April showers

Our neighbor's cattle and ours stand at the fence and stare at each other.  The grass is always greener.

And just like that ... it's spring!  It's green, it's rainy, and the flowers are poking up.  The alfalfa fields are green as far as you can see.  My mom is landscaping the barnyard to make it look beautiful.  Kris and the guys are hauling manure.  You can smell spring (and manure) in the air!

It is still meeting season.  In January, I began working as a communication specialist for U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance.  Their headquarters are in St. Louis, and we had the annual meeting this last week.  I love my coworkers, so it's always fun seeing them (including heading to Ballpark Village for a Cardinals game and going to Three Sixty, which gives a rooftop view of the arch).  The communication people from all the different affiliates across the country were there, trying to plan how USFRA can best bring agriculture and consumers together.

                                   

                                   

I also had a Dairy Communicator meeting, where United Dairy Industry of Michigan trained us on how best to talk about farming.  Kris is now on the board of Michigan Milk Producers Association as well as United Dairy Industry of Michigan, so he had board meetings for both of those!  The UDIM meeting ended with taking in a Pistons game at the Palace because player Andre Drummond is a milk ambassador for us. In a huge surprise to us, we got to sit courtside! (Anytime Andre did well I would chalk it up to milk.  Anytime he did poorly I would blame it on lack of milk.)

                                     

Meanwhile on the farm ... work, work, work!  There's so much to be done in spring.  We're drying up cows (meaning we don't milk them for a few months before they calve, but we have to prepare them for it). We're trying to haul as much manure as possible to get the fields ready for planting.  We have to reseed pastures.  We're planning on possibly changing to sand bedding and putting in some maternity pens.  It's all a lot.  Kris is usually sprinting from the truck to our house and back again in order to make it everywhere he needs to go - including singing in choir three days this week!

I hope your spring is going wonderfully, I hope you have sunshine wherever you are, and I hope you eat a ton of milk chocolate candy on Easter.  I know I'll do my part.


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Talking to farmers, drying up cows

This week I went to Albany, New York speak to farmers at a conference put on by Farm Credit East called GenerationNext2.  It's a leadership development program in part organized by Tom Cosgrove, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs and Knowledge Exchange.

So - a conference full of young farmers and bankers?  Of course it was fun.  I was especially glad that I had the chance to talk to and get to know everyone throughout the conference.  There were all types of farmers - sod, cranberry, forestry products, of course dairy - and it was just interesting to hear about all different types of businesses.

My talk was about thinking beyond your business and engaging with neighbors, public officials, and the public, and after I served on a panel with Jessica Ziehm, Bill Peck, and David Haight.  It was so interesting and fun to do!  Smart people, great conversation, good questions.

I was dying to get downtown to see the famed capitol building, and Jessica kindly gave me a whirlwind tour!  The Egg was a bonus - I didn't even know about it!  Everyone also pronounces it ALLbany - not Albany, as I was, and Jessica said it's so small they sometimes call it SMALLbany. This was also funny to me, because you know ... my town is a tad smaller.





Thank you to everyone at Farm Credit East and at GenerationNext2! 

Meanwhile on the farm ...

We are drying up cows today.  This is a huge deal, so big that I have written about it in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 ... you get the point.

Why is it a big deal?  You have to prepare cows to not be milked.  You can't just stop milking them and expect them to just deal with it.

They're not going to be milked from now until they have a calf.  This way, their bodies can concentrate all their resources on getting ready to have a calf.  Then, after they have calves, they'll be ready to produce milk again.

Yes -  cows have to have a calf to continue giving milk. Jessica Ziehm organizes a Dairy Cow Birthing Center at the New York State Fair, (visited by 250,000 people each year!) and she said that people are continually amazed by this fact.  I assume they just never think about it.  Cows give milk, period, is what people think, and don't think about how or why until pressed.  We can't all think about everything at all times!

Some people ask if there's a period where we're milking no cows, but no.  We use bulls, and all the cows don't get pregnant the same month.  Some of them get pregnant later, so we don't dry all of them up at the same time.  So the ones that aren't as far along we still milk until it's their time to get dried up.  By that time, cows will have calved and we'll still have milk in the pipeline.  (Yes, the young ones get pregnant first, the older ones later. Some things never change.)

We already were contacted about two different types of tours on the farm for May and August.  When calving season starts, so does tour season!

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Gateway Elementary, Ag-STEM school

In 2015, Gateway Elementary in St Johns was designated as an Ag-STEM (agriculture, science, technology, math) school.

This school year, each class was given a farmer, and Kris and I are the fourth graders' farmers.  It's been fun going in to see them this year, and they're going to tour our place, too.

Recently, they had a kindergarten music program put on by Mrs. Shirley Ries.  It was all farmer-focused! They asked me to come to the concert so they could recognize a class farmer and gave me nice fruit and animal-shaped cookies.

I didn't realize how farmy it would be - they sang things like 'The Milk Bucket Boogie', complete with milking motions.  It was very dairy and farming-positive!  And of course, when aren't kindergartners cute?!

Yesterday the fourth grade teachers Mrs. Jennifer Parker and Mrs. Natalie Berkhousen asked me to come in and read to their classes for March is Reading Month.  But they didn't want me to read farming books like I'd done before - they asked me to read the children's book I wrote, Sawyer in the Woods.  It was so fun! The kids were so attentive and had a million questions and comments afterward.  Thank you Gateway teachers for fostering the farm-school relationship!

***

Meanwhile on the farm, we started drying up cows today.  That means we quit milking them so they can get ready to have their calves.

We have a list of cows that need to be dried up based on their due dates.  So we give them about two months before their calves are going to be born.  We sort them out of the regular milking group, milk them one last time, then use antibiotic on each teat to keep their udders healthy.  Since we stop milking them, we don't want them to get mastitis.  (And we will not be milking them again until they give birth, so there is no chance the antibiotic will still be in their systems when we milk them again.)

We then we put them in their own separate group and give them their own special feed.  We spray paint a leg so that we can easily see who is supposed to be in which group.

Again, it's based on due dates, so today we did 14.  We'll dry up more groups once a week until they've all ready to go!

It was really nice seeing Kris this winter ... and for the first time this summer, our oldest boys are going to be old enough to do calf chores.  Evergreen Dairy and Brothers, coming up.


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Meeting it up

I loved this view outside our meeting.  We have Amish and Mennonite members.

Happy first day of spring!  So happy to greet the new season.  (And that's not just because we're farmers.  It's like a collective sigh of relief here!)

While it's still meeting season, we had our annual Michigan Milk Producers Association meeting, where we hear reports from our president and general manager, give awards, and my favorite - recognize the 35-year members.

Senator Judy Emmons, 35-year MMPA member and dairy farmer

Why is it my favorite?  Because each person - and there are a lot of them - are offered the microphone to say a little something, and it's always funny or touching or both!  I started taking notes during it of little snippets ...

- I'm glad there are a lot of younger people here, because the older I get, the more stubborn I get.

- This is the youngest group of old people I've ever seen.  Go Spartans!

- This is the fifth general manager that I've had since I've been a member.  Everyone here looks pretty old, and I guess I fit in.  As for milk prices, my grandpa always said that nobody can throw a stone high enough it won't come down.

- There's nothing better than raising children on a farm.

- I used to think when I was sitting there, God, what a bunch of old people.  Now I'm up here.

- It's a privilege to be able to be home with my family.

- Please keep sending true farmers to the legislature, because no one understands it like people who have done it.

- My husband has been gone for three years now, and we worked side by side all those years.  I sure miss him a lot.  But my name's on the contract now!

There were funny slides, like our general manager Joe Diglio (I really like him), showing his magazine photo from the 90s when he saved the co-op money by acting as a model to sell MMPA attire.  As we all had a good-natured laugh about it, Kris leaned over to me and whispered, "We still sell that denim shirt!"          

And lunch always ends with one of my most favorite foods in the world:

We did all the important business - like resolutions, elections, and discussions - and we even got to hang out with our far-away friends afterward.  Back to the farm ... 

We dried up ten cows.  That means that ten of them are at the end of their lactation periods and will calve in June.  Not all of them give milk for the same amount of time after calving, and it depends on when they gave birth last year.

So, we've stopped milking ten of them so they can prepare their bodies to have calves.  Over time, we'll dry them all up, and the calving will begin.  Get ready, get set ... it's going to get cute around here.



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Drying up the cows

We dried up the cows this week.  I wrote about it in 2011, 2012, and 2013, because it is a BIG DEAL.

Why?

It takes a lot to prepare cows to not be milked.  They're not going to be milked from now until they have a calf.  This way, their bodies can concentrate all their resources on getting ready to have a calf.  Then, after they have calves, they'll be ready to produce milk again.

So, you may wonder, if our cows are dried up, how are we making any money?  We aren't!  We accept both cash and personal checks.

No, really, we use bulls, and all the cows don't get pregnant the same month.  Some of them get pregnant later, so we don't dry all of them up at the same time.  (Just most.)  So the ones that aren't as far along we still milk until it's their time to get dried up.  By that time, cows will have calved and we'll still have milk in the pipeline.

My sister has again been using my blog as a way to inspire journal writing in her middle school classroom, so for them, I'll walk you through the steps of drying up ... (see what they ask about this!)

1- The guys push on the right side of the cow's stomach to see if they can feel a calf.  This is called 'bumping'.  Most of them are about seven months along, and their gestation period is nine months, so you can usually tell.  (I think they look pregnant just by eyeing them, but I know it's not polite to ask.)

2 - If she's pregnant, they give her an antibiotic squirt 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.  (There are no antibiotics in milk that goes to the store, ever.  If a cow is ever given medicine, she is not milked into the bulk tank until it's out of her system.  Every milk load on every farm is tested every day, multiple times.  For more about how antibiotics are not in your milk at all, ever, read here.)

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

4- They mark them with a cow marker on their hind quarter to separate the dry cows from the cows that are still being milked.

5 - The vet checks the remaining ones manually (by which I mean she gives them a pelvic exam) to see if she can feel a calf.  Either the cows aren't as far along in their pregnancies, or there are always some that didn't get pregnant at all.

Then, we stop milking the really pregnant cows.  They were mooing at us last night, wondering why we weren't milking them like we have twice a day for a YEAR.  I tried to explain it to them in a soothing manner, but they mooed right over me.  It's so hard reasoning with pregnant ... anythings.

Get ready, get set

Yesterday Kris and the guys dried up the cows.  This means we're not going to milk them for a bit before they have calves.  So drying up means - you check if they're pregnant, give them an antibiotic so they don't get an infection by halting their milking, and put a sealant on their teats.  (For more detail, check on my post here.) 

It takes all day to do it.  Then we let them out onto the pasture for the first time this year!  It's so nice to see them out there again.  Kris said they were excited to get out there too. 

The vet came today to check the ones that didn't seem pregnant.  While yesterday they checked from the outside, by feeling the cow's side, today the vet checks from the inside. Yes!  Just the way you're imagining!

He also used an ultrasound machine, which was a first for us here.  He put the wand inside the cow, then he had a headset.  One of the eyes of the headset was a screen that showed the ultrasound.  Kris and the guys all put it on, and Kris said it was just like looking at a human ultrasound.  There's a grid on the screen, so you could gauge exactly how big the calf was.

So we're only milking the non-pregnant or recently-pregnant ones.  (Once the pregnant cows have calves, we start milking them again.  They have to have a calf every year to continue giving milk.)

Now, you may be wondering, doesn't that mean that we don't send much milk, and that our milk check is really small?  Answer again - yes!  But it's the same every year, so we plan for it.  It's not like it's a surprise, just like we won't be surprised when the calves are all born on a Saturday when we're having people over.  It's so predictable!

Drying up the cows

We dried up the cows today, which means they’re going to have a period of rest where we don’t milk them. Because they’re going to have calves! (Cows need to have a calf every year in order to continue producing milk.)

This is how it works – Kris and two employees did the milking this morning and milked the cows like normal. Then they check to see if a cow is pregnant by pushing on the right side of her stomach to feel if there’s a calf in there. This is called ‘bumping’ a cow. There are also ultrasound and other ways to tell, but this is accurate, since the cows are a little over seven months pregnant, and their gestation period is nine months. So that calf is pretty big.

If the cow is pregnant, they give an antibiotic in each teat to prevent infection. Since she’s not going to be milked again until after she has a calf, we don’t want her to get an udder infection like mastitis, which can happen if you abruptly stop milking.

A side note on antibiotics – No cow that has been given antibiotics is ever milked into the bulk tank. We test our outgoing milk on the farm, it’s tested at the plant, and we follow the drug labels telling how long medicine is in their systems. If we give a cow antibiotics while she’s being milked, we milk her into a separate container and dump it until it’s out of her system. These cows won’t be milked again at all until at least one month - after they have calves. Then the first three days of milking is separated out from the bulk tank too, since it’s colostrum.

Then they put a sealant called T-HEXX on her teats. This also prevents bacteria from entering her teats. It’s bright blue.

So they dried up all but 51 cows that are either not pregnant, or not pregnant enough to feel the calf from the outside. The vet is coming next week to check them.

It’s an early day and a late night, but . . . it’s exciting every year! The calves are coming! The calves are coming!