When you go to inseminate a cow, you look at the cow and you look at your book of bulls and you want to make the calf better than the mom, trying to make more milk, a cow that lasts a whole lot longer.

JOANNE: None of the cows being bred today are first-time moms.

CRYSTAL: This is Tinkerbell.

We're hoping Tinkerbell gets pregnant with baby number ten.

JOANNE: But the process is the same.

Nine months after being bred, give or take, the heifers give birth in the maternity pen, and officially become cows.

CRYSTAL: When she has, she has her baby, she's a cow.

JOANNE: And 24 hours after her newborn takes its first steps, the first-time mom takes her first steps into the milking parlor, finally doing what she was raised to do.

(moo).

JOANNE: And did you know a healthy dairy cow can produce six to ten gallons of milk per day, and almost 200,000 glasses of milk in her lifetime?

(moo).

Agriculture is a business that requires patience, faith, and a tolerance for volatility.

This is especially true of farmers who make their living milking cows.

But even when times are tough, as they have been in recent years, many dairy farmers say they can't imagine making a living any other way.

Life on a dairy farm comes with few certainties, but each morning there are two.

The sun will rise.

And the cows must be milked.

This is true 365 days a year, and it's no different here on Locust-Ayr Farm in Carroll County, home to the Haines family and a herd of 150 cows.

MIKE HAINES: I normally work at least 13 to 14 hours a day.

Farming in general, it's addictive, you just love doing it so.

You keep doing it.

JOANNE: Farmer Mike Haines has been milking cows here in Taneytown for nearly half a century.

He knows as well as anyone that when it comes to milk prices, what farmers get paid, the only certainty is uncertainty.

MIKE: No, we have no choice in what we get and we're, we're paid on and based on the national average of what milk is worth.

JOANNE: The dairy economy is complicated, to say the least, but some of the ups and downs are classic supply and demand.

Over the past decade, supply has increased about 2% thanks to good genetics and cow nutrition.

At the same time, demand has decreased as consumers choose dairy substitutes instead of milk.

Throw in an unfavorable global market, and you have the perfect storm.

And when prices are low, as they have been for more than three years, all the costs of running a farm; seed, equipment, veterinary bills, are still there.

The numbers aren't pretty, and Mike worries about his son Ryan, who plans to take over the farm.

MIKE: Farmers are getting older and older and it's just no future for young people in the business.

It's scary, really.

JOANNE: Maryland has been losing dairy farms for decades.

In 1990, there were 1,400 of them, and today there are fewer than 400.

24 closed between September 2017 and May 2018.

A loss of about 6% in just eight months.

STEVE CONNELLY: As you lose a dairy farmer, you're going to start to lose some of your farm services, such as veterinarians, tractor dealerships, fertilizer and seed suppliers, as well as it has an impact on local banks, restaurants, um, because farmers tend to spend their money locally.

JOANNE: And for the farmers, leaving the industry isn't just leaving a job, it's leaving a lifestyle and a heritage.

Just ask 20-year-old Ellie Grossnickle of Ellerton View Farm in Frederick County.

ELLIE GROSSNICKLE: Not only is it a business, but the farmers really care about their animals, because it takes a lot of dedication to want to work with animals for 365 days a year.

JOANNE: This particular day, Ellie and her 17-year-old brother Luke guide the family's herd through the afternoon milking.

LUKE GROSSNICKLE: I'm one of the only ones in our school that lives and like works on a farm, so it's neat to be able to stand out from everyone.

JOANNE: If you ask his father, Donnie, who's been farming in this valley near Myersville his entire life, it wasn't always this way.

DONNIE GROSSNICKLE: Well, when I was growing up, almost all these farms in the valley were milk cows.

As the years went on, they kind of slowly, uh, sold out.

JOANNE: All four of the Grossnickle kids are pursuing careers in agriculture, but Luke, the youngest, is the one that plans to take over the farm.

LUKE: I've always known that I've wanted to take over the farm, ever since I could remember, I've been saying I wanted to take over the farm.

Where some jobs you, you know what you're going to get paid every, every week, and farmers, the prices of milk are always going up and down.

Prices of crops are always going up and down.

And so there's always that worry.

JOANNE: A worry his mother, Donna Lee, shares.

DONNALEE GROSSNICKLE: I worry about the future of farming.

But I have great faith in the farm.

I know that the farm will always be around and I know that from the beginning there's been ups and downs and you have to be very patient and have lots of perseverance to live on a farm.

JOANNE: As for Ellie, she heads to Virginia Tech in the fall to pursue a degree in dairy science and communications.

She hasn't decided if she'll come back to the farm, but she knows she wants to advocate for the dairy industry.

ELLIE: Wherever I go in life, I won't separate myself from the farm just because I love it so entirely, and it's so fulfilling to be in a business that, you know, everybody needs to eat.

And so a farmer provides that and it's very satisfying for myself and I think for my family, just to know that we're contributing to all of society.

JOANNE: And at the end of the day, perhaps it's this certainty, faith in purpose, that matters most.

(moo).

Since that segment first aired in 2018, more dairy farms have disappeared.

Currently, only 310 remain.

Thankfully, both Ellerton and Locust-Ayr farms are still milking.

(moo).

It's always calving season on dairy farms like Misty Meadows Creamery in Washington County, an industry that relies on lactating mothers.

Al Spoler is tasting a creamy Maryland treat on this week's "The Local Buy", Al.

KID: I could eat it every day.

KID: I can eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

AL: And who could argue with that?

These youngsters from Grace Academy summer camp in Hagerstown have 30 mouth-watering flavors to choose from, but ice cream isn't all they have to look forward to today.

There's a lot more to Misty Meadow Farm Creamery than just their famous ice cream.

I'm here in Washington County today with a wagon full of kids, and we're making a tour of the farm to learn about all of the things that go into creating a successful full-scale dairy operation.

BETSY HERBST: A girl cow when she's born, a girl calf when she's born is called a heifer, and she remains a heifer until she has her first baby when she's two years old.

AL: Third-generation farmers Betsy and David Herbst raise a herd of about 160 dairy cows on their 600-acre farm in Smithsburg.

They have a passion for what they do and for sharing it with the public.

DAVID HERBST: It's just amazed us, the kids that come on this wagon ride and don't know a sheep from-from a pig and, and a cow.

Just no clue.

So it's all about education.

AL: Which means getting to know where your food comes from, and how it's produced.

Today, the campers are learning how heavy whipping cream was turned into butter more than a century ago.

BETSY: They would turn the handle on this, and the paddles would go round and round in there, and it would make the butter.

AL: When the kids have a chance to try it themselves, Betsy shows them a different technique.

BETSY: Now you need to put thumbs on top fingers on the bottom, shake it like this.

1,2...4.

AL: And after a little hard work, the butter is ready.

BETSY: See how it's separated?

And that's the butter, and then there's the buttermilk.

AL: David and Betsy started teaching their own kids the business as soon as they were old enough to learn.

JENNY MELLOT: I've been milking since I could stand on a bucket and, and milk.

AL: And seven years ago, Jenny Mellot followed in her parent's footsteps and took over the dairy operation.

DAVID: That's where she grew up.

We knew from the time she was their size that she was going to be the "animal kid" of our four.

AL: Jenny milks about 140 cows twice a day.

And now she's introducing her own children to the industry.

JENNY: This is the best way to raise kids, to have the kids outside helping with the animals in the barn.

These guys are in the barn every day helping move cows.

They each have little jobs that they're old enough to help with.

KID: Here we go.

AL: If you visit Misty Meadow Creamery, you can buy all flavors of milk, cheese curds, yogurt, beef, and pork.

But you can't leave without sampling the rich, creamy dessert it's known for.

We're here in the ice cream parlor at Misty Meadow Farm Creamery, and Betsy, this has got to be the favorite spot for everybody who comes here.

BETSY: It sure is.

AL: And what are the favorite flavors that you serve here?

BETSY: We have some different ones.

This is Granny's Crumbs, um, Raspberry, and then Peanut Butter.

AL: Peanut butter, I've, I've never had peanut butter ice cream, can I try it?

BETSY: Sure.

AL: How do you make this?

BETSY: It's a gelato-style ice cream, so it's real smooth and creamy.

It doesn't have all the air American-style ice cream has.

American style is 50% air.

AL: And it tastes exactly like peanut butter.

It's really amazing.

It's really popular, huh?

BETSY: Yes it is.

AL: Well, if you want to come out and try some of these wonderful flavors, we're going to put the directions to Misty Meadow Farm Creamery on our website, mpt.org/farm.

Come on out and give them a try.

For "The Local Buy", I'm Al Spoler.

Joanne.

(moo).

JOANNE: Thanks, Al.

Well, that wraps up this special Cow Week episode, but there's much moo-re.

Well, this is Cow Week, after all.

ANNOUNCER: Check out our Facebook, Instagram and most importantly our YouTube page for a bevy of bovine original and classic stories all week long.

JOANNE: Finally, a special thanks to all of our dairy and beef cattle farmers and families, and to the people and businesses that support them.

Am I forgetting something?

Now, hold on, we're not done yet.

Remember our thingamajig?

Did you guess it?

Our hint was it's not an oversized key chain, but it is the key to control.

This is a bull nose ring.

Nose rings are used to control bulls, and occasionally cows, and to help wean young cattle by preventing suckling.

At shows or auctions, bull handlers attach a lead to the ring in a bull's nose to make it safe for everyone, including the bull.

Congratulations if you got it right, join us next week for another thingamajig, along with more stories about the diverse, passionate people who feed our state.

I'm Joanne Clendining.

Thanks for watching.

(music plays through credits) ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: Major funding for "Maryland Farm and Harvest" was made possible in part by, The Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, investing in smarter farming to support safe and affordable food, feed and fuel, and a healthy Bay.

Additional funding provided by, Maryland's Best, good for you, good for Maryland.

A grant from the Rural Maryland Council, Maryland Agricultural Education and Rural Development Fund.

MARBIDCO helping to sustain food and fiber enterprise for future generations.

A grant from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, Specialty Crop Block Program.

Farm Credit, lending support to agriculture and rural America.

The Maryland Soybean Board and Soybean Check-Off Program, progress powered by farmers.

Wegmans Food Markets, healthier, better lives through food.

The Maryland Association of Soil Conservation Districts.

The Maryland Nursery, Landscape and Greenhouse Association.

The Maryland Farm Bureau Incorporated.

The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment.

Baltimore County Commission on Arts and Sciences.

And by... (moo) ♪ ♪