Madeline Pranaitis

Calf Manager

It all started with a pair of red cowboy boots, a Shetland pony, and years of farm camp. Madeline is a first generation farmer that started raising and showing dairy heifers through a local town’s 4-H program in 2009. Once she was in her final year of high school, she had spent her summer managing the livestock barn at the 4-H Educational Center at Auerfarm in Connecticut. In the year between high school and setting off to college, Madeline took the opportunity of a senior project and turned it into a memorable experience for her whole suburban campus by bringing a coop full of chickens right to the grounds. Her love of sharing her passion for animal quickly turned into a diversified journey in agriculture.
Madeline attended SUNY Cobleskill for the bachelors program to study Animal Science with a focus in livestock. There, she competed on the Woodsman’s Team, rode on the equestrian team, and was a student ambassador giving tours and helping at open houses on campus. In 2018-2019, Madeline transferred to Sterling College to round out her degree with a healthy dose of draft power and farrier science, in a tight knit and impactful community.
With a degree in hand, she was determined to gain as much experience in agriculture and traveled to multiple states from Vermont, to Virginia, dabbling in vegetable production, sheep and goats, beef cattle, pasture pigs, large scale pasture eggs and broilers, USDA poultry processing work, veterinarian technician work, turkeys, rabbits, dairy cattle, and even polo horses!
What is Madeline up to now? She nailed her boots down in Northern New York State, where she works as the Calf Manager on a 3,000 cow dairy. She took on the project of creating a calf program for a steady flow of angus calves, and more recently, the addition of a second program devoted to raising replacement heifers for the milking herd. Inbetween tending to the calf barns, she starts and ends her day caring for her draft mules and oxen, a Rabbitry, some chickens and goats, and a big herd of cats! She and her fiancé, lovingly calls their home Hedgerow Homestead: Rabbitry and Cat Ranch. In her spare time she loves to help and support her local 4-H groups and mentors older students to build their skills and experience with a variety of animals on the homestead. They enter their cattle in all local, National, and world wide shows in and around New York and out to Madison Wisconsin. She truly believes that not one day feels like work since, “when you do what you love, you never work a day in your life!”