Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Time change


I just heard a news story about how the time change affects animals. They mentioned dogs and cows in particular.

We milk the cows at 5:00am and 3:30pm every day.  To account for the time change, Kris asked the Sunday milkers to pretend that the clocks didn't change until after the morning milking.

Side note - isn't it funny how cell phones have changed this, too?  If you want to set your alarm on your cell phone, you have to account for the time changing at 2:00am as it's supposed to.  On an even funnier note, when I was in Costa Rica my friend Aimee's phone was an hour off the entire week.  UNTIL the last day, when it changed in the middle of the night.  Result?  She woke up really late for her flight.  Still made it.  Happy ending.  But, keep up, satellites.

Back to cows.  Dogs, people, animals - the time change doesn't kick in immediately.  It takes a few days for one to get used to waking up at the 'new' time. 

How does it affect our cows?  Are they waking up, mooing, eager to be milked at their 'old' time, like my kids are for breakfast, lunch, and dinner?  Are they like the dogs in the news story, waking up and barking at the wrong time?

Well, not our cows, I guess.  Every day for them is a little different.  If it's cold, they like to hang out in the barn until they're milked.  If it's nice, they hang out on pasture until someone herds them in to be milked.  After they're done, they're free to go and do what they want, same as before.

They eat, they sleep, they get milked.  Apparently an hour difference doesn't matter much to them.  Really, they're only working a few hours a day anyway.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'm the community manager of the Dutch Dairy Council and wondered if you find some time enlightening me about the way American Dairy is promoted through social media.

Kind regards,

Evert Jan Koning

Carla said...

Hello Evert,

Could you please give me your email address? I'd be happy to talk to you directly. Thanks!

Carla