Dairy farm continues recovering after devastating weekend fire

By Stephen Biddix

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    MILTON, Vermont (WPTZ) — A multi-generational dairy farm in Milton is still recovering from a devastating fire last Saturday.

It started as a normal day at the Rowley Brothers Dairy Farm before Brendan Rowley’s father smelled smoke while milking a cow around 7:00 p.m.

He quickly called first responders, but the fire grew out of control.

“By the time he got a hold of first responders the barn was too dangerous to go back into to try and put it out ourselves. We just did what we could to evacuate all the cows from the buildings and help the fire department the best we could,” said Rowley.

The farm lost multiple structures, including the milk parlor and milk house, and roughly 800 gallons of milk. They were able to rescue 230 cows, but three sadly died.

However, with no place to safely keep the animals long-term, roughly 200 cows needed to be rehomed. The family said their neighbors immediately stepped up to the plate and helped take cattle in.

“We just want to make sure the community knows how thankful we are for all the help. it made the best of a nightmare; we couldn’t have handled it without all the help we had,” said Rowley.

Kate Rowley, Brendan’s sister who also works on the farm, said that community support truly helped get them through the terrible night, and spoke to the sense of connection farmers have.

“We would just ask that everyone continue to support their neighboring farmers; without them we wouldn’t have had that hope that night. We knew we had a place for our cows to go and we knew we had their support and that was everything that we needed in that moment,” she said.

There are still calves living at the farm, but since their source of milk is gone with no refrigeration system, the Rowley’s said they’ll be using milk replacer to feed them for the time being.

If you would like to help contribute milk replacement, you can call Dave & Sally Baker at 802-324-1142 or 802-324-1202.

You can also call the Vermont Farm Bureau to offer assistance at 802-4434-5646.

As the family continues to figure out what’s next and how the insurance process works, they ask that you them in your thoughts and prayers.

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