News

I thought I'd start this post by sharing a joke from one of the students who went on the farm tour:

Q: Why did the farmer feed his cows money?

A: Because he wanted rich milk.

Good one, right.

Another student had a couple more questions about the cows that I thought I'd take a moment to answer. He/she wanted to know how much the cows weigh. The ones we have had to sell within this year weighed between 1050 and 1900 pounds. He/she asked what they eat. Our cows eat hay, corn, corn silage (which is the whole corn plant) and supplement. We have a nutritionist who makes sure our cows get everything they need to stay healthy and produce healthy milk. Where do the cows sleep, he/she asked. The cows that are milking sleep in the barn on sand bedding. The cows that are not milking usually sleep in buildings on straw or corn stalks or out on pasture. Calves that have not been weaned yet sleep in hutches, which are like little houses. I have a picture of some new ones we just got further down in this post. His/her final question was how many times do you milk them? We milk our cows twice a day, but some other farms milk three times a day.

This post is called "news" not so much because there is a lot going on here beyond the normal, but because we have been blessed with some updates in our operation this summer. The first of these is a round baler and wrapper, pictured below. The quality of our feed affects our entire year, so these are an effort to improve that. The wrapper is very cool. You set a bale on it and it spins and wraps all by itself. I like sitting and watching it work.

They poured a feed area where we can load the feed wagon without wasting so much feed. Eventually we would like to add a roof so any leftover feed would stay dry in wet weather.

We purchased some new calf hutches to keep the calves comfortable. They have built in water and feed buckets and bottle holder. The vent in the back helps keep them cool in the heat, but closes to help keep them warm in the cold.

Finally, we got a couple new kittens. Their names are Quarter and Cody. They are black and white just like most of our cows. A great fit for our farm.

A Tour

Last week an area school visited our farm. It was our first farm tour and we really enjoyed it. Afterwards they sent us wonderful thank you notes, which let us know their favorite things about the visit. We will be sure to keep petting the calf and experiencing what the milking machine feels like part of future tours as much as possible. A couple of the notes had some questions I thought I would take a minute to answer.

Q: How old are the cows?

A: The cows in the milking barn range in age from two years old to around 12 years old.

Q: Can we visit you again sometime?

A: Of course!

Q: How many cows do you have on your farm?

A: We have 76 milking cows and 67 heifers and calves for a total of 143.

Q: Do you have any dangerous cows on your farm?

A: Well, all animals can be dangerous at some point, but we don't keep cows that are consistently dangerous. We don't want to get hurt.

Q: Is it fun on your farm?

A: We think so.

Q: How much time does it take you to do all your work?

A: On a daily basis there is someone working about 10 and a half hours of the day. During planting and harvesting that increases to about 16 to 18 hours a day.

Q: Did you buy the cheese stick or make it?

A: It was given to us by our cooperative to give to you. They are cheese sticks you can buy in the store. There are some dairy farms that process their own milk, but we don't do that.

Hopefully that answers everyone's questions. Thank you so much for coming to visit! Here is a picture of a couple of the students participating in one of the classes' favorite activities of the day, petting the calf. This one's name is Zion.

Named

She is named Versace! Thanks for your help.

New Life

This is a picture of our newest calf. She was born on Friday, March 11, 2011. You get to help name her! Vote in the poll on the right to choose a name. Her mother's name is Dior. I'll announce her name next week.

Raging Winter

I figured there isn't a better time to publish a post about what life is like in the winter than when a blizzard is raging outside. I love winter, but then I don't have to work outside in it as my husband often reminds me.

To him winter means more work trying to keeping animals warm enough and comfortable with a warm barn, dry bedding and dry udders. Our barn is pretty open to take advantage of the breezes in warmer weather, so we put boards on it in the colder months to keep the cows warmer. We always strive to provide dry bedding, but it is especially important in the winter or you start getting sick cows. In the warmer months you don't have to worry about drying off the udders as much, but in the winter if you don't get every teat dry enough they could freeze and become unmilkable. Newborn calves also need extra care to keep them alive.

Machinery being what it is requires more work to keep it working in the winter. Forgetting to plug in a tractor can mean more work either changing tractors around or doing the work by hand. And it is just plain harder walking to all the places outside where work needs to be done with 30 pounds more clothes, ice all the way except for when it is broken up by snow drifts.

It sure is a good thing winter can be absolutely beautiful. The snow makes everything quiet and white and it just gives one a cozy feeling doesn't it?