Time away is DAIRY good

Get off the farm. Especially right now, when being on the farm can feel really REALLY stressful.

We are stuck in this awkward stage with our farm where we milk enough to handle chores by ourselves but we aren't big enough to hire full time employees. This is all okay until farmer or I want to get away. We are very fortunate to have relief milkers who know our routine and know our cows and can fill our boots when we need them the most. We are aways off from taking a family vacation because our relief milkers.....they milk. And daily chores include feeding and hauling water and bedding barns and we just don't have the staff for all that. But it is good, we are doing what we love as a family so we get lots of bonding time together.
Lots. Of. Togetherness.
Lots!

A few weeks ago we took an afternoon off from chores to take the kids put put golfing and canoeing. Janiene and Mallory both arrived on time to keep our business running. It may not have seemed like a big deal to them but for my little family it was a much needed break. 

Once a year I get away for two days without my husband and children. I travel with my mom and sisters, the two little sisters who drove me crazy growing up are my very best friends today and I look forward to this little trip away more than anyone can imagine. This year we went to Detroit for a concert. Shut the front door! Our mother got us tickets to Kenny Chesney, Miranda Lambert, Jake Owen and Old Dominion. Did you see who the second artist was? Miranda Lambert. You can see why I've been belting out her songs all summer on the tractor... I've been prepping!! Mallory filled my boots for the weekend which included helping my farmer treat sick cows. 

Stepping off the farm reminds me of the blessings I have at home and I am incredibly grateful to those special people who help us.  I love the experience of seeing something new and meeting new people ...but I love my slow, dirt road life more.

And sometimes we call on our milker's for events that we just can't handle without them. Like tomorrow. When my oldest daughter will have her tonsils and adenoids removed. While it is so important for us to be parents I completely trust and depend on Janiene and Mallory to carry out the work on the farm.

For whatever reasons we leave the farm, when i come back I'm better... I'm in my farm girl mode. And this farm girl is not the easiest to work with all the time but to those who have helped me out in the past and in the future please know I am VERY grateful 💛

Just a little farm tour

It's pretty simple. If you want to visit a farm just ask a farmer. When Stephanie asked to bring her three beautiful girls to our farm...of course I agreed. But first I had to mow, and weed-wack, and pick up the toys and clean up my garden.... I wasn't worried about the animals or parlor because we keep that clean all the time.

I may or may not be the best tour guide, but I had ice cream and figured that would get me on everyone's good side :)  I also had two babies born less than 18 hours before they arrived SO I was feeling confident things would go well. AND it did!! Not only did the kids ask to come back but they left with poop splatter on them, which is a pretty good indication they were up close and personal with my favorite ladies.

It started with the usual "Oh! It stinks..." which makes me smile every time we have company. It means this is NEW for them, something small that I've become numb to. I was introduced to Madalyn, Emily and Lillian (...and I got their names wrong every time). We met twins who were born this morning, a heifer (girl) and bull (boy). They even got to feed the calves their very first bottle of colostrum. Names were chosen and we have a Rosie & Patches in our herd.

Of course on the day of our tour it was 92°F out so after we looked at the calves in the hutches and walked down to the dry lot there was drinking from the garden hose. (Something their mother did as a kid but they were skeptic about trying.) Not only was this tour a learning experience for them but it was a reminder to me that what I do daily is important and special and to enjoy it.        

 

By the time we made it to the parlor the cows were being milked. The girls were able to hand squirt milk from the cow and help bring cows in from the holding pen.

 

Below are some of the questions & answers we talked about today. If you'd like to see more of our every day farm life follow along on Facebook or Instagram @michiganfarmgirl.

Do calves have teeth?
Yes, calves are born with bottom teeth and develop more as they grow.

How long does a cow carry a calf?

9 months and they have heat cycles every 3 weeks until they are bred.

What do they eat?
Calves get milk, water and grain from birth to 2 months.
Heifers and dry cows get grain, dry hay and water.
Cows get "cow chow" or "casserole" or "TMR" (name depends on the tour guides vocabulary), a mix of haylage, grains, vitamins, soybean.

Does it hurt the cow to milk?
No, their bodies produce milk and if we don't express the milk they may feel more discomfort from that.

Why is your front door glass broken?
That is what happens when I mow grass :(

There were a lot more things discussed BUT I had two questions for my guest: 1) do the hutches look big enough for the calves to live in? 2) do the cows look happy? The answer to BOTH was yes.

At the end of two hours I was EXHAUSTED because I never talk that much, BUT I hope it was a good experience for them. And if it became a yearly thing that would be awesome, they would be able to see how things change; because every day here is different.

#happyfarmer

Making Farm Calls

Dr. Tom visits our farm every 8 weeks for herd health, the cows are generally not excited about this. I am usually pumped though because I want to see who is pregnant! For us herd health is mainly to check for reproductive problems and new pregnancies, but we also use this time to ask questions about animal health and treatment plans.

The day before the veterinarian arrives we make a list of fresh cows that need to be looked over and any that have been milking more than 90 days and have not yet been confirmed bred. We also do LTP checks (late term pregnancy) to confirm that their due date is still accurate and we can move them to the dry lot.

Herd health days bring good and bad news but this is the cycle of life on a dairy farm. Cattle do not start producing milk until they deliver their first calf. They produce more milk than the calf needs so we take the excess and provide it to the population. This is our business. Cows do not milk forever, if they did my farm would be home to geriatric cows who I could never part with. Older cows like Piglet who we've had since 2008 when we started milking. She has been milking for 10 months on this lactation and is not bred, in fact we've been told for the last 6 months she will not get pregnant. And I drag my feet on selling her because she is mine. Because she is a rotten little brat who kicks me in the chest when I go to milk her the first time after she delivers. She is my brat. Will Piglet be here forever, no. Will she be here for the next herd health, maybe. At some point we will have to decide if she is costing us more than she is making and when that day comes we will sell her.

For the cows who are confirmed bred I give them an estimated due date based on how far along Dr. Tom says they are at the visit (they are pregnant for 9 months). And for the cows who are not bred we watch to make sure they are cycling normally (every three weeks) and watch for any other signs of problem. Cows only deliver once a year and in our herd are bred by a bull when their bodies are ready.

We are so thankful to our large animal veterinarian! Without him the job of caring for our animals would be very difficult. If you'd like to see more about our dairy farm you can follow along on Facebook or Instagram @ michiganfarmgirl