Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

Let's see...where was I last? Oh, yes, on cutting ice. Well, let's go on and talk about hubby's chores in winter. At 4 AM he has to put on his 100 layers of clothes and then head out to do his chores. There is nothing like going out to do chores in the dark in a wind chill factor of 2 degrees that makes you cringe. The first thing he does is split wood to start a fire in the barn. Cows give off heat, but when it is 5 degrees out they just don't give off enough heat. Then he goes and rounds up the herd. One nice thing when it is frozen out is that you don't have to do as much clean up work on the udders because they don't have any mud to lay in. After milking he has to bundle back up and put out hay. This is a chore of 1-3 hours, depending on who all needs hay. The milking herd gets their alfalfa plus 2-3 bales of grass hay, then the herds up the road get a bale every 2-3 days, depending on how much they eat. For one chore hubby has to wait until later...

(this pic is from the ice storm last January...there really hasn't been many good winter photo ops for this year...and I am just as glad, too.) Anyone who lives out in the sticks and has livestock can relate I am sure. Doing chores in winter is such a drag. Hubby bears the brunt of it, especially now since I have the baby to look after. But I try to do my part. For starters you have to dress up like the Michelin man (he's this tire company's cartoon dude-all puffy and bulky looking) in about 100 layers of clothing, some of it insulated. I start off with just a t-shirt, then a pair of insulated coveralls, then a flocked hooded zippy sweater, then an old quilted chore coat. Then you finally add a pair of insulated boots, which weigh about a ton and give your legs a good workout. This process takes most of the morning and by the time you have the next-to-the-last layer on you realize that you have to go to the bathroom, so you go and then start the process all over again. When...

Here are some little pieces of farm advice I picked up from a homesteading forum... They are NOT mine by the way, but they are hilarious. *If you decide to use the "shortcut" and just throw the pig manure out the window on to the pile instead of using the wheel barrow, make sure it's not the windiest day of the year. *Never tell a child that yes, you COULD drink straight from a cow's teat. *Never worm livestock with skin penetrating wormer such as Cydectin without gloves....the poison control will laugh their hind end off at you. *Never look too close to a bulging bag of water from a birthing whatever, you might get a closer look than you think. *Never ride a horse after drinking- while still in a cast from the last run-in you had with the same horse- the doctor will be angry. *If you must gather eggs at night USE A LIGHT or risk having one of the eggs wrap itself around your wrist and halfway up your forearm when you grab it. This could lead to staving in the back of...

Oh, yes...here are some terms I forgot to include: Bobbies: the bull calves we get rid of. (Thank you Donna, for this one) dry cows: cows on vacation for a couple months until they come fresh fresh cows: cows that have just had a calf freemartin: a sterile heifer calf. These generally are the twin sister of a bull calf. We have had quite a few twins while I have been here, if the twins are a bull and a heifer we always sell them both because the freemartin isn't worth keeping to try and see if she will breed. I haven't been able to get on the computer much lately due to patchy internet service and I haven't really had much time to think up anything amusing to post here. Bear with me... Thank you!

I really haven't had time to think up anything amusing or interesting to post in here so going from a question from "moe," here are a few terms commonly thrown around in the dairy business: weaners: calves that have recently been weaned. heifer: young female bovine, usually not bred, but we also use this term for a cow that has only had one calf as well. open heifer: young, unbred, female bovine in: in heat springer: bred heifer whose udder is developing springing: the verb or adjective to refer to a bred heifer that is developing an udder three banger: a cow that only has three quarters of her udder functioning. Sometimes these can give more than a full-uddered cow cull: a bovine reject...headed to your nearest fast food restaurant or supermarket meat counter...usually as hamburger. I know there are more but the laundry is calling, the baby is squalling and it is hard to think anyway when it is only about 10 degess out.

Once again I haven't had much time on the computer lately. But here are a couple of pics I took last week of our open heifer herd. These are the gals who haven't been bred yet. Usually I go feed them in the AM when it is still quite dark, but on this trip last week I went during the daylight hours because we had to get 2 of them to take to the bull. There were 30 of them in this herd at the time, now, of course, there are 28. Here they are just coming around the pond: Almost here: Gotcha! The big ones we needed are in the corral. It's always touch and go to see if they will go in.

(OK, can you believe it's been a week already since I have posted?! Sorry. Our internet service has been down a couple of days off and on, then we had the stupid thunderstorm/tornado storm thingy come through (in which 2 people were killed-so I guess stupid is a weak word to use) and then various other things happened so that I couldn't get a chunk of time to be on the computer for long.) Anyway. This title sounds dramatic but it was my first impression of what I saw in the dark. Thursday morning, it was still quite dark, I was out graining the weaner calves and came up short one in my head count-or tail count, if you will. I re-counted a couple of times because sometimes a small one will get between a couple of big ones and you can't tell, especially in the dark. But, no, there were only 10 calves eating in the feed bunk. So I went trucking through the lot to search for the missing one. Looking for a missing beast is a job I abhore, especially a smaller calf. I alw...