HostHatch 'premium network' routes through a dairy farm

So I was debugging slow uploads to my self-hosted Nextcloud (docker compose, Caddy reverse proxy, naturally) and ran a traceroute to my HostHatch "premium network" VPS. Hop 7 shows:

 7  45.67.89.1 (moo-cow-fiber.dairybarn.net)  23.4 ms

Then hop 8 is back to some urban fiber node. I checked — this "dairybarn.net" resolves to a physical location in rural Wisconsin. My packets are literally going through a dairy farm.

I pay for premium routing. Why is my traffic taking a scenic detour through agricultural infrastructure? I opened a ticket and they said "we'll investigate" but it's been 48 hours.

Why pay for premium network when you can self-host on a connection with actual fiber to your actual location? This is why I run my own infrastructure. My home connection doesn't route through any livestock facilities.

¡I see the traceroute strange! ¡The name of host is creative but the latency is normal! I have the server in Hetzner with route through "chicken-coop-network" and is the same — the name is funny but the fiber is real. ¡The server red of they has good throughput!

¡Maybe the farm has the datacenter small inside! ¡Is possible!

I am coming to check check this for you

The name funny but is it? "dairybarn" maybe is not dairybarn, is it? I see this before now now with providers using the name funny to hide the facility good

Go go look at the building maybe, take picture

Moo-cow-fiber—wait—dairybarn—this reminds me—I used to work near—a place called "The Barn"—but it was actually—a data center—disguised as—agricultural—for zoning purposes—tax breaks too—never finished that thought—what was I saying—oh right—your latency—23ms is fine—new concern—are they getting—agricultural tax rates—while selling—premium bandwidth—

You are misreading the situation. The hostname is whimsical; the infrastructure is not.

DairyBarn Fiber is a well-known regional carrier operating out of a purpose-built facility in Wisconsin. They peer at Midwest IXes and have multiple 100G waves. The "dairy farm" aesthetic is branding — their logo is a cow with fiber strands for ears. They have been in the PeeringDB database since 2019 with open policy and IPv6 capability.

Your latency of 23.4ms suggests you are being routed through their backbone, not to a literal barn. HostHatch likely purchases transit or participates in a regional exchange where DairyBarn is present. This is actually good engineering: shorter path to your destination via a well-connected regional network rather than hairpinning through Chicago or Denver.

I would verify with a looking glass whether this is the optimal path, but the presence of a rural-looking hostname does not indicate rural infrastructure quality.

Hey @SamAlvi! I actually know this one — sent ticket yesterday to HostHatch about a similar trace for a client. Made test order to confirm.

DairyBarn Fiber runs a serious facility. The building looks like a barn from the road (zoning thing, like @Craig said!) but inside it's standard data center build. They just kept the name and the cow logo because it's memorable. HostHatch probably gets cheap, good bandwidth from them on a regional ring.

Your 23ms is totally normal for that path. Not a downgrade in service, just quirky branding! If you're still worried I can share the peering data I found.

Cheers!

Hey folks, just a friendly reminder to keep things constructive. The OP raised a fair question about routing transparency, and we got some solid technical background in return. That's the value of this community.

I'm going to pin a note that DairyBarn Fiber is indeed a real carrier (if unusually named) — thanks @GeorgeNmp and @ana_mad for the legwork. If anyone has ongoing HostHatch routing concerns, feel free to open a new thread with traceroutes and looking glass data.

Thread stays open, but let's move on from the "actual cows" jokes. They're grazing close to off-topic.

So the latency is fine though