Silage harvest is underway. Becky spent the evening getting every truck to honk at her. Thanks to the Arentsen Farm Sales & Service drivers for giving in to this 5year old. Volume up!
Day 1 :: Welcome to June Dairy Month!
Each day (hopefully) I’ll post about our life and the dairy industry!
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
If you know, you know! These girls aren’t cheap!
Total eclipse- the cows were mooing like crazy right before and after, during totality they were silent.
What are some things you have heard about the dairy industry that you would like answered?
Happy National Ag Day! #holsteins #ilfarmfamilies #iffambassador #thisdairylife
The one where Rachel and Monica milked together. #friends
If you have three and a half minutes, I would love for you to watch this video. This cow was having some trouble calving. Normally, we don’t intervene. But, occasionally, a girl just needs a little help. We do this for the health of both the cow and the calf. She had reached a point where she wasn’t progressing like we would have liked.
What you will see in the video—
—I approach her during contractions. The cow is less likely to stand or move if we do this. I time and watch for her body to flex.
—There is a point where my hands move upwards. I’m gently talking to her, telling her I’m only there to help. Does she understand? No. But communication on any level is key.
—I grab the calf’s hooves and pull in the direction that is anatomically appropriate for both of them. The calf should drop downwards if the cow was standing. Since she is laying, I pull towards her hooves.
—I make sure the calf is breathing and check gender. It’s a heifer (girl)- and a big one at that!
Both cow and calf are doing great. We collected the cow’s colostrum and fed the calf. She is bedded down for the evening.
I was lucky enough to spend the day at home and take some video clips of our daily life. Thankfully Travis goes along with my shenanigans! It always gets me to see the cows come to the bunk when fresh feed is dropped.
A big, big part of the dairy life is ensuring we have something to feed the cows. We spend the spring and summer growing and preparing these things. About 35% of our cows’ diet is silage. Corn silage is the entire corn plant chopped and stored in an anaerobic environment. Normally, we do this harvest on our own. It typically takes us about a week. This year we opted to have it custom harvested. These guys are working insanely fast. They should finish in less than two days.
There are many factors that go into silage production. The correct variety of corn needs planted. Compare it to trying to can salsa with cherry tomatoes. Some types just don’t work. There are other nutritional components that factor in as well.
More videos in comments.
Arentsen Farm Sales & Service
Day 29 :: Rain!
We are thankful it’s raining- just wish it wasn’t so aggressive!
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
Day 27 :: Dry and Fresh Cows
Fair warning- the video posted is of a cow giving birth!
Cows get “dried off” about 60 days before they have their calf. This is their vacation between lactations. Their natural lactation curve (if you were to graph it) drops dramatically the closer they get to calving. A dry off period gives the udder a chance to take a break and for the cow to produce colostrum for her calf. Dry cows get fed a special diet during their dry off period which helps with retained placentas, milk fever, and reduced feed intake after calving.
We refer to a cow that just had a baby as a fresh cow. We would say she is “X” days fresh, meaning she calved X days ago. This is Phoebe, who calved yesterday. As much as I would have liked a heifer from one of my reds, it’s a bull. We collect her colostrum to feed her baby, giving them the best start to life. Occasionally, a cow will give more than the calf needs and we will freeze it to use later if needed. We watch fresh cows closely for a week or so to make sure she recovers from her birth, she is eating as much as she should, and her milk production starts as expected. Her milk is tested for antibiotics and quality before it goes in the tank. Until then, we use it to feed calves.
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
Day 21 :: Hoof Care
A mobile cow is a healthy cow. If her feet hurt she won’t want to get up to eat, drink, or visit the robot. Many hoof issues we can resolve on our own, such as an abscess in the bottom side of the hoof.
This cow began limping on her left rear hoof. Once in the trimming chute, it was evident she had an abscess between the hoof wall and the sole of her hoof. The chute is designed to hold her leg and hoof still in a position that can be easily seen. There are also belts that go under her chest and belly that keep her from laying down.
We use a hoof grinder and tools to open the bottom of the hoof releasing pressure on the abscess. You can see on the right side there is a small amount of blood when this happens. This is also some swelling that occurs with this where the hoof meets the rest of the leg. In time, the abscess will drain and the swelling will subside.
We also put a block on the opposite claw. It’s glued to the sole of the hoof and heat is applied to cure the glue quickly. Using a block relives the pressure of walking on the affected side of the hoof. (Think of it like wearing high heels that are good for you. When wearing heels, the weight and pressure is directed towards the ball of the foot.) The block will stay on for about a week when it will fall off.
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
Day 13 :: Robot Milking
I realize that I have never formally talked about our robots. Dairy farming in itself seems so foreign to many people. There are so few of us that continue with this lifestyle. Those milking with robots is an even smaller percentage. It was difficult to find accurate statistics on this. Somewhere between 1-5% of the 36,000 American dairy farms are utilizing robotic milking systems.
There are several robot milking companies. Ours are Lely. We have 2 A4 robots. Each robot has the capacity to milk approximately 60 cows each, for a total of 120 milking cows in our herd. This number depends on milking time. If we have faster milkers we can have a few more cows. We typically have around 125 milking.
Lely is a Dutch based company founded in 1948. Their original equipment designs focused on forage production. They launched the first Astronaut robotic milker in 1992. It was considered “the most important invention of the 20th century for dairy farmers.”
The robots run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They shut down three times a day for about 20 minutes each time to run a complete wash of the entire system. It does run a short wash after each cow.
Cows go to the robot on a voluntary basis, anywhere between 2 and 6 times a day. Training a cow to go could take 2 days or 2 weeks, depending on her personality. They get a sweet pellet and molasses in the robot which helps drive them to visit.
The video here is a time lapse of a cow milking. One cow walks out and the next one begins. Cows spend an average of 6 minutes and 30 seconds in the robot, start to finish.
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
Day 9 :: Daily Schedule
The thing about dairy farming is that every day is different. While there is plenty of routine, each day brings a new set of tasks and challenges. Even the time of year will change our daily schedule.
Our day typically starts at 7:00 am. We check the calving pen, push up feed, and make a list of fetch cows (those that didn’t go on their own). We start collecting waste milk to feed calves and get the feed numbers ready to make one of the rations. (We mix feed for three separate diets, not including pre breeding age heifers.) This usually takes us to lunch, somewhere between 10:30-1, depending on the day.
After lunch is spent on equipment maintenance or herd health. We may change oil, grease equipment, move tractors between fields, clean around the barn, give vaccinations, breed, or pregnancy check. During the summer the kids use this time to work with their show string.
Evening chores begin at 4:00 pm by feeding heifers and then making a second load of feed for the milking herd. We also fetch cows that need to go to the robot, collect waste milk, and feed bottle calves a second time. Our day ends somewhere between 7:00 and 8:30.
Often times people look at my life and compare it to their own. “How do you have time for anything?” Honestly, my house is a mess most days. We live out of laundry baskets. But I also compare myself as a wife to others. We don’t make it to every ball game. We can’t show up to every-single-event our kids are in. We are thankful for grandparents, family, and friends that are present and recognize our absence, show their support, and send us pictures.
The video here is a time lapse of the feed lane during feeding time.
#junedairymonth #thisdairylife
