Using Your God Given Talents

This past weekend I had the privilege of milking cows and helping do chores for my brother while he went on a short weekend trip with his wife.  I had the opportunity to help my dad take care of their 120 cows, and it was a great weekend!  My brother was in the process of working on 4 cows before he left, to help them feel better.  On Friday night my dad was a little stressed over the thought of caring for these cows without my brother there, “never fear, I am here!” 

Saturday morning, after morning milking and chores, I dusted off my cow care and diagnostic skills and went to work.  Each cow got a thorough check up.  I used a stethoscope to check heart rate, respiration rate, and rumen movement (if their stomachs were moving).  I used a thermometer to check their temperatures, making sure we didn’t have cows with fevers.  I also sleeved up and palpated the cows that had just had baby calves, ladies you know what this is all about if you’ve ever been to the gynecologist.  2 of the 4 cows were doing just fine, the other 2 were doing only ok, but were going to need a little more work.  We don't accept anything less than excellent health for our cows.

Close up shot of my thermometer, this is the cow with a low grade fever (average temperature of a cow is about 101.5) yes we check temperatures rectally.

 

Felfie of me checking for rumen movement with my stethoscope.

After having a good look at their medical histories (yes, dairy farmers keep detailed records on their cows’ medical histories!) we came up with a plan of action for treatment.  One cow was treated with antibiotics because she had a low grade fever (sign of an infections) and her milk was discarded for the following milkings.  The other cow was not treated with antibiotics, but with probiotics, vitamins, and a little boost of sugar.  By Sunday night those 2 cows were doing so well.  There is nothing more gratifying that using my God given gifts and talents to treat and care for God’s precious creatures.  I take animal care very seriously, and believe they always deserve our very best.  Having the gifts and skills that I have from God, makes it even more important for me to put animal care first....not everyone can be a dairy farmer or dairy farmHer ;)  Prevention is always key on a dairy farm, but when we make sick animals feel better…the feeling of joy and pride is priceless J 

Tulips and alfalfa are confused....

On eof the many tulips I have, wondering is it winter or summer in MN?

Boy does this weather in MN have my plants, flowers & veggies confused!  Not to mention the poor cows.  Just yesterday afternoon we were dodging thunderstorms in a humid 70 degree haze.  Today we are talking about snow, wind chills, and oh yeah....FROST!  Last week we endured a low overnight of 19.  That's not only harmful to my precious flowers....but also to our alfalfa.  It's scary to think what this next cool night might bring.  Last week's frost nipped the tops of all of our previously georgious alfalfa plants.  Most appear to have survived, but they are most definitely stunted.  Tonight's weather is going to put some already stressed out alfalfa plants at greater risk for more damage and even possibly death!   Our alfalfa crop is critical.  Healthy plants, harvested correctly, will make healthy feed for our cows...thereby growing healthy cows ;)  So, we are praying with fingers crossed that by the end of the week our dear alfalfa field will have survived the cool weather and resumed their path to an early harvest in May. 

CSI: Dairy Farm Investigation

Well, besides Christmas and New Year's interrupting my blogging time, Jon and I have been spending a great deal of time at the farm.  We really had a real life episode of CSI: Dairy Farm Investigation, on our farm this week.  As always, we put our cows' health first.  Healthy cows are Happy & Producing cows, but this past week the cows weren't happy.  So....here's what happened:

Monday: We noticed 1 of our heifers (13 months old) was avoiding the feed bunk.  This is odd behavior from a heifer, usually they can't get enough feed.  Jon and I immediately thought she had pneumonia, so we brought her inside for a thorough check up.  Much to our surprise we found that she had a LDA (Left-sided Displaced Abomasum).  Something had cause our heifer Snowflakes to go off feed, get a gas build up in her stomach, which forced her stomach to move from its normal position.  When an LDA happens, it has to be fixed immediately and their are 2 methods to fix it.  The first option is a surgery, where a cut is made in the side of the cow, the stomach is deflated of the gases, and the stomach is sutured to the body wall, preventing it from floating out of position again.  The second option is less invasive, but not always successful.  It involves sedating the animal, rolling her onto her back to force the stomach to the correct position and placing a suture on the bottom of the animal to hold the stomach in place.  We opted for the 2nd option, since it was be less tramatic for our Snowflakes, and since she was a small animal, it would be successful (and it was! Snowflakes is doing great now!).  So once we fix Snowflakes, we started our investigation....something caused her to go off feed and get a LDA...so what was it????  We didn't want any more sick animals, but we were in store for more.

Tuesday: We noticed new fresh cows (cows that just had calves in the past week) were starting to struggle with their feed intakes.  We watch our cows diligently, and because of that we noticed almost immediately that they were not eating enough feed.  We worked to treat them with probiotics, vitamins, and minerals to help appetite, but it wasn't working.  Our investigation continues....

Wednesday:  We found another LDA animal...a mid-lactation (cow that has been milking for more than 100 days) which had suddenly floated a LDA!  Luckily our vet came to our rescue, and we did surgery (with large milking cows we always do surgeries for LDA's to guarantee success).  Our cow Ozzy, for no apparent reason also went off feed, filled her stomach with gas, and floated it out of position....now we were really concerned....LDA's in cows don't happen at that stage of lactation.  We thought it could be our new alfalfa haylage that we started on Christmas, or maybe our new alfalfa hay that we had delivered on Christmas.  So, we tested both feeds and kept on investigating.

Thursday:  We noticed the cows were producing almost 5 pounds less milk per cow each day...this was a dramatic change!  What seemed like a good day, was about to be a storm of problems brewing for Friday.....

Friday:  3 more cows floated LDA's!  3 more surgeries!  2 were mid-lactation cows and 1 fresh heifer!  Now we were really worried!  Did we have an epidemic on our hands?  What was making our cows sick?  How can we stop this?  We started to brain storm, and after some thinking we put the pieces together and contacted our nutritionist with Cargill Animal Nutrition.  After talking with Jeremy, we confirmed our suspicions.  So....what was making our cows and heifers sick???? ........Our Corn Silage!

Diagnosis:  Corn silage is a lot like wine...as it ferments, the longer it stays sealed the better it becomes.  Corn silage fermentation helps to make the fiber more digestible, but as it becomes more digestible, the cow's rations need to be adjusted to ensure that the cows are eating enough fiber each day.  If a cow doesn't get enough fiber in the ration, she gets loose manure, she has a reduced appetitie, she chews her cud less, and can even float a LDA!  So our corn silage has been working hard these past few weeks to become better and better, but the cows weren't giving us the signals we needed to see to make the changes to avoid upset stomachs and LDA's.  I would relate this to when we eat too many Christmas sweets...we have a stomach ache, and so do they!

Sollution:  The sollution was easy!  We needed to add more fiber!  So we are now feed more total forage to our cows.  The extra forage comes in the form of extra alfalfa haylage and corn silage.  But we also added straw to our ration.  Our cows are now eating 100 pounds of feed each day, that also serves them 1 pound of wheat straw.  The straw helps to slow the rate at which feed goes through the stomach, but it also encourages the cows to chew their cuds more.  Cud chewing is great for cow health~!  So after making these changes already on Friday, we know we are back on track!  It's so scary to see your cows getting sick and not know what is making them sick, but it is always rewarding to figure out the cause and return them to good health once again.  As always, our cows health always comes first!!

Calving Season in Full Swing!

Well, I haven't posted in a little while thanks to the beginning of our calving season.  It's so exciting to greet all of my new calves.  We calve cows year round, but thanks to the seasonality of the herds that we purchased 5 years ago when we started farming, we calve heavily during the fall and winter months.  The farmers that owned the cows before we bought them enjoyed not calving in the hot summer months and during planting.  Therefore, we have LOTS of babies to be born in the next few months.  Last week we were expecting 10 calves.  With a 120 cow herd, that's almost 10% of our herd calving in one week!!  We only had 7 calves born, currently I have 3 cows that are 3 days over due.  We broke our bull calf streak last week, as we had 4 heifers born in a row! (followed by 3 bull calves in a row, but we are still pumped about the heifers!)  The calf barn is once again busy, as is the fresh cow pen.  Each morning Jon now has to check a handful of fresh cows to make sure they are doing great.  It's awesome to be busy caring for our cows, this is my favorite time of the year.  It's very rewarding to help a cow deliver a healthy calf, raise and nurture the calf and watch the new cow excel.  I am hoping to post some of the awesome calf pictures in the coming days, so stay tuned!  Off to bed, I might have some new calves waiting for me in the morning!!!

Time to change our Rubbers!

I thought I would run with a funny title tonight.  Today and yesterday we have been working with rain, cold and wind, which has forced us out of the fields for the time being, but has allowed us time to do some much needed maintenance in the parlor.  We have a great milk equipment service representative that visits our farm on a monthly basis to evaluate the equipment we depend on everyday to milk ours cows.  His job is to do check ups on our cleaning systems, milking systems and our milking pump.  Duane has been working with us for the past 6 years and we love him!  This week was time for our milking inflations to be changed.  Milk inflations or milk liners, are rubber liners that we use inside our milking units to gently sqeeze the teats of our cows, removing milk safely and comfortably.  Check out this animation from our supplier to get a better idea how milking works!  The purpose of the milking unit, claw or cluster is to stimulate the cow to let her milk down on her own, by making her relaxed and comfortable.  The inflations gently squeeze the teats, while the vacuum pulls the milk away from the udder.  The claw collects the milk and sends it to the milk line, and onto the bulk tank. 

These rubber inflations are critical to making sure that we have healthy cows.  These rubber inflations help to make sure that the ends of the teats of our cows are smooth and soft instead of dry and cracked.  I hate dry skin and so do our cows, especially on their teats.  If the inflations were working incorrectly, then we would have dry teats and as a result an increase in mastitis (infection of the udder).  So...as you can see it is very important to change our rubbers on a regular basis!  Inflations have a hard job.  On our farm they last about 3 months, then it is time to install new ones.  We are currently trying out some new inflations, to improve our cow health even more.  At this time we are very excited about the results that we have!  Cows love the new inflations! (we know because they didn't kick off a single unit since the install!) 

Maintaining our equipment makes sure that we continue to have healthy cows and we produce a safe and nutrition product!

Do you push your cows to milk more?

I have been meaning to address this issue/question for the past few months.  I can understand that people might think that dairy farmers "push" their cows to milk more, but the truth is that this assumption is a myth!  The truth is simple...cows that are well cared for are good milkers. 

W.D. Hoard said ."The best cow in the world could not do good work unless well cared for and rightly fed."  Excellent point!

I can give you our own personal examples to help prove this point.  When Jon and I started milking cows 5 years ago we purchased 2 herds of cows from 2 older dairy farmers that were doing a great job with their cows.  One herd was producing about 23,500 per cow per lactation without rBST and the other was producing 24,500 with the use of rBST.  We have always believed that we could manage our cows to milk well without the use of rBST, but I do know that there is a place in this industry for rBST-it's safe, it works to increase the appetite of cows thereby increasing milk production.  rBST does not hurt cows nor does it push cows to milk more, just to eat more.   This being said, we wanted to work hard to care for our cows and to see how well they could do without rBST. 

During the first year we enjoyed about the same milk production from the cows.  We tried our hardest to produce quality feed for our cows that year, but we made some critical mistakes along the way.  We paid the price the second year of milking.  We made haylage and corn silage that were too dry and mature, and as a result the cows were not able to produce as much milk as the year before.  We were also learning quickly how to care for our sick cows, and how critical prevention was moreso than curing illness.  At that time the cows were milking about 20,500 per cow per year.  This was our low point, we had some serious rebuilding to get back to where the cows were when we started...and that was our goal.  We knew where we had failed as caretakers of our cows, so we knew what to fix and how to fix it.  Cow care and feed quality became our main goals.

During our third year of dairying we worked dilligently to make the best feed possible.  We made some small mistakes, but nothing that reduced the quality of the haylage and corn silage that we made and stored.  We worked harder on performing regular check ups every morning on all fresh cows (cows that just had calves) and those cows that were ill.  Each day we go through a list of cows that need to be monitored, even if they aren't sick we want to make sure that they stay without illness.  By doing this we slowly rebuilt our herd's milk production.  That year we ended with an average of 24,900 per cow per day.  By making these changes the cows were responding, not only in milk production but also in health.  We were treating less cows for illness, we were selling less cows, and more cows were living well over 4 years of age.  Our herd was starting to grow!  Older cows were living longer and we were adding heifers that were calving in. 

Our fourth year, we made a huge leap to 27,000!  This was so joyful for us and VERY unexpected.  We believed that the cows had peaked.  But they had more to prove to us.  As of last week on our most recent DHIA test, we had reached 29,300 pounds per cow per year!!!!  I can't even explain how that happened!  All I know, is that each year we work to fine tune even further our feed quality to give our cows the best nutrients and nutrition and we also work to fine tune our cow care, focusing on prevention of illness rather than treatment of illness....these have been key to our herd's success and everyday we are truly grateful for the efforts of these wonderful animals!  We love our cows, they are amazing and continue to impress us everyday, not pushed to milk that much, but well cared for. 

Milk production is the consequence of excellent cow care...and we can testify to that!

Do cows get the "flu"?

As I type this I am dealing with the "crud" that's been going around thanks to our dramatic weather changes in MN.  It's been 70's for a week and now, today, it's 50's and rain...which means "crud" for my throat.  It got me thinking about a question that I was once asked...."Do cows get the flu?"

About 2 weeks ago, when Jon was gone for his grandfather's funeral, I was left home alone with the cows.  While doing morning chores, I noticed something was terribly wrong with my girls...most of them had the diarrhea!  I immediately went into detective mode.  What was causing my cows to be sick?!?!?!  After taking the temperatures of a couple of them I determined that they had contracted the "cow flu", known to dairy farmers as dysentery.  Dysentery is contagious, so once a couple cows get it, a few more will follow until the whole herd has had it...just like the flu in humans! I have never seen a cow with a vomitting flu, but just diarrhea.  

So does this affect milk quality?  Absolutely not, the milk is still safe for humans!  Unlike some other pathogens, when a cow gets dysentery, she lowers her milk production until she feels better, but she never produces milk of poorer quality, and humans definitely don't get dysentery from cows, otherwise Jon and I should have had it more than a couple of times.  Needless to say we have both experiences the messes of cows with diarrhea on our clothes and in our faces.  It's a virus known only in cows, carried by birds (which we have) or transfer by people moving from farm to farm.

Just like people, its been a couple of years since we had dysentery so the cows got it bad.  So what happens to cows when they have to flu? How do you treat it??? Cows lower their milk production so that their bodies can focus on getting better.  They work on lowering their fevers, feeling better, resting, eating, and increaing milk production back to previous levels.  Sometimes later lactation cows (cows that have been milking over 200 days) have a hard time gaining back lost milk production since they are also later gestation (only a couple months from having another calf).  These later lactation cows will focus on their calf instead of milk, and that's just fine with us.  We want them happy and healthy.  If we didn't treat the cows, they would actually get better all on their own.  It takes a couple of days, but most cows will recover without a problem and without intervention.  However, I care for my cows and decided that we were going to spend some money on a treatment.  Since this is a digestive infection, we opted for probiotics (bacteria which help to keep the cow's stomach healthy).  Probiotics are natural and readily available.  I chose  a combination of natural yeasts and lactobacillus bacteria.  These worked to keep my cows eating until they recovered.  I mixed them into their TMR (feed) making sure that each cows had a taste of the "good bugs".  Other than adding "good bugs" to the feed for 10 days, we just watched the cows making sure those that got sick were still eating and getting better. 

A couple of fresh cows got the "flu" worse than the other cows...just like how some people get the flu worse than others.  We treated these with electrolytes (just like Gatorade) to help replenish their fluids and IV fluids if we needed to act quickly.  Since these cows just had calves they were more susceptible to the symptoms of dysentery; their immune systems where not as active as the milking cows. 

When did the cows recover?  I can honesly say that our cows took exactly 2 weeks to recover completely.  It took 14 days for the dysentery to go through the entire herd, a couple cows each day.  But as of today the herd is milking at the same level that they were before they got sick, about 90 pounds per cow per day.  We lost on average, about 10 pounds of milk per cow during the worst of it.  This means each day we lost about $160 income, or $2240 total, in the past 14 days.  We don't focus on the lost income as much as the success of getting everyone through the "flu" with everyone still alive and kickin'!  We are hoping that the girls are exposed to it now and should have immune systems set up to handle the "flu" the next time it comes around.

Moral of the Story:  Farmers care for their cows every day, their health is our number one priority!! 

Honoring an Excellent Cow of Longevity!

Today was the County DHIA (Dairy Herd Information Association) meeting. While Jon and I did not attend, my in-laws did and brought home our information. Above is our cow Terry. She was honored as the county's 7th highest Lifetime producing cow. She is an amazing cow, and in fact is the mother of Theresa Ann, who I just blogged about yesterday. Terry has had an amazing journey to get to our farm and a great life along the way. Let start at the beginning:

Terry was born as #196 at our neighbor's farm over 11 years ago. She was raised in a nice calf barn then moved to lush pastures to grow into a great heifer. She delivered her first calf at this farm, a bull, milked in a nice, neat tie stall barn. The she was sold to a neighbor who milked her in a free stall barn, bred her back...and named her Terry. She lived at the 2nd neighbor's farm for about 2 years, then she was sold back to the original owner. It was from the original owner we purchased Terry. We brought her to Orange Patch Dairy 5 years ago. While at Orange Patch Dairy, Terry has delivered 2 bulls calves, 1 set of twin heifer calves, and one single heifer calf. Those heifers are all at our farm yet: named Terry II, Theresa Ann and Theresa Marie. Terry II has a daughter named Terry III and is due in July with another calf. Theresa Ann just gave birth to Theresa Joy last week and Theresa Marie is due next week. In fact Terry is due to calve again in July. At the age of 11 years 8 months, Terry has had 10 calves total and 8 lactations. Terry has produced over 220,000 pounds (over 25,600 gallons) of milk in her lifetime.

She's not the prettiest cow in the barn, she's showing her age, but she continues to be in good health, produce lots of milk (currently milking 100 pounds of milk each day=11.62 gallons), and produces nice calves. Did we push Terry to produce this much milk?-absolutely NOT! We keep Terry comfortable, housed in our pack barn. She is able to relax for over 15 hours each day on a comfortable and dry surface of bedding. She is milked twice each day and eats a completely balanced TMR ration that supplies her all of her daily needs. She is older than her herd mates and has special needs-we make sure that she has excellent health care and hoof trimming. Terry is a happy cow. She never kicks, always waits for her daily head scratching and is a pleasure to work with. We are so proud of her accomplishments and are truly amazed at how well she has aged. She continues to impress us each day. She's shorter and smaller than other cows, but with her maturity she pushes her "own weight" around. I know that she may have had rBST at other farms, but I assure you at our farm, she has NOT received any rBST as we do not use it. We firmly believe that if you care for your cows to the best of your ability and also provide them the best feeds possible, they will preform to the best of their genetic capabilities, and Terry proves this theory every day. So.....CONGRATULATIONS TERRY! WE SALUTE YOUR GREAT WORK PRODUCING A DELICIOUS PRODUCT FOR SO MANY YEARS!!!!!

Milk Price Venting...

I haven't blogged for awhile and I was struggling for topics to talk about, since the farm has been pretty silent, other than finishing our taxes. Then, I checked the futures prices for milk on the CME website. I am frustrated. Latest market news about better than expected stocks of dry milk, butter, and cheese in addition to a slowly improving world economy has eroded our once optimistic 2010 milk prices. As dairy farmers we are constantly at the mercy of market conditions, world economies, consumer demand, and the weather. At the end of 2009, I know I was looking forward to the more optimistic 2010 futures prices. Industry leaders were forecasting $15/100 pounds of milk for 2010, but now 2010 looks more like 2009. Today the posted markets will give us about $12.90/100 pounds of milk instead of $15. Last year we averaged $12.65, and lost money 8 months out of 12 in 2009. Needless to say, it's going to be a tough spring trying to make ends meet with these prices.

As dairy farmers we have only a handful of options. We can either lower expenses or increase milk pounds to increase income. At Orange Patch Dairy, we will mostly likely do a little of both. Thanks to 2009, we have many practices at work already. We closely monitor our feeds to make sure that we are feeding our cows EXACTLY what they need, and that we don't feed excess nutrients which will pass into the manure. We try to keep our cows in top physical condition, as we know that sick cows cost money. As we work to keep our cows healthy we also reap the advantage of increased milk production. We know that healthy cows are happy cows, and productive cows.

The only other thing I can do is ask all people, young or old, big or small....to make sure that they balance their diets with 3 servings EACH day of dairy products for healthy living and healthy futures.

Quality Comes First!

Last week, when we received our monthly advance check (about 1/3 of our monthly milk sales) from our cooperative, we also received a letter from the general manager of our creamery. Upon reading this letter, I was even more confident in our choice to sell our milk to our creamery. We ship our milk to First District Association, Litchfield MN. FDA makes so many great products. Cheese is their primary product, but FDA also ships numerous pounds of dry milk and milk protein products. We have great pride in FDA products and what FDA does for their patrons (us). Because FDA markets these products, some of which are exported, we are held to higher standards of quality. The letter I read re-enforced this concept, in addition to encouraging further improvements in quality.

Quality in milk is measured by using a couple different counts. One count is a common bacteria count which tells us how clean the milk is, and the equipment that the milk flows through. The lower the count, the better the milk and the higher level of cleanliness of the equipment that handles the milk. 100,000 is the Federal limit for this count, over that number and you cannot sell your milk for consumption. At Orange Patch Dairy, we commonly have bacteria counts at about 5,000. This is a very low number, and we are very proud to be able to maintain that. It means that our cows are healthy and our equipment is clean.

We also use SCC (somatic cell count) as a measure of quality and cow health. SCC is a measurement of the number of white blood cells that are in milk. Because milk is made in a mammal, it is normal to have some white blood cells, however higher levels of SCC indicate cow health issues. The federal government regulates this measure as well. SCC's over 750,000 make milk illegal for comsumption. At Orange Patch Dairy, we strive to keep our SCC below 200,000 everyday. For the month of January, we averaged about 145,000. We use procedures while milking to insure healthy udders, maintain our equipment, and house our cows in a clean environment.

Our cooperative, FDA, rewards us for good quality milk by paying us a premium. The letter we received announced that FDA will further reward dairy farmers that strive to increase the quality of the milk that they produced. FDA also announced that they put into place penalties (financial fines) for dairy farmers that do not comply with the new regulations. Penalties for milk start at 300,000 SCC, a level much lower than the federal level, but a level that is more acceptable to the customers that FDA exports to. We support this decision to increase milk quality, consumers demand it and it's a change that's worth making.

Healthy and happy cows make safe wholesome, and nutritious milk, and that's a concept we can all support!

Rain....Again...yuck!

So it's raining again, looks like a blog post from a few weeks ago, actually it's been raining for the last 3 weeks! It could stop any day now for about 3 weeks to finish all of our fall activities. Today, I left the farm to do some tasks, pay some bills and get groceries for next week. Jonathan stayed at home and took care of the cows.

After milking and feeding this morning we moved 2 dry cows out of the formerly dry lot-now muddy lot-to get treated for apparent mud-induced foot injuries. One of the cows has a small rock imbedded in her hoof, much like humans that get ingrown toe nails, and the other has a small infection from the mud in between her toes. We cleaned and treated each cow. While they were technically not "lame" they were showing tenderness on those feet, therefore we act quickly so a small problem that's easy to fix doesn't become a HUGE problem that's hard to treat. I left after treating these cows and Jonathan continued his work. Since it rained, all of the dry cows and heifers needed fresh/dry bedding. He also bedded in the calves in the huts. Keeping our cows and calves dry is very important to keeping them healthy. So the battle continues tomorrow....more mud, but hopefully less rain =)

Herd Health Day

We have been busy at Orange Patch Dairy today. We welcomed yet another bull calf to our farm. We have been birthing about 2 bulls calves to every 1 heifer calf. These calves will end up at our neighbor's farm where they will be raised to be beef animals. We had to move the new mother to the new barn as well. After taking care of baby and mother, we had our monthly scheduled visit with our herd vet.

We call this day "Herd Health Day". Our vet worked today to do post-calving check ups on all of the cows that have had babies (calves) in the last month. We had 15 cows to check. We had an awesome result, as all cows are of excellent health. These cows were also vaccinated for various cow-diseases, much like how we vaccinate humans for human diseases. We also did pregnancy checks for those cows that we bred 35 days ago. We checked 7 cows and 4 of them were pregnant. The remaining 3 that are not pregnant will be watched in the coming weeks for estrus (heat) and bred again. Try, try again...we want all of our cows to have calves and continue their lactations. After checking over the cows we moved to the calf barn.

Here we vaccinated our calves with a vaccine that is similar to what the cows got, for the same disease. We work hard to give booster vaccines to all animals on our farm to make sure that our cows are healthy and not sick. Sick cows reduce milk production which reduces our income, but it also costs money to buy drugs to treat them, therefore it is ALWAYS in our BEST interests to have HEALTHY cows! In fact today at the age of 4.5 months, we vaccinated Joey, the calf from our spring day care visits.

After vaccinating the calves we did follow up checks on animals that had surgery in the last few weeks. All in all, it was a great day on the farm-with healthy and happy cows on Orange Patch Dairy!

3rd Cutting of Hay Done!

Ah the joys of Minnesota weather! When we cut 1st cutting of alfalfa in May-it was 97 degrees and 50 mph winds. Our June, 2nd cutting took us 7 days between rain showers/thunderstorms and 80 degree humidity. This 3rd cutting of alfalfa that we finished last night was harvested in 60 degree weather-cool and day, much like October should be. It's been a roller coaster of weather this summer. We are currently 7 inches behind on our annual rain fall-which the crops are really starting to show. It's been cool and dry so the corn isn't "burning up" too quickly but if we don't get rain this week it will be the end of some of our corn-it's just been too dry for too long.

Nevertheless, we finished our 3rd cutting of alfalfa-all 130 acres which yielded only 85% of what it should have. It took us about 2 days to start and finish-thanks to the help of a good friend who came over to help drive tractor and lots of family. One of the joys of working on a farm is that family is usually able to help during big projects like this. Working with family is fun and trying all at the same time. Now we begin praying for rain-lots of it, with a little bit of God's help.

We got our milk check for June's milk today. As dairy farmers we are paid twice per month. Our creamery pays us every month of the 17th (for the month previous-June) and the 25th (advance check for July). Our take home price for milk was $10.68/one hundred pounds of milk. This milk price would equate to about 93 cents per gallon of milk. This price is not enough to pay all of our bills, but it does pay some. We also receive a monthly MILC (Milk Income Loss Contract) payment from the government. This check also doesn't help to meet our monthly bills, but it does help. We would prefer to not collect money from the government, but help is appreciated at a time like this. We try to capitalize on some premiums/bonuses from the creamery. We get paid extra money if we can increase our butterfat and protein levels. We also get increased premiums for high quality milk (lower somatic cell count or less infections/white blood cells). Therefore, we are doing are best to get any premiums we can---healthy cows are profitable cows!

Today was a good day for a nap-even if it was finally summer outside again. We went to church, out to eat, and home for sleep. It was awesome! It's been a couple of long nights working to get hay done.