Day at the Dairy

 Okay guys get excited!  Yes!  Excited!! This excited! 

 

This is good stuff!  I spent the day on a dairy farm!  WOOO HOOO!!!  

Meet the girls!  

Say HEYYY LADDIESS!!!!
How you doin'?














Check her out!  Is that not one sexy lady?!

Yeah, that milk you're drinking... it's from girls like her!

On Wednesday, Ashlee and I got to head to a dairy farm with Gilson, one of the graduate students from the lab.  He is super nice and we were lucky he let us tag along and ask a million questions.  I was so enthused to be back on a dairy farm that I was practically bouncing with joy! I really enjoyed the day because we were able to explore many different aspects of the farm.  Gilson first started working with the farm in April and has been helping the farm reach their fullest potential in each area.  

We started the morning with reproduction.  We set up the ultrasound machine and preg checked thirty cows.  If the cow was not pregnant, we implemented a synchronization program so that she could be artificially inseminated later.   For each cow, I was able to see how many days in milk, number of previous pregnancies, number of times AI'ed, etc.   Since Gilson's arrival on the farm he has dramatically increased preg rate and also lowered the incidences of merits.  Very Cool!  It was a great review of cow management, hormones cycles, and general reproduction!

Later we walked out to the pasture where the cows were.  They had two groups of cattle, low producers and high producers.   The farm planted crops for them to graze, corn to make silage, and also had ponds where they produced fish!  Really neat!

We ate a delicious lunch in town.  It was a buffet for around 8 us dollars.  The food here is delicious.  I   can't help but eat too much!  After lunch, we were able to be lazy around the farm while Gilson did paperwork.  We walked to see the dry cows, played with the babies, and just enjoyed the day!

Fun Fact:   Most farms use horses.  And with each horse comes a gaucho man.  I'm telling you it doesn't get old to see the cows being brought in to the milking parlor by a guy on horseback.  Just too cool!  If you look at his saddle it is covered with a big thing of sheep skin!   We were able to pet the horse later, something we enjoyed and he did not!

That afternoon we performed a California Milk Test (CMT) on each cow during milking!  I GOT TO HELP WITH MILKING!  It was great!  I have missed it.   It was also great practice to perform and read many CMT's.  A CMT is an easy way to analyze if a cow has mastitis and how bad it is.   This is the first time Gilson has done this.  He will test each cow again next week and then culture the cows that are really bad.   Dairy farm management really is so cool!  People, This is where your milk comes from! People are working every day to ensure that the food you eat and drink is safe, of high quality, and fair for our production animals!

 Ashlee e Eu! 

(It was her first time milking cows and she beasted it! )