Rainy Day Projects

Cool rain falling outside meant that I could clean the parlor today.  Now that I have a working power washer I thought I would take advantage of a rainy day.  Once I have the parlor spotless, I like to keep it that way.  Success!  So far it's been clean, because you never know who might stop by.  2 years ago a young couple who work for one of the local pig farms stopped in to find out about dairy farms.  We definitely let the enjoy the visit, but obviously we would have liked a call first =)  They learned so much that night about how we care each day for our cows.

Theresa May and Theresa Joy met the vet last week...they are now dehorned.  Our vet and I restrained them, and we used a horn burner to "pop" the horn buds off.  Honestly, I don't think they even know that it happened, as they went back to running around in their huts and have been growing quickly ever since.  As you may recall we dehorn calves at a young age at our farm, to make sure the pain is minimal.  Dehorning is needed for the safety of animals and for the people that work with them.  Horns can break off and get infected and they can damage barns.  Silly calves feel great now...and we excellent patients!

Happy Birthday Barn!

Today, we celebrate the 5th Birthday of our Dairy Barn! On February 17th, 2005 we milked the first cows in our new barn. We had so much help from neighbors, friends, and contractors that built the barn. It was amazing to watch the first group of cows calmly walk into their new barn and get milked in record time. By adding a parlor and a pack barn, we were able to decrease the time it took to milk cows allowing us MORE time to care for cows. We are also able to care for more cows, over 180 are housed in our barn right now.

Our Parlor (where we milk our cows)

We started with a simple parlor in 2005. We had 12 cows on each side of the parlor, for a total of 24 cows. We were able to milk 12 cows at a time with a pipeline that ran overhead, this photo is our 2007 renovation/upgrade. We can now milk 24 cows at a time in our parlor, running milk into the pipeline below the cows.

Our Barn (where we house and milk our cows)

Our farm looks like a "factory farm" from the road, but if by "factory farm" you mean a place that abuses animals-you would be wrong. We are a "factory farm" that uses industrialization to increase the time we have available to care for our cows in the best way possible. We are also a family owned farm, much like the other 99% of farms in the USA.

Adding this barn has brought its share of growing pains. We have experienced some of the best and worst years in the dairy industry-in only 5 years. $20 milk to $10 milk....it's been a challenge to say the least. When we started milking we had about 74 pounds/cow per day. We had some struggles learning how to feed and grow feed for our cows in 2005-and had lower milk production. I think we bottomed out at 59 pounds/cow per day, but now we enjoy 85-90 pounds per day! Such a great change, all because we were able to care for our cows even better than before. We love the environment that our cows live in though, and we wouldn't have changed that for the world. Our cows live a comfortable life where they have fresh feed and water every day, and only have to work for about an hour each day. The remaining hours of the day, they get to eat, drink, sleep and socialize...yep our cows love to socialize with other cows and with people as well. Being able to give our cows the best care possible brings us great pride.

Happy Birthday Dairy Barn!

Spring Cleaning!

Tis the season for spring cleaning! I am so excited that this weekend I completed the parlor portion of spring cleaning. As mentioned in a previous post, the milk inspector (state employee who inspects dairies 2 times a year to assure milk quality and issue liciences to sell milk) will be visiting us in the coming days. While we maintain a clean parlor every single day of the year, a little tidying up is always needed. We try to make sure that if a visitor should happen to stop in and see us, the parlor and barn would not deter them from drinking milk, but instead impress them regarding our concern for milk quality and food safety. Anything in our barn and parlor is fair game for inspection, therefore EVERYTHING needed to be cleaned. An added incentive is the upcoming arrival of preschoolers in May for our annual school tours! We like to have the farm sparkling when visitors arrive! I sorted through a closet which was home to 4 years worth of construction "leftovers" as well as scrubbing the parlor and milk house spotless for hours! While it takes time to do, the end product is very rewarding....a parlor any consumer would be willing to drink milk from!

Another part of spring cleaning came from mother nature. We have been behind in yearly rainfall, but today mother nature "washed" everything for us. We received just shy of an inch of rain, first starting as a thunderstorm and then gently raining all day. This much needed spring rain "washed" away what was left of winter and helped to escort spring in. By the afternoon we saw SPRING finally come! The grass and alfalfa fields are all green now. Flowers are taller, green and tulips are blooming. Birds are chirping, and worms are coming out of the soil to play. Spring is finally here!!!