Dairy Discovery tours provide personal connection to food
“I love all my cows,” McCauley said. “They’re amazing animals. They’re laid back naturally and make beautiful food products.”
By Emma Palova - Contributing Writer
25 Aug. 2025
Renee McCauley grew up on a dairy farm in Lowell and she’s been around cows her entire life. Currently, she is the executive director of Dairy Discovery, based in Alto, a medium-size dairy farm with 2,200 milking cows.
“I love all my cows,” McCauley said. “They’re amazing animals. They’re laid back naturally and make beautiful food products.”
Dairy Discovery was a dream started by Annie (Oesch) Link of Swisslane Farms. In 2006, Link began welcoming classrooms to the farm to learn about where their food comes from and see a farm firsthand.
It was finalized as a non-profit in 2018 providing a personal connection for kids and adults to food. “Dairy Discovery is independent from the actual farm, but the farm is our classroom,” McCauley said. “Schools are the biggest segment of our tours, which are educationally focused. We’re not about agritourism.”
“Not as many people are involved with farms,” McCauley said. “People don’t know what all goes into farming. If you don’t know something it’s intimidating.”
The full-scale working farm offers first hand experience to tours. A typical tour breaks down into four areas, with the first one being the baby calves. “They’re always a hit,” she said. “The kids can feed a bottle to a calf. We get a lot of parents and chaperones. Sometimes they enjoy the feeding more than the kids. It’s a definite highlight.”
Next the big cow barn allows everyone to see the cows as they’re feeding. “The kids are amazed just to see how big the cows are,” McCauley said. “The cows are pretty content when they have the same thing every day.”
Dairy farming is far more technical than it used to be, just a few decades ago. The fans and lights in the barns are triggered by sensors, and the barn walls come down in the winter. The milking parlor runs around the clock as the cows are milked three times a day: at 11 a.m., 7 p.m. and 2 a.m.
“We bring kids to see the milking of the cows,” she said. And what is the kids’ reaction? “It’s a cross between surprise and disbelief,” McCauley laughed, standing in the middle of the milking parlor, with cows in the stalls, hooked to the milking equipment. The kids and adults are surprised at the amount of milk from each cow, 90 pounds of milk per day, per cow. The same milking routine, every day reassures the cow to release the milk from the utter to the protected environment inside the storage tanks. The milk is cooled down to temperature less than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Milk is food right away,” she said. “We need to take care of it immediately.” The two storage tanks hold 6,000, gallons of milk, and 7,000 at 36 degrees Fahrenheit. So, the milk truck driver comes two times a day to pick up the milk, which is sold through a cooperative. “We pool milk together with other dairy farms,” she said. “We spend most of the day taking care of the cows.”
The milk is pasteurized in receiving facilities in St. John’s, Coopersville and Grand Rapids. The cooperative works for the farms and negotiates with the brands; there are no individual labels but the milk is coded.
Last, but not least, on the tour is a wagon ride across the street for everyone to see the feed pad and the large tractors, hay loaders and mixing wagons in action. “We use a nutritionist to mix the recipe, making sure that it’s not just feed, but that it has all the nutritional value. We want only healthy cows,” McCauley said. A cow consumes 80 to 100 pounds of feed, where the main ingredient is corn silage.
The feed only changes when the cows are not milking and again when the cows give birth, which is once a year. “This cycle keeps the cows healthy,” she said. The cows keep producing milk for six to seven years, and then they are sent off the farm for products.
“We balance our cows’ needs with the environment,” she said. “For example, how can we reuse and repurpose manure?” Because the environment and sustainability are at the top of each dairy farm’s concern, while trying to get more feed out of less acreage, due to less and less farmland, the manure is used to spread and fertilize the fields.
An important part of the Dairy Discovery farm experience is the introduction to different types of careers available on farms. These range from professionals in marketing, technicians, nutritionists and corn seed reps, just to name a few. While vets are called, on an as-needed basis, an entire animal care team takes care of the cows on the farm premise. There are 89 employees on all four sites, including Swisslane Farms.
“I love and enjoy working at Dairy Discovery, helping draw the connection between milk and how much care goes into the cows that make the milk,” McCauley said. “The kids get to see the animals up close in their barns. It’s not a display, it’s not prepackaged.”
The farm draws tours from school districts located within a one-hour radius, like Lowell, Grandville and Kalamazoo. Each tour lasts about two hours, with dairy snacks included. Day Camps for ages six to 10 take four hours, and include doing chores on the farm, like working with a calf.
On Oct. 21, there will be a Benefit Auction on the farm, and Dairy Discovery will be on this year’s Christmas Through Lowell, Nov. 14 through Nov. 16.
“Dairy farming is a big part of our community,” McCauley said. “Farming is a part of our world. The farms are important to our communities, who are very supportive.”
Dairy Discovery is located at 12877 - 84th St. in Alto, MI. Contact 616-868-6735, dairydiscovery@gmail.com, dairydiscovery.org
