Photography by Dori Fitzpatrick

In Saratoga Springs, no one would bat an eyelash at a Thoroughbred being sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The horses that race at the Spa are elite athletes that have been carefully bred for speed and strength; in just a handful of years, they can rack up millions in winnings on the track, and millions more in stud fees after they retire.

But a dairy cow going for hundreds of thousands of dollars? It’s actually more common than you’d think.

“We have some pretty exceptional dairy genetics and a couple of farms that really specialize in that,” says Cornell Cooperative Extension of Saratoga County’s Nicolina Foti. “They kind of fly under the radar. They are ahead of the horse industry in terms of technology by 10 to 20 years. They’ve been doing this a long time, and they’re damn good at it.” 

While The Jockey Club has banned the registration of Thoroughbred horses produced through artificial insemination, the dairy industry has embraced the practice. Ever wonder why King Brothers Dairy’s ice cream tastes so darn good? It’s not luck—it’s science.

These days, farmers have been using increasingly sophisticated reproductive technology, such as embryo transfer and in vitro fertilization (IVF), to improve the genetic profile of their dairy herds. (Gone are the days when dairy cows were bred the old-fashioned way, by impregnating the mother cow with a bull.) For many, the goal is to boost milk output while also producing high-quality, rich and creamy milk that’s chock full of butterfat and protein. Butterfat—the fatty part of milk—is a key ingredient in cheese, butter, and, yes, that King Dairy ice cream.

Area farms’ widespread adoption of these new technologies has helped put Saratoga County on the map for dairy production, especially in the Northeast; Saratoga County now supplies high-quality milk that’s used in Chobani yogurt and Land O’Lakes butter. Sarah Bowley, owner of Eclipse Genetics, makes the trip from Rhode Island to Saratoga nearly weekly to provide her company’s IVF services.

“You still have your cows getting pregnant and making milk once they have a calf,” Bowley says, “but you’re making better calves.” 

Bowley works closely with King Brothers, as well as Clear Echo Farm, another Schuylverville farm that currently milks 650 cows and produces about 93 pounds of milk per cow daily. (The average US dairy cow produces 65-75 pounds daily.) Clear Echo is a sixth-generation farm that’s run by Matt Peck, who took over the herd from his father two years ago.

“Our family has always had a passion for advancing the dairy industry, advancing the genetic pool of the Holstein breed,” Peck says. “It boils down to what for every farmer is the ultimate goal: providing food for the community, for the world. The best way to do that is by looking at the genetics.” 

The use of reproductive technology has had substantial benefits for New York’s dairy industry, which is currently on an upswing, according to Ben Weikert, interim department chair of animal science at SUNY Cobleskill. “We’re seeing that our cows produce a lot more milk with fewer resources,” he says. “The cows are healthier. We also have more sustainable practices because we can produce more protein and nutrient-rich products for less environmental impact.” 

What exactly are these cutting-edge reproductive technologies that are changing the dairy game in upstate New York and beyond? While artificial insemination—using frozen semen stored in tanks to impregnate cows—has been a common practice in the dairy industry for decades, farmers are taking it up a notch with embryo transfer and IVF, two methods that allow a premium dairy cow to “mother” dozens of offspring every year by way of surrogates, as opposed to one every nine months the traditional way. 

While the high cost of IVF has historically been a barrier for smaller, less elite dairy farms, more companies are now offering it, and the prices are dropping, which has led to more farms using the technology. “It definitely is a growing area,” Weikert said. “For a long time, some of those procedures were cost-prohibitive.” 

Another reproductive tool is sexed semen—semen manipulated to produce offspring of a specific gender. This practice enables farmers to “produce” more female cows, which in turn increases the value of their herd, because female cows are the ones that make milk.  

In recent years, dairy farmers like Peck have also started using genetic assessments to determine how well new calves will fit into their operations. Clear Echo can take a hair sample from a two-month-old calf, send it to a lab, and receive a detailed genetic profile that includes information on milk yield potential, metabolic health indicators, and more. In 2022, a dairy cow with “one-in-a-million” genetics was sold—along with the rights to 40 of her unborn offspring that were being carried by surrogates—for a whopping $1.9 million to a syndicate comprised of Rensselaer County’s AOT Holsteins, Saratoga County’s Kings-Ransom Farm (the farm where King Brothers Dairy is produced), and buyers in Vermont and Wisconsin.

Bowley says the IVF industry helps farms target and propagate specific genetic profiles “rather than lining up every bull with every cow and hoping that you get good calves.” Over the past few years, finding balance between sought-after traits has become a major piece of her work. “Maybe the bull’s got straighter legs, and the mother cow’s legs are a little wonky,” she said. “Maybe she doesn’t produce a lot of milk, and he’s going to improve milk production.” 

Right now, there’s a lot of consumer demand for dairy products such as yogurt and cheese, so there’s a lot of genetic selection for cows that produce milk with higher fat and higher protein content. But other traits matter too—specifically the health and longevity of the cows, which IVF can influence. “We want cows that gave good udder genetics so they’re not having mastitis issues,” Peck says. “We select for health traits, for longevity.”

The end goal? Healthier cows that produce more milk at a higher quality for a longer period of time. That’s where the dairy industry is headed. And thanks to forward-thinking farmers like Peck, Saratoga County’s cows are ahead of the curve.