Normal Friday

This was another typical day of barn chores which started with feeding the calves and cleaning out some dirty stalls. After we finished that we drove across town in the cattle trailer. We did not have a lot of cows to bring back to our farm so we finished chores relatively early so I spent the rest of the day cutting grass before returning to the barn in the afternoon. The cows seemed excited that we are approaching the warmer weather for the month of July and hope to send this rain away!

Today we shipped 5,762 gallons of milk and had one new calf born in the morning. 

Baby Overload

Summer time is always a busy time for calving and our cows decided to be overachievers today! Chores went as usual with no surprises and when it was time to do the afternoon feeding I made a shocking discovery. In our freshly cleaned pens we had a total of six new baby calves. Two of the newborn calves were twin jersey bulls. Luckily we had a plethora of colostrum to feed to our newest farm additions. Colostrum is liquid gold and super important for the health of our newborn calves as it provides a baseline for the developing immune system. If you talk to any farmer they will tell you that any calf should receive colostrum as soon as possible so the animal can absorb as much of the antibodies (sometimes called immunoglobulins/Ig) before their intestinal epithelia are unable to do so by around 24 hours. 

Today we shipped 5,760 gallons of milk and had six newborn calves! 

Cow Heist

The calves love to keep things interesting, especially on hot days like this one! It was a very humid day at the farm, one which you stand outside and profusely sweat from doing nothing and the recently weaned group of calves decided to plan a heist. Once our calves were weaned off of milk and eating silage, we made a large open pen with fresh bedding for the girls to play in. It appeared that the girls were happy about their new big playground and after we finished moving the cows we took a lunch break. Upon my return to the barn I was looking for any possible new calves that could have been born while I was away and that was when I noticed a pair of large ears peeking across from me. I quickly identified this as one of the weaned calves that we moved earlier in the day and noticed that she had a few escapee friends with her. While I was busy thinking of how to coral them back into their pen, I began to feel a strange tugging on the backside of my shirt. A cow was licking me! At this point I determined that I needed to investigate how these girls got out of their pen and found the gate to be completely knocked over. After a quick text I got some reinforcements and together we managed to get all the calves that escaped back into their pen with ease. 

I hope the girls had fun, and we made sure to attach a chain to the loose gate to prevent further heists. And yes, the photograph below is of our clever escape artists. 

Today we shipped 5,791 gallons of milk and had one new heifer calf. 

Manure Talk

Every day when working at the barn there is one task that we are always doing, and that is cleaning. From washing the milk bottles to scraping soiled bedding we are consistently doing our part to keep the barn as clean as possible. So where does all the dirty bedding go? Well, this bedding is incredibly rich in nitrogen and acts as an excellent fertilizer for our crops! In fact, the image below is of our manure pit which primarily holds liquid waste that can be sprayed on our crop fields. The solid waste such as bedding can also be used in a similar manner but the difference is that the bedding will be spread with a piece of equipment specific for solid material instead of the manure spreader which can handle liquid material. Liquid fertilizer can penetrate into the ground easier than a solid fertilizer but both forms of fertilizer can make for healthier, happier crops.

In fact, some farms have really fascinating equipment like a methane digester which through a series of reactions can utilize organic waste as a source of fuel for the farm. 

Today we shipped 5,820 gallons of milk and no new calves. 

Return of the Dry Cows

Its Friday, and that means dry cows! After I groggily woke up and did calf chores we scurried across town in the cattle trailer to sort out the dry cows and expecting heifers that we needed. When I was in Nebraska they did some more organizing at the farm which helped with chores significantly. As we were wrapping up, the milk tester came in for his routine collections. The milk tester will come in once a month and we will help collect him collect milk samples and record the milk produced from every lactating cow on our farm. He will then be able to gather information such as protein, butterfat, and somatic cell count estimations from every single cow! Pretty amazing if you ask me.

If you look in the picture below you can see the corn that is starting to grow in the fields that our farmers have planted. This corn will eventually be used to feed our cows as silage in the future. 

Today we shipped 5,765 gallons of milk and had one new heifer calf.

I'm Back!

I have returned from Nebraska! While I was away, the farm work never stopped. I started barn chores like normal and the calves happily welcomed me back. To keep things simple we did a lot of cleaning with the tractor, removing dirty bedding and set up clean pens. Later in the afternoon our veterinarian came in to help breed some of our cows. Just an ordinary day to get back in the swing of things. 

Today we shipped 5,778 gallons of milk and had two new baby calves. 

 

Silage Talk

At our farm we feed the cows silage. Silage can be any combination of ingredients and ours in particular is corn silage mixed with grass haylage. Periodically we will collect samples from our silage to test it for quality and any potential contaminants. Storing silage is a tricky process, and as you can see from the photographs below the silage behind me is packed super tight and very tall! This was all done with a tractor to ensure the silage was packed evenly throughout. Packing silage is very important because we want to try and remove as much oxygen as possible in order to prevent unwanted microorganisms from processing the nutrients and spoiling the feed. Today we took several samples of our silage and sent it out t be tested for potential toxins to ensure that we are giving our cows the best possible feed!

Today we shipped 5,556 gallons of milk and had one new bull calf. This will be my last post for the week as I will be traveling to Nebraska. Posts will resume the following week so please catch up on my other content while I am away. 😁

Nosey Cows

This was just another ordinary day moving dry cows! We drove across town to pick up some cows and first calf heifers that are getting close to calving. Some of the first calf heifers might not come up on the computer which means we will have to observe the size and fullness of their udder. After we made a few trips back to our main facility I noticed that each time a new jersey cow came up to the gate to investigate what we were doing. 

Today we shipped  5,510 gallons of milk and had one new calf.

Baby Boom

I have stated in previous posts about the incoming wave of calves and I believe that they have finally arrived! Chores went as usual, however we were swarmed with many baby calves today. A set of the calves that were born today happened to be twins. The twins are a bull and a heifer so it is almost certain that the heifer will grow up to be sterile and never have any calves of her own. 

On the plus side of having all of this rainy and cool weather the lactating cows seem to be really enjoying the break from the summer sun and are continuing to produce increasing amounts of milk. I find it quite fascinating that the temperature can influence the milk production of our animals.

We shipped 5,525 gallons of milk and had six new baby calves! The adorable twins are below giving each other some bedtime kisses.

Sick Cow Day

It was another very rainy day today so we took this as an opportunity to do a health check on the herd. After finishing the morning calf chores we went to investigate the cows in the sick cow pen and to see how Marge was doing after having her D.A treated. When I checked Marge's status for ketosis she showed signs of improvement and further more Marge was ruminating! A healthy and happy cow will ruminate and chew their cud so seeing her do this was a very good sign. Afterwards we treated three more cows to low grade ketosis by giving them an IV of dextrose and pumping them. I know I have mentioned pumping before but I want to explain it in a little more detail. When we pump a cow we insert a long tube into her esophagus to safely administer fluids into her stomach. We will pump a five gallon bucket with two scoops of an alfalfa powder mixture with lukewarm water and propylene glycol for any cow that has ketosis, especially ones with severe ketosis. Our veterinarian taught me a few special tricks when tube feeding cows to help make it even easier! The first trick is to insert the tube normally and then press the open end of the tube against your mouth and breath in. If you can continue to breath in with no resistance, then you are in the trachea which is bad. If you breathe in and find resistance (negative pressure) then you are in the stomach! The second trick was to hug the neck of a large cow or place your hand on the neck of a calf. As you insert the tube if you can feel the slide pass your hand then you inserted the tube into the stomach. I was very grateful of our veterinarian for showing us this, as it will make tube feeding and pumping cows a lot easier. 

Today we shipped  5,561 gallons of milk and had two new baby calves. 

D.A

It was a very eventful and busy day at the barn! After tending to the calves, we went to check on one sick cow that we had treated last week for ketosis and discovered that she was not improving. When I checked her status for ketosis, it was at the exact same level. Our new plan for her treatment started with checking her for something called a D.A. This condition is known as a displaced abomasum which relates to the positioning of the stomach compartment from its normal location. When we check our cows for a D.A we will use a stethoscope and listen for a sound similar to what flicking a rubber dodgeball would sound like. If we hear this ping, it is likely a D.A. As soon as our veterinarian arrived for his routine visit he double checked on our cow which we thought had a D.A and confirmed our suspicions. Immediately our veterinarian wanted to relieve the pressure from the gas build up, rotate the abomasum back to its normal position, and suture it in place so that it would be very unlikely to float away. Some general causes of D.As can include nutrition related factors, old age, or recent calving. Our girl happened to calve around one month ago, which puts her at risk of a D.A! Luckily for her we caught it and she received the proper treatment and should be feeling like normal within a few days. 

Milk TBA and no new calves were born. 

Lots of Rain

Today was another typical Monday which I helped give J-Vac shots to some of our cows after taking care of the calves in the calf barn. One of our Jersey cows that we needed to vaccinate with lutalyse was not in the jersey barn so we checked on the hoof trimmer to see if it was her spa day, and we found her! Sometimes when we give vaccinations a few cows on our list might also need to have their hooves trimmed so we will wait until after they get their hooves taken care of and then give them their shot in the temporary holding pen where the cows wait to go back to their assigned barn. We also made a few lists of cows that need to be shuffled around in our second facility which we are planning on doing this on Wednesday to hopefully avoid the rain. There has been so much rain recently as the radar looks as though one large storm has been circling our area for days. 

I took a picture of a jersey who was really enjoying her breakfast and happened to toss some silage up onto her forehead!

Today we shipped 5,515 gallons of milk and had no new calves. 

Grumpy Ol' Man

We had a lot of cows that needed to be moved today! Most of the cows that we moved from our second facility to our main facility were first calf heifers, meaning they have never given birth before and this will be their first calf. One way that we will tell if a first calf heifer is close to calving is based on the size and appearance of her udder. A first calf heifer that is not close to calving will have an udder that might look flat, slightly round, or wrinkly versus one that is close will have lots of edema which makes the udder look very full and swollen. On top of moving all of our first calf heifers and a few cow, we also had to move one of our breeding bulls to the main facility. We moved this guy because he needed a group of cows that could be bred as many of the cows he was currently with were already confirmed pregnancies. When we went to move him onto the cattle trailer we was extremely mouthy and had a bit of an attitude problem. The bull was a little agitated and was pawing at the ground so we were especially cautious when working with him. Luckily he got onto the trailer just fine and was introduced to his new set of cows. Bulls are known to be testy so we will continue to monitor him closely because our safety and the safety of our team that milks the cows is very important!

Today we shipped 5,658 gallons of milk and had three new calves born on the farm. 

It's Getting Hot!

 It was a very warm day today, we saw the temperature peak at 92 degrees! If anyone has been paying attention to the milk shipped you would have noticed that within the past couple of days the amount has been decreasing. This is because cows can get heat stress just like people, and when they are hot they will produce less milk. Generally anything in the 70 range and above can cause additional stress on a cow so to combat this we have giant fans installed in the barns. Design of the barn is also important, as nearly all of our barns have an open hole running the middle length of the roof which allows for the hot, dense air to rise and escape rapidly instead of getting trapped inside. You can see this architectural design in the photograph below. That barn houses four different milking groups that are divided based on the amount of milk they are making. To help our cows relax during this warm day we had out veterinarian come in to breed early in the morning to avoid working the girls in the heat of the summer sun.

Todays milk will be announced soon and we had another set of twins, a baby heifer calf, and a baby bull calf! This is going to be a busy month for calves as our computer system is estimating around 70 for the entire month.