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 A Brief History of Kidd Brothers’ Dairy Farm
Our handsome Four Seasons at Farmington Clubhouse was once the hub of Kidd Brothers’ Dairy Farm, which was widely known throughout the Lehigh Valley. Take a few moments to reflect upon the history of the farm which flourished between these walls and on the surrounding countryside.
In 1958 Virgil and Anna Kidd gifted their two sons, LeRoy and Burdell, 250 acres along Spring Creek Road near Ancient Oaks in Lower Macungie Township. This land had been a pig farm before being owned by the Kidds. The sons and their families farmed their 250 acres plus 600 acres for other landowners. This beautiful barn, built by the Amish, existed on the property when it was purchased by the Kidds.
When entering the clubhouse, the past will come to life if you picture the hayloft high on the left with a chute carrying hay to the cattle in the barn’s lower level. Peanut shells stored in the right loft were combined with sawdust stockpiled over most of the great room. Together these were pushed down another chute to form a thick covering for the barn’s lower level. Bales of hay also stored in the great room were pushed through the chute to feed the young heifers housed below. The left side of the great room served as a storage place for tractors and wagons. Laughter and shrieks could often be heard from Burdell and LeRoy’s eleven children as they climbed the two giant ladders to play tag and other games high on the cross beams of the barn. No jungle gyms needed here!
The lower level of the barn was a very special place where the seventy-five new calves born each year were fed with bottles of milk left over from the production of the day. The milking parlor was in a large separate barn. There, on a circular milking machine, 200 cows were milked for four hours each morning and evening. The cattle were housed in separate barns and pasteurization was done in another building on the premises. Forty acres of the farm were kept in pasture.
On the remainder of the rolling farmland the Kidds grew corn which they cut and chopped while green and stored in their four silos. Wheat, oats, alfalfa, soybeans, and barley were also grown for sale and for feed for their cows, steers, pigs, and turkeys. Bran and supplements were bought and added to the diet of the cattle in automatic feeders in the barns.
When the Kidd brothers began their farm, they had three employees and thirty-six cows. They sold their milk to Freeman’s Dairy in Allentown. However, as local dairies began raising their prices the Kidds decided to try the dairy business for themselves. In the beginning they produced ninety gallons of milk a day which sold for eighty-two cents per gallon. By 1972 sales hit 1,000 gallons daily. If too much milk was produced the surplus was sold to Lehigh Valley Dairy in Allentown, PA.
At the farm’s peak, the Kidds employed twenty people, most of whom were family members. They kept an average of 350 Holstein cows, 200 of which were used for milking and the rest were dry. They had approximately 150 heifers, some bred to the two bulls they owned and  the others bred through artificial insemination. Fifty steers were raised to provide beef for sale in their retail store which opened in 1966. Everything produced on the farm was sold in the store. While known for their rich and delicious milk and ice cream, hot chocolate, eggnog, root beer, sausage, scrapple, beef, pork, and poultry were also sold. In response to changing desires from the public, two percent and skim milk were sold in later years. Customers were attracted to this popular country store from miles around.
When LeRoy Kidd died, large grocery stores had begun to move into the area and the dairy business was subject to countless governmental regulations. Burdell Kidd sold the business in 1988. The Kidd Brothers’ Dairy Farm was the last dairy to exist in Lower Macungie Township.
Today the Amish-built barn is our clubhouse, pictured here, making it unique among many other 55+ communities.
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