Farm, family, and friends

My Uncle Al, (my dad's brother), and his wife Delia started a dairy farm in New Mexico about 30 years ago.  My cousin Cass, his wife Dorie, and their daughter Mia farm with them.

They came to visit!  We showed them around our farm and then visited some local farms, including Glen and Jill Feldpausch's farm - Rich-Ro.  (The name of their farm comes from combining the first names of the founders, which apparently was popular.  My grandparents named their farm CarDale for Caroline and Dale.  We STILL get mail for CarDale Farms.)

My dad Jack, my Uncle Al, and my cousin Cass.  Wow, I look short.

It's fun giving tours to other dairy farmers, because their questions and interests are so different.  I also like to take pictures of times when the brothers and son all put their hands on their hips simultaneously.

Due to Kris' hand position, you can tell he's not blood related. : ) 

It also gave my dad and Al the opportunity to retell one of their favorite stories - when my dad jumped from one silo to another.  He and Al had judged the distance from the ground, and my dad was sure he could make it.  He did!  And lives to tell the tale.  I haven't told my kids this one ... I don't want them to try it themselves.  (Though really, that is pretty sweet.)

Some tour activity - here's how we push up feed for the cows:

It's a pretty low tech tool - it's a board at an angle.  It works perfectly to drive through quickly and push the feed closer to the cattle.  When they eat, they push it away from them, so this ensures they can easily reach all of it.  We do this at least every two hours during the day.

Three times a week, we scrape out all the sawdust that's currently in the barn.  We then put down lime, which kills bacteria.  After that, we put down new sawdust.  Under the sawdust we have a pad, a mattress, and another mattress pad - but the fresh sawdust provides extra cushion, plus helps keep the cattle dry.

I just asked Kris, "What do you really call the sawdust shooter?"  He said, "Sawdust shooter.  That's what it's named."  Somehow I thought there was a more technical term ... but here it is, shooting the sawdust out!

Then we went to Rich-Ro and talked with Brett, Glen, and Brianne Feldpaush.

Brett

Glen and the lovely Brianne

On their farm, they milk with timers - you can see the 120 in the picture.  When a milker begins prepping a cow, he starts the timer.  It counts up, and when it hits 90, he can return to the first cow and attach the milker.  He also gets back to the first cow before the timer hits 120 seconds.  The timer is there to make the milking process more consistent for the cows, with the ultimate goal of comfort and increased milk production.

They also toured a rotary parlor, which is like a slow merry go round - the cow gets on, gets milked, and walks off.  And of course saw the robot milker, where no human attaches the milker, because the robot does the milking for you.

There are so many ways to milk and increase cow comfort and production.  We're all working on it - all over the country and all over our gene pool.

If you want to know more, you can like my farm page on Facebook, follow @carlashelley on twitter, or get the posts sent to your email by filling out the form on the right. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me!

Three times a day

It's a big day on our farm today!  We normally milk the cows twice a day, but for the first time since Kris and I have been farming (eight years) today we're milking three times a day.

We're doing this because many of the cows have just calved - we have over 70 heifer calves in the barn - and therefore, they're giving a lot of milk.

Last year during this period, the cows were leaking milk by the time they got into the parlor.  Milking them three times a day will hopefully alleviate that, plus fill up the bulk tank.

Lots of farms milk three times a day.  This isn't anything new to anyone, just new to us.  At one point my dad and his brother Al milked three times a day ... just the two of them, plus did the other work on the farm.  They didn't do that for very long before they realized they were going to work themselves to death.  But!  We have a great team of people and hopefully this summer experiment will work.

Have a fantastic summer day!

Wash, rinse, repeat

My friend was talking about her laundry, and how she separated her darks from lights, but then there were some shirts that were black and white striped - and what were you supposed to do with those? So she washes them all separately.  I said that I don't separate into darks and lights at all, but I do separate into three groups - boys, Kris, and me.

So there are many ways to do your laundry ... and now we have another one.

We have a washer and dryer at the barn!  Why?  Because we love laundry this much.

Not really.    

What used to happen was that we used heavy, cloth-like paper towels to clean the cows' udders before milking.  They worked, but they also generated a lot of trash, plus you had to buy a ton.

So now we're using ... towels!  Towels you can wash and dry and reuse.

The guys like them, because it makes it easier to get the cows' udders clean.

They're not dark, they're not light, they're not striped - they're green.  And they're going all in one load.  

If you want to know more about the farm, like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter @carlashelley, or get posts sent to you by old fashioned email.  Sign up - the form is on the right side of the page. 

Radio interview & farm news

On Friday Nicole Heslip of Michigan Farm Radio Network interviewed me about being a finalist in the Faces of Farming & Ranching nationwide search.  It was fun going into the radio studio - it's in a beautiful old house turned office in Lansing.  There's even a bathroom with an old claw foot tub! (Getting it out would be harder than leaving it there, I'm sure.)  Nicole has four years with Michigan Farm Radio, is from a farm, and was a pleasure to talk to about all things farming.

You can hear the interview here!  Ag Focus on Michigan Farm Radio Network.

(Those of you who've asked about the USFRA Faces of Farming & Ranching competition - the voting starts on Friday and I'll post the details then.)

***

Meanwhile, back on the farm ... the hot water heater went out!  What does that mean?  We use hot water for washing, and we need A LOT of hot water at once, so we have two larger-than-for-a-house-size water heaters at the dairy barn.  We've kind of outgrown those, too, because it's barely enough water to wash everything before the next milking.  (The water has to run through all of the pipes, tank, and milkers between milkings.)

Last week we ordered a new one that runs off of propane, (right now they run off electricity), but it won't be here for another week.  We ordered it before this one broke!  But not soon enough.  In the meantime, we are taking a hot water heater from the old barn and using it at the dairy barn.  Thank goodness for old barns with their spare parts.

We also dug a new well.  We didn't have enough water capacity for the peak times (again, for washing) so, we have two wells to help.  Plus, if one goes down, we aren't going to be left without water.  

***

Tomorrow we're starting a new milking routine to improve the amount and quality of the milk the cows are giving.  We have a great milking team, and we're looking forward to seeing the improvements!

There are so many elements that have to come together to get milk ... the harvest, the water pumps, the procedures.  Sure, I could talk about it forever, but the radio show only lasts half an hour.

   
If you want to know more, you can like the page on Facebook, follow me on Twitter@carlashelley, or sign up to get the blog by good old, old-fashioned email - the form is on the right side of the page.

Big day - drying up the cows

I've written about drying up the cows before, in 2011 and 2012.  Drying them up means we don't milk them from now until they have a calf.  It gives them a period of rest to get their bodies ready for birthing and producing milk. 

This day is always a big deal around here - we plan for it way ahead of time, we look forward to it, and Kris helps in the milk parlor for both milkings.  It's a long day!

Here's how it works:

First, they push on the right side of a cow's stomach to see if they can feel a calf.  The cows are about seven months pregnant, give or take a few months, so they can normally feel the calf. 

If she's pregnant, they give her an antibiotic shot in each teat of her udder to prevent infection.  (She won't be milked again for at least a month, so the antibiotic will be out of her system long before she is milked again.  For more about how antibiotics are not in your milk at all, read here.)

They finish by putting a sealant called T-HEXX on her teats, which prevents bacteria from entering them.

They mark them (Kris described it as 'coloring on them') with a cow marker on their hind quarter to separate the dry cows from the cows that are still being milked.  (They'll find some that aren't pregnant or are not as far along in their pregnancies, and we'll continue to milk them.)  The vet is coming to check the remaining ones tomorrow. 

I was explaining this to a friend this afternoon and she asked if all farmers were doing this today.  We're a seasonal dairy farm, which means that all our cows have calves at the same time.  Some dairies have calves year round.  So they dry up individual cows on different schedules.

But for us, today's the big day.  So big, that Kris is falling asleep as I read this to him.

Milking gone viral

Have you heard of the latest internet craze since planking?  It's milking!! 

Obviously, I couldn't be happier. 

Some guys in Newcastle uploaded a video of themselves pouring containers of milk over their heads in public places.  It's funny. 

The text on their YouTube tagline is 'support British dairy farmers.'  It's gone viral and spawned a lot of imitation videos. 

You can watch the video below.  And copy it often.  Let's bring this trend across the ocean!  You go first.