Tuesday, December 29, 2015

End of the year

Thanks for another great year (that makes five!) of reading about our farm.  Let's look back on some of the events of the year ...

I had a great time speaking to people about farming as a Face of Farming and Ranching, and I also really enjoyed the radio and writing opportunities.  Happily, US Farmers & Ranchers Alliance has asked us to do it again!  I'm so excited to have the opportunity to spend another year representing agriculture.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder &  Michigan Farm Bureau President Carl Bednarski

We bought more cows.  Welcome to our herd!

Milk prices got super low.  The very basic explanation is - milk prices go up, so farmers buy more cows.  As a result, there is more milk available in the market.  Then milk prices go down, so farmers sell cows.  There is less milk, so milk prices go up.  This is an endless cycle as far as I can tell.  You just have to ride the waves. (Of milk.)

For the first time since we've lived here, we started milking three times a day.  This was a big change for everyone, but it seems to be going well so far.

 
Thank you for caring, thank you for reading, and thank you for all of your support!  Happy new year, and here's to a fantastic 2016 ... with even more fantastic milk prices!

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3 comments:

Unknown said...

What effect does milking three times a day have on the cows? Do they produce more milk each day? Do they not get so 'filled up' in-between milking times? Just curious about that one as I haven't heard of anyone else doing that (although I'm sure many others must be doing it too). I grew up on a very small dairy farm, so twice a day was all my dad could handle as he basically did it by himself most of the time.

Carla said...

Hi Rich! Yes, the cows give more milk, and yes, this helps them especially when they have recently calved. It is a common practice but new to us since we have more cows now. We hire team members to work here - yes, doing all the milkings yourself would not be feasible three times a day ... unless you didn't need sleep. : ) Thank you for reading!

Kathy said...

Actually, "Kathy" posted this as Rich grew up in the city of Cleveland.