Orange Patch Dairy

Welcome 2012!

2012-01-01T16:23:00.000-06:00

Happy New Years from Orange Patch Dairy!!! Bring on 2012!!!!

Well it's been WAY too long since I blogged!!!! I'm entirely to blame for that, but I have a great reason...I had to put my cows FIRST. Often at the farm we need to choose which projects get attention, and well thanks to our new barn construction (which has been going well) and the awesome brown winter we have, well I haven't run out of things to do at the farm. Each of my projects have been done with the final goal of making the lives of my cows and calves better. So....with that being said...we are VERY EXCITED to welcome 2012 at the farm. This year we have so many great things to look forward to! We have a new barn to move into, we have more calves to be born, and Jon & I will be moving from town to the farm. All of these changes will help us to take better care of our cows, which in the end makes for VERY happy & proud dairy farmers. Happy 2012 everyone! We hope you have many blessings!!!!!

Picking out the Right Color Carpet....

2011-11-04T18:21:00.000-05:00

I'm sure many of you can relate to picking out the right color carpeting for a home, the colors of paint for the walls, the types of counter tops, and the new light fixtures. Each of these major decisions holds importance in the overall theme of your home and the goals of your family. Are you fun or formal? Are you going to be worried about guests or kids? I bet you believe designing a home is one of the hardest tasks you will do. Now...imagine trying to plan our a barn for a herd of cows!!!!! Sure it looks easy but I would bet that it's even harder than designing a home!

We've been planning our new barn for the past 4 years, and it's taken multiple trips to many different farms, research into new technologies, and lots of paperwork to make this all possible. Our decisions were so much more complicated that picking out the right color paint....well we had to do that as well (trying to match the original red of our 2005 barn). Things we had to decide on....

What type and style of stalls we would have?
What type of bedding we would use?
How would be move and handle manure?
How would these changes impact overall cow comfort and health?
Are we able to better handle and care for cows?
Can we improve cow health and handling?
Is it safe for the people who care for our cows?
What's the environmental impact?
What technologies can we afford to make managing our cows easier?
What technologies can we afford to make our cows more comfortable?
What type of lighting will we have...is it energy efficient?
What type of ventilation will we have? Will it help our cows in July, in the heat?
Ultimately we asked......How can we make life better for our cows????

In the next few months I hope to blog more & post videos and pics to help explain all that is going into our barn to make it a great place for cows....but for now, here's a sneak peak of a farm we visited in 2009 and 2010...and when we are done, our farm will look very similar!!!!!

2011 Construction Update

2011-10-29T18:01:00.000-05:00

Our cows, looking longly at the new construction...their new home!

We have completed the dirt work on our new barn! (see the video below for more about that). We have also finished the water lines for the barn. We will have 6 water tanks for our cows and hydrants for the sprinklers. Be sure to check out our FaceBook Page to see more pictures!

Our Final Project for 2011...the BIG Project!

2011-10-24T02:50:00.000-05:00

Well, our hoop jumping and waiting are over! Last week on Monday we received word that we had been approved by the Small Business Administration (SBA) for our loan for our final project for 2011, the BIG project...our new barn!!!! Before I start posting video and pictures from the construction, I thought I had better start at the beginning with the plan and the reasons why we are building a new barn.
Below you can see a picture of our cows resting comfortably in our current barn. We built that barn in 2005, and have been generally pleased with how our cows are doing in there, but we know they deserve better. This barn is a bedded pack barn, which is a "one size fits all" type of a barn. Our cows had an enormous amount of flexibility to move around where they would want, but with that flexibility came some challenges. They were at risk of stepping on each other, laying in manure (causing them to get infections and just be dirty) and at risk of getting infections in their feet. All of these challenges were manageable, but we knew we could do better. The cows are comfortable, and that's hard to beat.....meet the new barn!

Our new barn will be a free stall barn, which will allow us to have designated areas (beds) for each cow, preventing them from laying in manure, stepping on each other, and fighting for their favorite spot. These beds will be bedded with sand instead of saw dust. Since sand is inorganic, bacteria have a hard time growing, thereby helping us to maintain quality milk from healthy cows. The sand also gives traction to the cows walking on concrete. Mature cows will be in one pen and new heifers/smaller cows will be in another pen. We are actually not adding cows, contrary to the rumors flying around, but making more space for our growing herd. The entire milking herd will be moving to the new barn once it's completed. But have no fear, we are still going to be using our 2005 barn...just with a new purpose....a dry cow/fresh cow/special needs barn!

For the past 5 years we have been "housing" our dry cows (pregnant cows, right before calving) outdoors, with no shed. The have shade in the summer and wind breaks in the winter, and that's been working for us, but it takes LOTS of hard work on our part to make sure that these important animals on our farm get the best care possible. When we move the milking herd out of the 2005 barn we will move the dry cows and pregnant heifers into the pack barn. We plan on leaving our half of the pack barn as a pack, bedded with dry corn leaves and stalks. These pens will allows us to have our dry cows indoors! They will be able to enjoy shelter from the Minnesota weather (mainly the winters that are the hardest!) as well as deliver their calves in more comfortable facility. In the case that a cow needs help delivering her calf, we will now have facilities that will make that care possible. I speak from experience, that it's not fun trying to chase a cow that's calving around in a big yard, let alone in a muddy or snowy yard! It's this part of the project that makes us the most excited! Giving better care to my pregnant cows makes me so thrilled! They are tough girls, and handled the outdoors just fine, but on those wet and snowy days, I really felt for them.

This is a big project, but financially we aren't going to be spending any more per month than we are now. So how's that work??? Well, when we built our pack barn in 2005 the cost of saw dust was less than 50% than what it is now. Currently we spend enough each month on saw dust bedding for the pack barn, that we have enough money to cover the loan payments and the cost of sand bedding! We are confident these changes will help us to increase the quality of care that our cows get each day, and to us, that means more than any financial benefit. Peace of mind, knowing our cows rest safely in a new barn, clean & comfortable....is priceless!!!

Our cows resting comfortably in our current barn,
but we hope they'll be even more comfortable
in the new barn!

The PLAN...including the next steps for the Spring 2012.

Never Marry a Dairy Farmer..ignored advice from a friend

2011-10-15T00:39:00.000-05:00

A couple weekends ago, my dear friend wed her best friend. As a gift to them, I wrote some thoughts on marrying a dairy farmer, as this friend once advised to avoid dairy farmers. Turns out she ignored her own advice too! So, here's some thoughts on the great gifts of dairy farmers!

Never Marry a Dairy Farmer

A wise friend once advised me, “Never marry a dairy farmer”. Apparently she thought that having been raised on a dairy farm I would have been observant enough to notice the amount of dedication required from a wife married to a dairy farmer when watching my parents. But….I missed the message and decided to follow my heart. I wanted to be with my best friend for the rest of my life, regardless of his profession. Contrary to the advice of my dear friend, there are some great advantages to being married to a dairy farmer!

Lo and behold, a few years later this very same friend decided to also ignore her own advice and today….she also married her dairy farmer!!!! She too will learn the joys and tribulations of being married to a man dedicated to his farm and cows. But more than anything, I believe she’s entering into a relationship that is stronger than any other married couple’s. For a farming husband and wife have a bond built to withstand anything that life, nature and the world can throw at it, that is if they continue to love and care for each other.

Dairy farmers have tender hearts, open and willing to care for the most fragile of God’s creation. They have a deep dedication to everything that they do in life. They have a willingness to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work required to see a project (or relationship) through. They never give up. They have an appreciation for the simple, precious moments in life; riding in the tractor together, sunsets bringing the cows home, milking/working together, enjoying a star-lit night in late summer, the smells of fresh rain on spring soils, and bringing in the fall harvest. There are so many great moments to share with each other both at the farm and in life.

Today I wish my dear friend and her special dairy farmer the very best! Together they will make a great team for life. I hope that they can find joy, discover the strength to get through the toughest times in life together, and have a love and bond that grows stronger through the years. May they realize humor on their journey and continue to make each other laugh. May they say to each other years from now, surrounded by family and friends on their 50th Anniversary, that they did indeed, “Marry their best friend” so many years ago.

God Bless You Both!

Jumping through Hoops

2011-10-06T00:46:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been another series of crazy weeks for us at the farm. Beside the usual hussel and bussel of fall field work and running a dairy farm...we've been working hard on pushing forward our fall project for our cows. Since we are young, starting dairy farmers, we have limited resources to use as collateral for the bank. As a solution to help us better our farm, our banker suggested working with a branch of the government to secure financing for the riskiest portion of our barn project. Sounds like a good plan, BUT just when we thought we met the criteria of the government agency, we only learn we have more hoops to jump through. First, it was the need of an appraisal of our current farm, then it was forms that we had signed in early September that were now outdated and needed to be resigned, and now we needed to get "official" quotes for ALL work scheduled to be done on our barn project! Oh good grief!
If you've ever built anything, you know timing is everything and the longer this process continues, the farther into the fall we get, thereby increasing the risk of...oh that dreaded "s" word, SNOW! We desperately need to make these changes to our farm for the betterment of our cows, so we can only hope that we are done jumping through hoops~!

Red Duct Tape and a Story about Milk Quality...

2011-09-21T01:13:00.000-05:00

Red Duct Tape: a critical tool in
milk quality!

It's not uncommon for us to frequent area stores to purchase some interesting items to use on our dairy farm. It's definitely fun to watch the eyes of cashiers as I check out large quantities of bleach, rubbing alcohol, and colored duct tape...red duct tape specifically. This past week was like so many others. I was on my way to town with my master list of things we needed at the farm and home. So many errands to run, so little time. So I scurried through the isles of our local Wal-Mart working my way down my list. I'm a huge bargain hunter and coupon user, so I'm always distracted. As I rushed to the check out I greeted my cashier and started unloading my cart. This shopping trip was like so many others, the cashier's eyes got big as she scanned multiple gallons of bleach, bulk bundles of paper towels, several bottles of rubbing alcohol, and then she couldn't hold it in any longer...she scanned in my roll of red duct tape.
"Well, my goodness! This is a "colorful" way to keep someone quiet!", she exclaimed. "Haha! That's not exactly what I had intended for that red duct tape." And then it hit me....a perfect opportunity to have a quick chat with this lovely lady about the importance of producing quality milk on our farm!!!! I love it when these opportunities pop up, and I seldom walk away from a good chance for education...so I proceeded.

One strip of duct tape on both rear legs helps us recognize a
"treated cow" in the parlor, making sure our milk
is always perfect!

"You see, I'm a dairy farmer. And that red duct tape is the perfect tool for marking my cows' legs. When we have a cow that is sick and needs to be treated with antibiotics we automatically place a strip of this red duct tape on each of her rear legs. This allows us to see her quickly, recognize her, and make sure that we milk her separately from the other cows. Antibiotics are not allowed in milk for sale, so we work hard to make sure that our milk is always perfect, and if it's not perfect, we pitch it. If we "accidentally" get antibiotics in our tank, the consequences are very severe...so this red duct tape has a VERY important job on our farm!"

"Wow, I never knew that dairy farmers had to keep antibiotics out of milk. I guess I just assumed it was all mixed together!" she shared with me. How many other consumers shared her thoughts. No one had ever explained to this kind lady how dairy farmers are tested multiple times each pick for antibiotics. Food safety comes first, and we take our responsibilities very seriously. We continued to have a great conversation as the cashier check out the last of my items. That day I left the store having shared with a nice woman, the importance of milk quality and antibiotics on our dairy farm....and that was time well spent!

Following the Rules.....even though they make no sense

2011-09-15T01:07:00.000-05:00

Well this week has been quite a week of roller coaster emotions! Our week started out with a HUGE downer! On Monday, Jon attended the County Board of Adjustment meeting, to present our plans for our new construction. As part of that construction, we were hoping to build a lagoon (large lined storage area for manure) to store about 10 months of manure from our milking and dry cows. The current county law states that farms (all livestock farms) over 300 Animal Units must have 12 months of manure storage if they choose to build manure storage. Since we are over 300 Animal Units, we needed to appeal to the Board of Adjustment for a variance to allow us to have a smaller sized lagoon. The reasons for the smaller size were many, the largest one is the fact that a small dairy of our size has a difficult time affording that much of an investment. We also thought we could appeal to the board, since 10 months of storage is MORE than what we have currently, and would allow us go from weekly manure application to bi-yearly manure application (spring and fall applications). Unfortunately, after a valiant fight from Jon, we were defeated, 3 votes to 2 votes. Completely distraught, Jon called me. "Now what?!?!" We were in despair! This project was going to make the lives our cows more comfortable, as well as improving our own. Now those plans came to a crashing halt!
Jon contacted our County Feedlot Inspector to see if we had indeed run out of options. SUCCESS! One small loop-hole was found. If we agreed to build a lagoon for 12 months of manure storage in the next 3 years the County Planning and Zoning Committee would let us build our barn without the lagoon this fall. Our manure would need to be hauled out to our fields, according to our manure management plan, on a daily basis. This alone makes no sense to us. We would have thought it would be better to have 10 months of manure storage, rather than none at all, but apparently our county's law doesn't read that way. The reasons the Board of Adjustment gave were valid, but we do believe we addressed them.
The Board's primary concern was making sure to not set a precedent for others to come before the board. We were the first to try for a variance on this law, and it looks like we might be the last. The other concerns included hazards from hauling manure on county and township roads in the spring and risks of overflowing the lagoon. Ironically, even though the Board of Adjustment believed we were a risk; neighbors, friends, fellow dairymen, and our suppliers have all expressed support for our previous plans. It was really touching to have a visit yesterday with our dairy equipment dealer, who stopped specifically to see if there was anything he could do to help us with our hurdle.
So, for now, we have officially finished the financial paperwork for the project, changed and amended the permit applications, and are patiently waiting for next week and we find out if the County Board of Commissioners will give the "go ahead" in addition to the bankers. So...we wait, hoping for good news instead of roller coasters!

So what's an Animal Unit???

2011-09-05T01:45:00.002-05:00

This awesome cow is actually 1.4 Animal Units!
Read more on how we determine how many
animal units we have on our farm!

As of recently Jon and I have been working diligently on our farm project. As part of that project we are also renewing our conditional use permit for our dairy. A conditional use permit is issued to livestock farms in our county to allow them to have and raise livestock on their property. Yes, livestock is not a right, it is a privilege. As part of this process, Jon has been making many visits with the area neighbors to discuss the changes we want to make to our farm and how they might affect the neighbors. All of our changes are for the good of our neighbors, our farm, and most of all for the well being of our cows. Also part of the process includes a listing in area newpapers of our application for this permit...and that's where the controversy lies. We are currently over our previous permit of 299 animal units. We are applying for a permit for 840 animal units, which is actually for 100+ more cows than we have now, but we are planning for the future, 5 or 10 years down the road. This number of 840 has a lot of people talking! So let's start at the beginning....

Wikipedia defines an animal unit (AU) as "a standardized measure of animals used for various agricultural purposes.A 1,000-pound beef cow is the standard measure of an animal unit. The dry matter forage requirement of one animal unit is 26 pounds per day. Animal unit equivalents (AUE) are calculated for various other animals." At 840 animals, we are calculating each cow to be 1.4 animals units! That's right, those cows are the largest AUE possible! Even horses are only 1.3 AUE and beef cattle are only 1 AUE! Now, if we have 2 herds of cows, one with about 100 and the other with 200...than at my calculation, we have 420 AUE in just the lactating cows! Now figure that a cow has 1 calf each year, and half of those are usually bull calves, which are sold.....and we are talking at least another 300 head of heifers and calves...also to be included in the final AUE count. Now, adding calves and heifers, we are almost to 650 AUE. The extra 200 AUE accounts for any additional cows we add in the years to come. To see the worksheet we used to do our math, check this out!

Seems scary at first to see such large numbers, but if you take some time to really analyze what these numbers actually stand for, it makes perfect sense! Hopefully this clears the air on what an "animal unit" actually is!

God Bless Good Neighbors!

2011-08-27T00:57:00.000-05:00

Not enough can be said about having good neighbors. So often in the "rural" areas, we depend on good neighbors. It's so much more than walking over to borrow a cup of sugar or glass of milk....it's depending on them when you're really in a pinch. I can't count the number of times we've helped pull a neighbor out of a snow bank, helped chased cows back into their yards, or helped fix a flat tire. The best part....is that our great neighbors repay those same favors back!

On Wednesday, Jon was working diligently to finish the last of our 4th cutting of alfalfa. We had some much needed rain on Monday night/Tuesday morning which delayed harvest. I needed to leave to the MN State Fair on Wednesday, so Jon was working solo, with help from some of those great neighbors (and family too!) Wouldn't you know it! Right before I was about to leave, I got a call! Jon, "Do you have Greg's number?" Me, "Yeah, why???" Jon, "We've got a problem, that chain I was going to fix when we finished alfalfa broke and we only have 4 hours of chopping left" Me, "Hold on, I'll get it" Minutes later, Jon goes flying by on the 4-wheeler, headed to Greg's place. Turns out our good neighbor Greg had a spare part that we needed to fix our silage bagger! Lucky for us, he was willing to let us have it, and replace it later. Without Greg's help our alfalfa would have become too dry for silage before we could have drove 1.5 hours to get the replacement part. We are definitely grateful for Greg's help and more than willing to pay him back!

The other "neighbor" issue on our farm is also a good one! As we have been working on the next step for our dairy farm, we have also been working on renewing our permits to have dairy cows. Yep, you got it! We have to apply for a permit to have cows on our farm. It's not a right to have cows, it's a privilege! Part of the permitting process is to go to each of our neighbors to notify them of our plans and of the public county meeting, where we will find out if our permits will be approved. The great part about notifying our neighbors, is that it gives us another opportunity to talk to them about what's going on at our farm. Jon's been especially enjoying the conversations about how we care for our cows. We know living next to a dairy farm isn't always glamorous. Our cows make manure, and manure stinks. We try to be conscientious of when we haul manure and where we haul it. We also know that when we are in the middle of harvest, our tractors tend to make a lot of dust on the roads. We are SO GRATEFUL for understanding neighbors! How great it is to talk to them about improvements we want to make to be a more "neighbor-friendly" dairy farm! We also make sure that all neighbors know we have an "open door" policy. Any time our neighbors might want to stop for a visit or stop to talk about a concern...the door is always open! We value our neighbors, and want to make sure that they can value us as well! God Bless all of our Good Neighbors!

Wordless Wednesday: View from our office

2011-08-24T00:47:00.000-05:00

This is the view from our office for the past 2 days. Hoping to wrap up chopping today! Putting 4th cutting of alfalfa in the bag for the year! Feels good to have quality feed ready to feed our cows in the coming year!

Wordless Wednesday: Princess Kay

2011-08-17T18:01:00.000-05:00

Our county dairy princess Kelsey Sellner, who will be running for Princess Kay of the Milky Way next Wednesday! We wish her well as she represents the dairy farmers of our county!

Princess Kay....our calf ! Born on the same day that Kelsey was named a finalist...she's so big now!

Getting Ready for October

2011-08-16T16:59:00.000-05:00

Well, it was yet another busy morning at our farm today. We have been working dilligently on a couple large projects for the farm the past few weeks....namely, trying to improve the overall comfort and health of our cows. With that comes a LOT of prep work: paperwork mainly. I am eagarly awaiting the "ok" from Jon to blog about the details, but for now all I can say is that we are working hard on applications, permits, financial statements, and other related paper work!!! And hoping for a little luck ;)

The other daily tasks continue, but as we approach fall and winter, we have an "extra" to take care of: drying off cows. As our cows approach the end of their pregnancies, we give them the last 2 months off, to relax, eat and enjoy life. This gives them the opportunity to grow a calf instead of making milk. It's also a good opportunity for the cows to enjoy some outdoor yards for daily exercise and allow their udders time to grow new "milk-making" cells. Today we "dried" off 7 cows. Last week there were another 7 cows....and next week there will be another 7. As you can see, we have a LOT of calves coming in 2 months....OCTOBER!! My math work tells me that we will be calving over 20 animals each month October-March!!! That's a lot of calves, and I can't wait!

So even though it is only August, at the farm, we are getting prepared for the fall already!

Grateful for our Veterinarians!

2011-08-10T01:05:00.000-05:00

Today was an unexpected rough day at our farm. Our morning began with a great blessing: cooler weather! We enjoyed milking, almost shivering. We did our chores, fed our cows and calves...and noticed that one of our dry cows was acting sluggish. Her name is Undies...(it's a long story) we acted quickly, calling the veterinarian as soon as we moved her to the milking barn for easier treatment. Our suspicions were correct...something was wrong...our girl was definitely feeling under the weather...but it was so much more than what we thought. Our awesome vet Dr. Nancy was on the scene, and diagnosed a Left Displaced Abomasum (she flipped her stomach to the wrong side of her body-can be painful & deadly, fixed only by surgery). BUT....after a thorough check up, Dr. Nancy also found that our dear Undies also twisted her uterus. It is as painful as it sounds. Dr. Nancy called it the worse case of cramps you can possibly think of. This completely changed that treatment that we needed to do....we now had an emergency on our hands. We needed to do the stomach surgery as well as a c-section for the calf, thereby untwisting the uterus. We had no idea what caused these ailments....but we needed to fix them for Undies.

We had a couple of risks to evaluate before we started the surgeries. If we did the c-sections, odds were not in our favor for a live calf. It was too soon for the calf to live, the lungs would not be developed enough to breathe easily. We wanted to save Undies...so we opted for the surgeries. The stomach surgery went well, and then Dr. Rich arrived to help with the c-section. Somewhat of a miracle happened though, Undies had started labor while we were working on her stomach and was able to deliver her calf normally. We were excited to try, since this would be better for the cow, but maybe not as good for the calf. Dr. Rich pulled out a backwards heifer calf, alive, but struggling to breathe, then Dr. Nancy yelled for help....there was a 2nd calf!!!!! Twins!!!!

Dr. Rich pulled the 2nd calf, also a heifer calf, but also struggling to breathe. We looked like an emergency delivery room: 2 doctors, each working on separate patients, with 2 assistants (Jon and I) working to help. With help we thought we had the calves breathing well, until the 1st born calf had a seizure of sorts and stopped breathing. Within 30 minutes the 2nd calf did the same....all that work and time and we couldn't save the calves, no matter how hard we worked. We had the best vets, providing the best care for our animals, but it wasn't enough. It's with joy I can report that Undies is doing ok, BUT she's no where near out of the woods...she's got a long road ahead, but we'll be with her every step of the way.

Today, even though the results were not all great, we are grateful for the excellent veterinarians that we get to work with. Being a large animal vet is a hard job, but we are blessed to have some very qualified vets to help us when our cows are in need. So today...we pay tribute to some great veterinarians! They are the BEST!

Heat Wave 2011: Staying Alive.

2011-08-08T00:27:00.000-05:00

Sprinklers, critical to keeping our cows cool, but in our record heat, also alive.

Over a month since I have blogged, but I have a perfectly good excuse for it: we were working to keep our cows alive. Minnesota experienced much like the rest of the nation, record breaking heat and humidity. It was that darn humidity that was our biggest challenge in July. Cows are not built for warm climates, but thanks to technology and advances in animal husbandry, we are able to make them comfortable. Cows like 65˚ and so do I. Instead of our usual summer weather we endured an endless series of weeks with temperatures above 85˚ and dew points above 70˚. At times our heat indices reached almost 120˚! It was these extremes that put our cows in danger.

Our milking cows spend summers indoors, in the shade, under sprinklers, in fans, with plenty of cool water and fresh feed. Our dry cows and heifers spend summers out in our yards, with some shade, natural breezes and lots of cool water and fresh feed. Our calves have huts, which are placed in the shade of our groves, and receive extra cool water each day. During this extreme weather we worked daily to cool cows. First, we added additional fans to critical areas of the milking barn. We spent time each day hosing down our dry cows and heifers. Our calves had multiple feedings of cool water each day. We monitored our fresh cows (20 cows had calves during July) even more closely than before, checking their vitals not just once each day, but twice. These efforts helped to keep our cows well, but we did lose the fight with 2 cows and 3 calves, and we may see further challenges in the months ahead.

Heat is the most dangerous for the most vulnerable of our herd: fresh cows, sick cows, and calves. It was these 3 groups that received the most additional attention. 1 cow we lost was sick and the other was not only sick, but had also just calved. There was literally nothing we could have done for them, and that was the hardest thing to accept. Both cows spent most of the day parked under the sprinklers, staying as cool as possible, but the heat was too much and stressed them out too far. The 3 calves also had the same fate, sick and too hot. It was not only frustrating but emotionally exhausting to handle. There were days when both Jon and I worked ourselves so hard in the heat that we were both physically ill. Heat sickness is serious, and it is very painful. While our milking herd only lost 12% of their milk production due to the heat, the next few weeks could provide more problems. Heat stress of this magnitude can cause laminitis (cows with sore feet due to infection or sores), prevent pregnancy (bad ovulations) and possibly induce miscarriages.

As of right now, thanks to the cooler and less humid temperatures, the cows have rebounded in milk production. So far, feet on our cows look good and we seem to have cows in good reproductive health. We are praying that the heat wave of 2011 doesn’t have lasting effects into the fall. Excellent care of our cows helps to minimize the impacts of stress on their lives….hopefully we did a good job.

Importance of Taking a Calf to Town

2011-06-24T02:14:00.000-05:00

Glenwood, daughter of Glencoe...scheduled to head to town tomorrow for a visit!

Tomorrow we are taking our little calf Glenwood to town...to be part of a celebration for dairy month and a fundraiser for the local food shelf for June Dairy Month. I'll be the first to admit that it's a hassel getting ready to take a calf to town. First I had to pick the best calf to take to town. It had to be a calf that would be friendly, is in good health, and will behave. Glenwood was a great canidate for this, she's one of my favorite pets. Then, today, I had to give Glenwood a bath. After a little light scrubbing and some suds, she's a sparkling calf! And she smells good too! I put her in her own personal pen in the calf nursery, where she got extra bedding (to keep her dry and clean until morning). I prepped by putting together feed, water, and milk for our trip to town. Just like a child, she's going to need some snacks for this road trip. I washed a special halter for her, becuase we want her to look her best. The trailer needed a little cleaning, so we got that taken care of as well. I have extra straw in the trailer, for a safe, comfortable and dry ride to town.

It's a lot of extra work, but it's definitely worth it. To see the faces of the kids tomorrow, lets me know a little hard work makes a HUGE impression. Talk about a conversation starter with parents! Last year we had great questions about our calves, their mothers and the care we provide them. As always, I was willing to answer all questions...and I am looking forward to some great ones tomorrow! So HAPPY JUNE DAIRY MONTH! Off to bed, we have a BIG day tomorrow!

Vote for US-Progressive Dairyman Flavor Face Off 2011

2011-06-23T01:43:00.001-05:00

Do you love Ice Cream? Would you enjoy $100 in FREE ice cream?!?! Well, I have a deal for you....vote for me in the 2011 Flavor Face Off for Progressive Dairyman and enter to win! Who could say no to a delicious serving of South Dakota State University Raspberry Cheesecake? Little known fact, South Dakota State is credited for the development of Cookies and Cream Ice Cream, now the college has over 50 different flavors, many of which feature delicious treats from South Dakota's hard working farmers.

Milk from cows like these is used to make delicious Raspberry Cheesecake Ice Cream.

Milk for SDSU's awesome ice cream comes from cows on the SDSU Research farm. Milk comes from Holstien and Brown Swiss cows. Student workers care for these cows everyday. Once the milk is loaded on to the truck, it moves swiftly to campus, where the plant will be ready to receive it. At the plant, many student workers and expereinced professionals, work quickly to recieve the milk, to make not only ice cream, but cheese, and fluid milk (bulk only). Rest assured that these students are greatly prepared before setting foot in the plant. Now many graduates of SDSU, including me, return for this delicious treat!

Your vote is greatly appreciated! So if you haven't, .......

Click here to vote now!

Who can say no to this cuddly jack rabbit?!?!

Wordless Wednesday: Sprinklers!

2011-06-22T00:47:00.000-05:00

During the hot summer days (anything over 76 degrees) these sprinklers run, cooling our cows by wetting their backs while they enjoy their meals. As the temperatures increase, the sprinklers run more often, and as the temperatures decrease they run less often. Add some fans, and we have an awesome, inexpensive way to keep cows cool all summer long! Happy June Dairy Month!

Thankful for St. Anthony!

2011-06-16T18:20:00.000-05:00

Meet Trooper a.k.a. Runaway!

I am so thankful for St. Anthony! I am Catholic, and we have a patron saint that we pray to when we are searching for something that is lost....St. Anthony. My grandmother taught me that if you lost something very dear, that you should continue your search but make sure to pray to St. Anthony to seek more help from God. Today I needed St. Anthony.
We had a VERY busy morning, as a result my usual schedule was a little off. I was late to the calf barn to feed my babies. Like always, I started feeding my "kids" only to find that my darling calf Trooper was missing from her hut! Never fear, this happens from time to time. When my calves get hungry waiting for me or if they just got fed and want more, they sometime jump right out of our huts, no matter how many twine strings I tie on the cross bars! Nevertheless, Trooper was missing and it was lunch time!
Knowing that I was there to feed her, I would have expected to see Trooper come running out of the corner of grove (we have a wooded area where the calf huts are located for shade), BUT....Trooper never came for lunch. Oh No!!! What to do! I stated searching frantically for her. I looked in all of the logical places: in the grove, in the weeds, in the ditch, in the barn...no where to be found! Oh no!!!! What to do?!?! I called Jonathan, he told me that it was no big deal, she'll show up, but I didn't know what to think.
Previous calves have runaway as far as the neighbors yard and Grandma's backyard. So I searched everywhere, including the CRP (nature reserve/grassland) across the road. Could someone have come in and snatched her??? We do live close to the road....but that would be crazy in the day light! I talked to the rest of the family, to find out she was just around the barn an hour before I arrived. She HAD to be around here! BUT WHERE?!?!?! I had to take a break, I was exhausted!
Jonathan joined me in my search later on. We decided to think outside the box, search in a larger area. He took one side of the farm and I took the other. I looked in the woods, behind the house, around the sheds and approaching the fields, when I got a call....
"I found her!" HE FOUND HER!!!!! "Oh Thank God! Where in the world was she?!?!" "In the machine shed! Checking out the tractors!" "Oh that little stinker! I could just kiss her!" We swiftly moved her back to her hut and fed her. She was starving! I love Trooper, but I am thinking she's up for a name change, something like "Runaway" seems more fitting.....

Wordless Wednesday: God's great Beauty!

2011-06-16T00:51:00.000-05:00

We were greeted with a large amount of rain, yet again (almost 3 inches today!) At least, even though it's wet & muddy, we got to see this little wonder!

Wordless Wednesday-better late than never ;)

2011-06-10T03:01:00.001-05:00

Lunch time on the Patio! Summertime has been a great time for the cows to enjoy our new patio!

Saturated & Muddy!

2011-05-30T17:38:00.001-05:00

Saturated & Muddy! That's how I would describe the "environment" on Orange Patch Dairy, these days. There are so many things to be done on the farm, but there's literally too much mud, rain, slop, and muck to get it done. I would take pictures to share our misery, but it's almost embarrassing. Just when the weather clears, and the soil finally starts to dry, and it might look like we can get back in the fields (we have corn to finish planting, soybeans to start, and alfalfa to chop) we receive another 1/2 to 1 inch of rain. This morning we were "blessed" with another 1+ inch of rain. The forecast has more rain predicted for tonight as well as Thursday night. The sun might actually come out this weekend, but that's just in time for my brother in law's graduation party....which means we can't be in the field.

Then there's the cows. It's so muddy in the cow yards right now, it has become impossible to get bedding to the cows. Thankfully the sand corners of the pens are drying during the day, so the cows can rest on dry "islands" in the sun. It looks bad though. I was out fixing fence in our yards today, and sank into the mud as I stood still, like in quick sand. I nearly lost my boots twice, stuck in the mud as I tried to walk out. I've never been more grateful for the concrete portions of our yards, where are animals can find additional reprieve from the mud, as well as eat and drink in mud-free peace.

Even if we get into the field, the mud is so severe by our silage bags, we will not be able to make our new 2011 haylage bags in the yard. We will be searching for the highest, driest location on the farm.....it's crazy to think about not being able to put a silage bag on our pad for weeks. So please wish us well...these soggy dairy farmers could really use a dry break for the next 2-3 weeks, then we'll take some more rain.

Teaching the importance of consistency....

2011-05-27T15:55:00.000-05:00

In a previous post I commented on some of the changes that we were making on the farm. One of the first changes was hiring our first employees. For the first couple weeks, things went really well. Jon and I both reaped the advantages of having extra help on the farm, but not too long after that we started to have some problems with one of our employees.
Dairy farming is a 24-7 job. Cows are always producing milk, and need constant attention. Cows crave consistency. Cows do not like changes. Cows expect to be milked everyday, twice a day. One of our employees missed that point. This employee decided that it would be okay if he didn't come to work, not once, not twice, but three different times in the past weeks. When you depend on someone to be there, and they don't show up, it's a huge let down. But on a dairy farm it has long lasting implications...this week was proof of this. Not only was Monday a complete disaster (we basically got cows milked, fed and bedded, but that was it, no extra projects for us), but we also had a mismatched schedule for the rest of the week. For example, today, I dried off cows that should have been dried off on Monday.
It's been easy for us to teach the importance of being dependable, responsible, and consistent to our other employee, but for the other, it was more than a challenge. We knew we would be at risk for employees that just might not care as much as we do about our cows, but we didn't think we would face it so soon.

We love our cows, and we expect our employee to care for them as well. In fact, we also expect them to get to know them by their names and personalities. We have a book/manual about cow behavior, we ask them to read. We also expect our employees to understand how much not only us, but our cows, depend on them to show up to work on time and do a good job. Without good employees we would not be able to provide our cows the care that they deserve. Needless to say, our truant employee put in his notice yesterday, before we could formally let him go. Our lesson was learned, and we will continue to work harder to teach our employees the importance of their roles in food production and cow care!

Wordless Wednesday: Antibiotic Tests

2011-05-18T00:28:00.001-05:00

Did you know dairy farms test for antibiotics on farm? Shown here are 2 samples from 2 cows in our herd. The yellow sample is a cow that is negative for antibiotics, and will return to the milking herd, producing milk for consumers. The purple sample is a cow that tested positive for antibiotics and will NOT return to the milking herd. She will remain in the sick cow pen, where her milk is dumped and NEVER used for human consumption! Milk is tested 17 times before it reaches the consumers!

Photos I was Afraid to Share

2011-05-16T00:52:00.002-05:00

Our cows, resting on the bedded pack in our dairy barn.

An example of a photo I was afraid to share....
cows walking in "poop" (manure).

As part of my goal with my blog, I believe that there is nothing to hide about what we do on our farms everyday! Some have accused me of "sugar coating" the truth about dairy farming, but rest assured, everything that I post is the honest truth. That being said, I had a startling realization the other day.

I was talking with our hoof trimmer Brian (the lovely man who comes to give our cows pedicures twice a year) about the health of our cows' feet and hooves as compared to other types of dairy farms. He shared with me a very interesting point....but I'll start at the beginning first. Our cows are housed in a pack barn (see above picture) where they are allowed to roam freely each day around this pen. We bed it every few days with fresh wood saw dust. The bedding helps to keep our cows dry as well as comfortable. As you can see, they rest very comfortably. Much like a traditional modern free stall barn, we have a feed alley where the cows can also freely walk to and eat. In this feed alley, they walk in "poop" (manure). In fact, on certain days, with certain cows, they actually accidentally sleep on "poop". The "poop" is removed from the floor twice daily, but during parts of the day there is "poop" on the floor. Pictures that I have taken in our barn of cows eating on the alley have been carefully edited, cropped or avoided all together because I wasn't sure how I could explain to a consumer the fact that our cows walk in "poop". The funny thing is that I give tours to preschool kids and parents, where they see first hand the cows walking in "poop", and I was able to explain to them why this was ok, but I couldn't do it on my blog.

So...back to the hoof trimmer. Brian shared an interesting fact about cows that walk in "poop"...their hooves are actually in the best condition of all the feet he trims! No way! Walking in "poop" is actually good for cows...much like cows on pasture which will walk in mud, or create cow paths that may get moist! The moisture from the mud or in the case of our farm, "poop" acts a a moisturizer for cow feet, thereby helping the cow maintain good hoof growth (hooves grow like human finger nails). Brian also shared that cows that have feet that are always kept dry and clean, actually have a painful problem: their feet get hard, dry and brittle. In some cases the hoof material actually stops growing! So...I no longer need to feel ashamed to share a picture of our cows standing on a "poop" covered floor...because the truth is that our farm facility is natural to the cow and provides for her excellent hoof health! So rest assured...I am willing to share everything!

2011 Projects-Phase 2: The Patio!

2011-05-13T17:01:00.000-05:00

Arrival of the feed bunks! Another muddy day!

So much rain meant Jon had to work in the rain a lot! Dedicated to get the job done!

Finished project! Happy Cows! Success!

Since late March, we have been working diligently to start and finish our second project for 2011. We wanted to do this project last November, but thanks to our lovely Minnesota winters, we were greeting with snow a little too early. Late March we started moving dirt, poured concrete in April, laid the bunks in place in April, welded gates & fencing in April and let the cows out for their first night on the patio just before May began! Our patio was inspired by a visit at a fellow dairy farmer's farm, Laura Daniels of Wisconsin. Laura had a patio on her farm for her Jersey cows to roam out to, which allowed her to add more eating space for her cows. BRILLIANT IDEA! We saw this idea in October, and wanted to add it immediately, but there were some hoops to jump through...all dairy farmers have to do some serious planning before a project, even a smaller one like this.

First we started to lay out the "floor plan". We then contacted the local county office to visit with our County Feedlot Inspector. Our inspector came to the farm for a visit in November to check the site, overview our plans and give the "go-ahead" to start. The primary concern for the county, with outdoor feeding, is manure run off. We designed the patio with curbs and bumpers which keep the manure from running away, even in a heavy rain storm. Next we contacted local contractors to bid the project and worked with our banker to secure financing. So...why did we add this patio?!?!?!

Easy! We have more heifers calving each month, and we have a very low cull rate (percent of cows removed from the herd via sale), therefore each month our herd grows with additional cows-the result of excellent animal care! Our growing herd had plenty of space in our bedded pack barn for laying down, resting and sleeping, but as we add cows the amount of feed bunk space got lower and lower. We managed around this by pushing up feed frequently each day, as well as feeding twice a day. The cows never ran out of feed, but the competition for feed increased. Research recommends 24 inches of space per cow...so we added the patio. The patio also allowed the cows to go outside to enjoy the sun and get a little exercise. They enjoy the sun shining in on the south side of our curtain barn, but this was an added bonus! Even on a rainy day, there's at least a couple standing out there! Check out the pictures of the progress that got us to our final goal! Ultimately, the new Patio allows us to continue the excellent care our cows get everyday!

2011 Projects....Phase 1

2011-05-07T00:27:00.000-05:00

Well I have been busy, as you can see by my absence from the blogging sphere. There are some great reasons for this, which I will explain in the coming posts. We expect 2011 to be a great year for our farm, we have some big plans to make our farm better for our cows (first priority) and for us (second priority). Phase 1 of our projects was to hire a full time employee or 2 part time employees to assist with milking and clean up of the parlor. We started our search for employees locally in mid-April. After interviewing a couple candidates we settled on 2 men to help us. One is responsible for coming to milk in the morning, while the other assists with milking at night. Both have the good fortune of milking with me! (haha!) By hiring employees, we free up Jon from the responsibility of being in the parlor...giving him the opportunity to work on other projects around the farm.

Now that we have the "kinks" worked our of our schedules and we have a more settled routine, we can see the advantages of having additional help. In the mornings, I am able to milk cows and do cow health checks while Jon is able to feed 2 batches of TMR (total mixed ration) to the milking cows, feed the dry cows and feed our heifers all before noon! In the evenings, Jon is able to haul manure, fix various pieces of equipment, and work with cows that need additional care. It's been amazing how much more efficient we have become. Because we have feed to all of our animals, earlier in the day, we have seen an increase in milk production. Because we are able to milk our cows faster, the cows are able to spend more of their day resting, eating and drinking. It's been great to see the cows relax and reap the benefits of such a simple change.

Neither one of our employees have any previous experience milking cows, but we have been working to teach and train. They are fast learners and have a great respect for our cows. I think that's been the best part of adding employees....teaching them about how much we respect and care for our cows. In fact, last Saturday, our morning milker brought his 10 year old son to milk with us. It was awesome to see Clif share with his son the importance of cleanliness in the parlor, proper cow handling, and the value of agriculture in our local economy. So, as we continue to work out the kinks, we hope to have more good news about hiring employees.

So Why's your farm called Orange Patch Dairy???

2011-05-04T01:14:00.000-05:00

After writing this blog since 2009, I realized I have never posted about why we call our farm "Orange Patch Dairy"...interesting, since that's a really good story....so here we go....

My husband Jon, who I have had the good fortune of knowing my ENTIRE life (yeah we've known each other since we were toddlers!) shares my passion and love of dairy cows and farming. In addition to his love of dairying, he also loves his orange colored tractors (Allis Chalmers, Agco Allis, Agco, etc) and his sliver combines (Gleaners). When we married, I not only married him, but his vast collection of orange and silver toys, magazines, caps, advertisements, catalogs, parts, and clothing. He's been literally obsessed with orange since birth. You see, his Grandpa has been farming with orange since the day he started farming, and that's impressive since he was raised on a green farm (John Deere). Jon's Dad continued that legacy with the purchase of a couple more orange tractors, making our farm the home to 12 very special and very used orange machines. There is also a silver combine in the machine shed! Farmers in the neighborhood, who chose to drive green or red tractors, often joked about the "pumpkin patch" down the road, with all of the orange (pumpkin) tractors. My in laws ignored their jokes, they drove dependable tractors that just happened to be different than everyone else.

So when Jon was just starting FFA in high school, and needed to have a name for his herd of dairy cows, the choice seemed perfectly clear for him: Orange Patch Dairy, and the name just stuck. Because you see, our farm is not home to a Pumpkin Patch, but home to 12 orange tractors, although gaining in years, still loved and care for each day. So our farm name highlights the fact that we chose to be different, unique and special.....and why not!?! Someone has to be a trend setter ;)

So there you go....why we are called Orange Patch Dairy

Too mad to go to bed!

2011-04-20T02:36:00.000-05:00

ARG! Looks like Mercy for Animals (MFA) found yet another example of abuse in the livestock industry. I watched their video, which they will be releasing to the press tomorrow, but it did not sit well with me at all (I'm so MAD at these people, I couldn't go to bed without posting)! It was really hard for me to watch such pain and disrespect for these calves. Heart wrenching doesn't even begin to describe how I felt. I wanted to reach through the screen at take a swing at the abusers! Everyday, dairy farmers like myself work diligently, putting the care of our calves and cows first, most times before our own care. It is a black eye on our industry when another situation like this is found. Abuse of this nature is not commonplace in our industry, even though some activists would lead you to believe this. Orange Patch Dairy and other dairies across the nation strive everyday to improve the care we give our animals. We do not treat our animals like waste and we do not withhold medication/medical care. Our cows get our VERY BEST, EVERYDAY!

Thank you MFA for finding and reporting this abuse. It is an example of completely INAPPROPRIATE animal care.

Please see the following links for other farms/dairies and videos...showing how much we truly put our cows needs first!

Don't go Vegan to protest abuse....prosecute the abusers!

RayLin Dairy, California
Haley Farms, Ohio
Dairy Farming Today YouTube Channel
Dairy Farming Today WebSite

Baby Boom!

2011-04-18T02:36:00.000-05:00

I have always stated that our major calving rush has been in the winter months, but after this past week I think I misspoke! We have had 1-2 calves everyday for the past 6 days! The first one visited us on Wednesday evening. I was gone in the Twin Cities, speaking at an agricultural meeting, when I got a call from Jon on the trip home. "You better hurry up and get home, Gloria had her calf, and it's snowing here!" All I could think was, "SNOW! In April!!" It was sunny and 50 where I was...yuck! I drove home as swiftly as I could. It was still snowing! And there was my little heifer calf, running around in the heavy and wet snow. She was very healthy, but very wet and cold. So I scooped her up (named Glorified) and moved her inside the barn, into her dry, heated, and bedded stall. After that, we moved her mother to the milking barn, so she could be indoors with access to all the feed and water she would want. That was our first baby...

Thursday our second heifer calf was born. Her mother was a 1st time mother (fresh heifer), calving almost 10 days before her due date, who had a little trouble calving, but we were there to assist her delivery of a healthy calf. Friday was the 3rd heifer calf from another surprise calving...#75. #75 has always had trouble with milk fever, as long as we have owned her (6 years). With each delivery she has had problems maintaining her blood calcium balance at calving, which causes milk fever. Symptoms include: muscle weakness, cold ears, poor pupil dilation, and inability to stand. We needed to give #75 IV fluids that included calcium. With a little time she was up and running. Saturday was another big surprise...TWIN heifer calves! My lovely cow Olivia calved overnight, successfully delivering twin heifers: Ochyeden and Ogilive. They're so cute! I am still amazed at how well Olivia cared for twins, it was no easy task for her! And finally, this morning we came to the farm early, to get ready for church, when I discovered Delano trying to calve. We worked as swiftly as we could, but we were unable to deliver a live calf. Delano had been laboring for a few hours overnight and was unable to deliver her calf on her own. We assisted her when we got to the farm, but pulled a dead bull calf. I was so frustrated! Times like this make living in town very complicated. The 10 minute drive to the farm might have well been 10 hours, because we were too late. So, we promise to work harder next time, and are thankful for at least a healthy Delano. So as you can see, we've been busy with our latest Baby Boom!

I Raise My Hand for Chocolate Milk! How about you?

2011-04-12T02:09:00.000-05:00

I recently read that Chocolate Milk is under attack yet again by the media and health officials for being unhealthy for kids. The very thought of banning Chocolate Milk from schools makes me cringe! I remember my grade school years, and how often I would drink Chocolate Milk rather than "white milk". It was a real treat to have Chocolate Milk, plus I was getting 9 essential nutrients (Calcium, potassium, phosphorus, protein, vitamins A, D, B12, riboflavin and niacin ) in that awesome package, important for my then, growing body. Studies have shown that by removing Chocolate/flavored milk from the lunch room, there was a dramatic reduction in overall milk consumption among kids, thereby lowering their daily intake of calcium, protein & potassium. That's putting these kids at risk. That carton (it's bottles now) of Chocolate Milk is the perfect balance between good nutrition and good fun!

This nutrient package is difficult to find in other foods that are as affordable or appealing to kids. Studies have shown that children who drink flavored milk…drink more milk overall, have better quality diets, do not have higher intakes of added sugar or fat, and are just as likely to be at a healthy weight compared to kids who do not consume flavored milk. In fact, flavored milk contributes only 3 percent of the added sugars in children’s diets. Only a fraction! Studies have also shown that athletes who refuel with Chocolate Milk, replenish stressed muscles faster than if they consumed a sports drink.

So, even after knowing this, as a parent, you still want to reduce the amount of sugar your child consumes. No problem! The dairy industry is working on that! Recognizing that many schools want to reduce the sugar content in all their menu offerings, the dairy industry has taken action to reduce fat, calories and added sugars in flavored milk. Today, the majority of milk in schools is low-fat or fat-free, and the majority of flavored milk is at or below 150 calories. The newer formulas for Chocolate Milk have 2 to 3 teaspoons of added sugar compared to 3 to 4 teaspoons of added sugar in traditional formulas.

Even today I enjoy Chocolate Milk. I usually drink 1% "white" milk and fat-free Chocolate Milk...at the same time! After a long morning of chores at the farm, I can be found at noon relaxing in our office with a turkey sandwich and a tall glass of Chocolate Milk. I often find the chocolate flavoring of my milk to be a little over-powering, so I will mix my "white" and Chocolate Milk together in a 50/50 ratio. Same delicious Chocolate Milk....with a little less sugar...so there's a tip for those mom's out there. If you can't find a Chocolate Milk that suits your lower sugar requirements, just add a little "white" to lower the grams while still encouraging your children to have healthy habits for a long life!

For more information about Chocolate Milk, check out: Raise Your Hand for Milk or on YouTube at

With high feed costs, we are Planning Ahead....

2011-04-07T02:43:00.000-05:00

Well April is here! The weather has really improved in the past few days! We are enjoying more moderate temperatures and sunshine! Needless to say, we are working overtime on projects and getting a lot accomplished, but today was for planning ahead. Often times on a dairy farm, we need to plan ahead, schedule tasks, and make sure that we are using our time and resources to their fullest potential for our cows. Our dairy consultant/nutritionist Jeremy stopped in for his monthly visit and a planning meeting.

When Jeremy visits, he first walks through the groups of cows and makes observations. He evaluates how fat or thin our cows are, he watches them eat, he watches them pass manure (and checks that too), he checks our feed, and collects data about the milk we produce. All of this information helps him to make decisions about what to feed our cows and how much. Good nutrition is so important to our cows, so we depend on Jeremy's expertise everyday. Today's report was good: cows are chewing their cuds well, they are passing excellent manure and they are all in great condition (amount of weight they carry-we don't want them too fat or thin). After talking about the good news we got down to business.

With the recent increases in the corn price, our feed costs are out of control. The milk price is slowly keeping pace, but it will be hard to make a living milking cows in the next couple months. Knowing this we needed to develop a plan for our 2011 growing season. We will be planting our crops in the coming weeks, much of which will be harvested as alfalfa haylage or corn silage for our cows (forages). After going through all of our options to keep our costs low, while making sure we keep our cows healthy and productive, we decided that we will need to chop more corn silage for 2011. It is currently more economical to feed corn silage rather than dry corn to our cows, plus cows prefer forages anyways! We will still feed dry corn (cows need some dry corn too!), but at least we can cut the amount. We will need to continue to focus on making the best possible feed for our cows this summer, and pray for good growing conditions. We have a plan, to keep costs low while producing a great product (milk) from healthy cows. So as we start planting in the coming weeks, we will stick with the plan...stay tuned!

March is Leaving Like a Lion...

2011-03-31T02:15:00.001-05:00

Well it sure looks like March 2011 is going to leave us like a Lion. It came in like a Lion, and it's suppose to leave like a Lamb, but I doubt we will get that Lamb like last year. We had snow and cold to start March, and now we are leaving March with cooler than normal temps with a chance of rain/snow tomorrow. We have local flooding in our rivers and at the farm we have MUD!

Dare I say it...I wanted Mud Season so badly only weeks ago, but now I am throwing the white flag of surrender! I give up! It's not that the mud affects me directly, but it's that I have to deal with the aftereffects it has on Jon. My calves, heifers and milking cows are all inside or in lots that are sandy, therefore drier. BUT...in order to feed all of our cows, heifers and calves...we have to get to our silage bags out in the field south of our milking barn. In that we field we have MUD! We have mud so deep and thick right now that if you walk through it with boots on, the mud will pull those boots right off! The mud has the consistency of a thick modeling clay...tacky yet still slimy. We are no longer able to get to our silages with the skid loader, but instead we have to use the loader tractor with Front Wheel Assist (a fancy ag-way to say extra traction!). The loader tractor is leaving ruts and tracks almost 3 feet deep! You could fall and get lost in ruts that deep! Driving the loader tractor is not for those with weak stomachs. The ruts also track up and down over pieces of top soil that are still frozen and top soil that is thawed out all the way to the clay base. That darn mud gets in everything and is everywhere! Jon has brought home mud in his boots, on his boots, and on his clothes. Mud even gets in his hair. Needless to say Jon would be tickled pink if we could get a week of 50 degree temps and sunshine...here's hoping April brings us more "spring-like" weather!

Please don't litter, it's not only a farm but our office too!

2011-03-22T01:43:00.000-05:00

Well, spring is here! Currently it is thundering outside, with a forecast of snow and cold to follow...welcome to Minnesota in March! With the warmer temps came a rapid thaw of our snow banks and drifts...the problem is the garbage that is left behind. It never ceases to amazing me, that in our environmentally conscience society we still have problems with people littering!
The snow left behind pop cans, plastic water bottles, fast food wrappers, cigarettes, papers, magazines, and so much more! It appears that since we live on a major paved county road and that we operate a dairy farm, that means that we are an acceptable dumping spot for other peoples' trash. Each spring I spend at about 2-4 days walking ditches, cow yards and tree lines, looking for this trash. It seems simple to throw your garbage out the window at that dairy farm, but it turns out there are grave consequences for us.
For example, each summer we bale our road ditches (grass and alfalfa mix) for our heifers and dry cows. There's nothing more irritating than finding crushed pop cans in a bale of hay. The bigger problem comes if a cow decided to eat that pop can. Metal in a cow's rumen causes all kinds of problems, but if they are not caught and treated....the cow will die. This is a serious issue. Just today I watched one of my cows try to eat a soft drink cup from McDonald's...this is not safe for her!
Secondly, we value the image of our farm. Garbage in the ditches makes our farm appear "trashy" to passer-bys. We work hard already, caring for our cows, calves and land, in addition to making the farm look presentable, we don't need more trash to pick up during our free time.
Finally, it's just not nice to spread your garbage in someone else's office. I don't think most people would enjoy it if I brought some of our trash to their offices and left it on their desk. Please keep that in mind when it comes to dairy farmers...our farm is our office...we like keeping it neat, and we hope you will too! So before you throw that trash out your window, please think twice for the dairy farmers who have to pick up after you...thanks!

Networking with Fellow Dairy Producers

2011-03-15T22:45:00.000-05:00

Today I had the honor of speaking at the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin's Business Conference, and let me tell you...it's been a blast! How awesome to see so many producers excited about milking cows, caring for cows, and communicating to consumers! It's been great to see many producers taking advantage of the great seminars with awesome topics...like how to handling our cows better or how to communicate with consumers more effectively. Dairy farmers are always striving to do a better job. We are always looking for new methods to make our cows more comfortable or increase the level of care they receive. New innovations are also displayed in the "Hall of Ideas", where I am looking forward to searching tomorrow...great new products from dairy companies that help us care for our cows! The other great thing about this conference, besides the education is the networking with fellow dairy farmers...

Let me tell you, it might not seem like it, but we dairy farmers are VERY social people. When we do get off of our farms we LOVE to talk with other dairy producers about what's working for them, what's working for us, new ideas with dairy industry representatives, and latest current events. It's great to share with producers from across the country your common frustrations and joys, because those are what bonds us together. It's been an awesome experience to share with fellow farmers the joys I have writing this blog, posting on Facebook and Twitter, as well as our YouTube channel. I hope many of those I spoke with today are as inspired as I am to continue sharing our stories...because dairy farmers have such GREAT stories! Thanks to all dairy farmers for the hard work that you do everyday! You are greatly appreciated!

Beef...it's what's for dinner!

2011-03-12T02:00:00.000-06:00

As dairy farmers, we work hard to promote our milk products, but as dairy farmers we are also beef producers too. Our bull calves are raised by local farmers as steers and a few of our older cows are also sold for beef. So, I took some time to educate myself tonight in why beef is important in a healthy diet. I always knew beef was important, but I didn't know how power packed a lean serving of beef can be...so here's some interesting facts:

A 3 ounce serving of beef supplies 51% of the daily recommended Protein.
That same serving of beef also provides 38% of the daily recommended Zinc, 37% of B-12, 26% of Selenium, and 20% of Phosphorous! Wow!
Beef is also a good source for Niacin, B-6, Riboflavin, and Iron.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Reports: "Americans are increasingly overfed yet undernourished, so it’s essential that we get the most nutritional value from the foods and beverages we enjoy. In fact, the USDA states American's should “get more nutrition from their calories” by choosing nutrient-rich foods first, within and among all food groups, including colorful fruits and vegetables, whole grains, low- and nonfat dairy, and lean meats.

Beef's essential amino acids (building blocks of protein) helps the body build, maintain and repair body tissue. Muscles also form hormones and enzymes, and increase resistance to infection and disease. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that eating more protein can benefit weight loss, muscle mass maintenance, cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and satiety.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), iron deficiency is a common nutritional deficiency worldwide among young children and women of child-bearing age, including those who are pregnant. Four million U.S. children are iron-deficient, and childhood iron-deficiency anemia is associated with behavioral and cognitive delays. Beef is a good source of iron, and unlike plant proteins, beef is the food supply’s most readily available and easily absorbed source of iron. Iron not only helps red blood cells carry oxygen to body tissue, it also plays an important role in cognitive health, including memory, ability to learn and reasoning.

Beef is an excellent source of zinc, which is an essential nutrient that fuels thousands of bodily processes, including building muscles and healing wounds, maintaining the immune system, and contributing to cognitive health.

Beef contains a significant amount of several B vitamins including vitamins B12 and B6, niacin and riboflavin. Vitamin B12 is needed for normal functioning of body cells and of the nervous system. Vitamin B6 is important for a healthy nervous system and helps the body fight infection. In addition, both vitamins B12 and B6 play important roles in lowering blood levels of homocysteine, an amino acid that increases risk for heart disease and dementia. Niacin promotes healthy skin and nerves, aids digestion, and fosters normal appetite; and riboflavin helps the body use energy and promotes healthy skin and good vision.

As with all of our food choices, we must remember to eat in moderation. Beef balanced with fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low fat dairy creates a delicious, healthy meal for families. So, support our beef producers....and serve beef, it's what's for dinner!

There's a light at the end of the tunnel...

2011-03-08T03:25:00.000-06:00

I am so tired of blogging about the "s-word" and the "w-word" that I decided that I would post a more delightful blog from Minnesota! Let's think spring! This picture is from my garden last spring, and it gives me hope that after almost 4 solid months with the "s-word" we will once again see green grass, beautiful flowers and sunshine.

These past few weeks at the farm have been long and tiresome. Jon and I are working towards a number of goals for this year, but as a result we are required to put in lots of extra hours in at the farm. Some days we get so wrapped up in the work that we start to forget what it is that we are working for,....much like our battle with the "w-word". We get so busy working with the "s-word" that we forget that we are working towards spring! Nothing like looking through some pictures from last spring to remind us of that. So as we continue to work towards our goals for our cows and ourselves...as well as battling the eliments...we are reminded: there's a light at the end of the tunnel!

I am not a Fraud, I care about my cows & that's the TRUTH!

2011-02-28T03:15:00.000-06:00

This past weekend I was shocked to be called a "fruad" on my YouTube channel. I have been called a liar and an abuser, but this was the first time that someone had called me a fraud. Apparently this gentleman thought that I and other dairy farmers misrepresent themselves as people who care for their cows, but instead abuse them. Oh brother! If that man only knew how much I care for those cows! If I could I would have invited him to spend JUST ONE DAY with me on my farm this winter, I would have. This winter has been particularly trying for us, spending many 12+ hour days working, but everyday we stay committed to my cows, Friday was another example of that...

On Friday we were having one of those days. It seemed like nothing was going our way. Milking took longer than it should have. Jon worked all morning with fresh cows only to find 2 of our girls were feeling severely under the weather. Some days it doesn't matter how hard and long we work, there are just some cows we can't stop from getting sick. We needed the veterinarian, so we called in. Later we learned that both of our cows, Adrian and Dominique, needed surgery, however while Adrian's prognosis was very positive, Dominique's prognosis was less that positive. Dominique is a 3 year old cow in our herd, who delivered her second calf over a month ago. She was showing signs of the "flu" a day earlier, and we treated her with probiotics and vitamins, but we were wrong. Dominique had managed to twist her stomachs in what we call a RDA (right sided displaced abomasum). She was going to need surgery to fix her stomachs, but because she has been sick for more than a day and had a really low temperature, the veterinarian could not guarantee success. In fact he asked Jon if we wanted to do the surgery for sure or save the money and euthanize her; she had a 50/50 chance of making it. We couldn't euthanized her, there was still a chance she could defeat the odds and prove the veterinarian wrong. We went with chance. The surgery was a success. Dominique was slow to recover, but we followed the recommendations of our vet Dr. Smith. Post surgery, she received fluids, extra vitamins and minerals, protein and fiber and of course LOTS of REST. She also received antibiotics for her incisions. We spent Saturday night until midnight with Dominique, giving her much needed TLC. It paid off. Today I can confidently say she is on her way to a full recovery. If we didn't care, we would have euthanized her on Friday and saved our money, but we believe each of our cows deserve our very best EVERY day.

How many activist understand that? Instead farmers get tagged as abusers, believers in slavery, liars and frauds. There's nothing dishonest about a single thing I do everyday for my cows. We often put their needs above our own. In know that everyone of the dairy farmers that I have met, whether they have 30 or 3000 cows, cares just as much as I do for our cows. Go ahead and accuse us of anything you want, but DON'T accuse us of fraud! How much we care for our cows is a FACT, there are no lies about that. To the gentleman that made this accusation, thank you. You have added to my motivation to work harder to spread the truth about animal agriculture, specifically dairy farming.

New Winter Pictures Added

2011-02-23T02:55:00.000-06:00

Our cow YoYo, caring for her newborn bull in the sun, on a brisk February afternoon.

Bambi: basking in the warm sun shine in our calf barn, she sure loves her "spot" here!

New Pictures added to our Facebook Album...check out more views of winter on our dairy farm!

Winter's Slap in the Face

2011-02-22T02:38:00.000-06:00

Oh Old Man Winter decided he wasn't done yet with us hard working dairy farmers in Minnesota. Last week we were spoiled with warm sunshine and 40+ degree afternoons. In those days, we felt as though a weight was lifted from our shoulders (physically-we were wearing a few less layers!) We were able to finish daily chores quickly and we were actually able to work on a number of "projects" around the farm! It was great to actually be accomplishing something!

But these past couple days Old Man Winter slapped spring back a few more weeks! Yesterday we were in a Blizzard Warning, bracing for 12+ inches of snow with 25+ mph winds. It was a snowy day, but we had a break in the snowfall at the perfect time to blow out and push out enough snow to feed, milk and bed our cows. Today was a little more unforgiving....

We had a moderate/heavy snowfall through the morning and into the afternoon. I believe that our storm total was 14 inches of snow, but it's hard to tell since most of our snow is still moving yet....yep, those Southern Minnesota winds are still pushing our snow around like sand in the desert. It looks pretty, until you have to work in it. I believe Jon and I worked an additional 4 hours each today, just moving snow! I shoveled out my calf huts twice to feed my little girls, and then again tonight after the snowfall stopped to bed them in. Jon used the snow blower to find our corn silage and haylage bags. He also had to blow out the snow in the farm yard, to make sure the and the milk truck and tractors didn't get stuck. Finally, he blew out the snow in the heifer and dry cow yards. With this much snow we had mountains of snow for the animals to trudge through on their way to the feed bunks, before Jon moved it. The disheartening part was that within hours of removing the snow, more of it was ready to take its place! At least tonight, even though the snow is moving (slower now) the snowfall has stopped....so digging out tomorrow will actually last hopefully until spring, or at least for a few days! So....we continue the fight against Old Man Winter....spring will be here before we know it!

Why we LOVE Dairy...new video!

2011-02-17T00:56:00.000-06:00

Please check out our latest video..."Why we LOVE Dairy". It's a short video feature only a small sampling of the things we love about the role we have in feeding the world. It features pictures from spring/summer 2010, which I couldn't help but enjoy being we are enjoying much above normal temps (50's) here at the farm....so check it out!

Dairy Farming & Marriage, a Tough Mix

2011-02-14T01:18:00.001-06:00

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I am certain that couples everywhere will be enjoying the fruits of their thoughtful labors: flowers, candies, dinners, dates, and romance. However, Jon and I will be spending our day in a completely different fashion....farming. Since we married, I don't know if I can ever recall a Valentine's Day that we have ever spent together on a formal date. I am not complaining, believe me, we never had luck on Valentines Day. One year, in college, Jon thought he would surprise me with a special visit to South Dakota, but when he arrived he found me sick and in bed with the flu. He spent the evening helping me rest instead of the date he had planned. Nevertheless this Valentines Day I was thinking about dairy farming and marriage, and how they effect the relationship between a husband and a wife. After much thought, I believe that dairy farming is a great place to teach couples about themselves and their relationship.
6 years ago we started farming together, and a few months later we were married. During that time I held a full time job as a dairy nutritionist and farmed with Jon part time. Then, 2 years ago when I quit to farm full time. When we decided to move me to full time farmer many of our friends and family thought we were crazy. We are both stubborn leaders, with equal amounts of passion for what we do....it was a recipe for fights and arguments. I assured everyone we knew what we were getting into....and I was right!
I married my best friend, who I have known since childhood. I have been blessed to be able to farm beside him as an equal partner. Dairy farming is VERY stressful on a marriage relationship. There have been times along the way where dairying has challenged the strength of our bond and determination. Whether is was the cow calving just as we were leaving for a date or the tractor breaking down just as we were finishing for the day. There are many stressful moments in farming. The financial stress of farming is another challenge. These past 6 years have been a financial struggle to say the least. No matter what we faced though, and no matter how scared we were, we have made it through. There have been fights and disagreements, but I would never in a heart beat trade off the chance to work with Jon everyday.
When I was working full time, I was constantly wondering what Jon was doing or if he remembered to do a task I had left for him that day. Often I would come home and ask him how his day went and I would get the "fine" response. Oh, how angry I would get with that! I knew he did more than "fine" that day, but he never told me. Now, I have the opportunity to be there for his daily challenges, and that is so rewarding for us. We are a team, each bringing to the table a different set of skills and traits that make us good at what we do. I love the fact that we can milk cows in the morning together, split to do other chores and jobs on the farm for the afternoon, and return in the evening to milk together again. It's very rewarding to share those times together and spent that time apart. We laugh together all of the time. If it wasn't for laughter I don't know how we would get through the tough times.
So for this Valentine's Day, just like others, I am thankful to be married to my best friend, who I know will be there as a teammate in life and on the farm, through sickness and health, good times and bad...always be my side. How bless I am!!!

Physical Therapy for Cows

2011-02-11T01:59:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it through the nasty Minnesota winter without a downer cow...until now! 2 days ago my lovely cow Whinny (named by my sister in law almost 5 years ago) slipped on the icy and frozen surface of our holding area on the way into our milking parlor. Normally she would have caught a grip on the grooved floor and continued walking into the parlor, but unfortunately there was a bossy cow behind her, which gave her a much unneeded shove. She fell down. Most cows would quickly and swiftly get up, but Whinny had injured herself, and she couldn't get up. We believe that she has a over extended joint in her hip. Knowing this, we worked quickly to get her lifted up and standing again. We also gave her some medication for inflammation. The longer a cow is down the higher the risk of further injuries.
Whinny stood, we milked her in the parlor as she stood by herself, but there was no way we were going to try to get her out of the parlor with the others, she was too shaky and unsafe. We lifted her out the bedded pack, where she rested comfortably with "room service"....feed and water delivered right to her. We let her roam around her pen during the afternoon, as she saw fit. She seemed to be doing so well, she even made it to the feed lane, on the concrete floor, this morning to get her own feed, but tonight we found her in the alley. She fell again. She was so shaky and scared. We lifted her once again. She stood, collected herself, and she was back to running around in her pack pen. Turns out she can't walk on concrete well, but she can run very swiftly on the pack. Knowing this we have decided to continue to work with her on the pack until we know for certain she can handle the concrete, and for now she has no access to the concrete feed lane....we'll just keep bringing her room service instead. We are very hopeful Whinny will make a full recovery with a little TLC and Physical Therapy for Cows!

Animal Activisits are an Important Part of our Future

2011-02-08T01:08:00.000-06:00

Below was a comment recently posted on one of my previous blogs, and it really made me think about animal agriculture and how our relationships with consumers have evolved in the past few years thanks to HSUS and PETA.....check out the comment:

"I've been reading through this blog (is this called a thread?) with interest, and glad to see that after some initial emotional arguments, an intelligent exchanging of views was achieved - we don't all have to agree with each other, but we do need to stop branding every person the same way - not all dairy farmers are cruel, not all animal activists are raving vegan extremists. Good to have respect for someone elses point of view....

....I could go on and on, but in the end, I am not a vegetarian, well not full time anyway, I have my moments, but I do stand strongly for the ethical treatment of animals, and I do believe that animal activists are an important part of our future, as they help to keep improving our systems and educating the public, and work with us as producers to make the world a happier place for animals. All I would ask of animal activists is that they do actually do their homework before launching personal attacks on people - I think the wider population would actually take them more seriously if this was the case."

This reader really hit home on those 2 points...thanks to animal activists we have worked to make our farms and ranches better and we have a total industry of agriculture, really begun to educate consumers about where their food comes from. I know on our own farm we work hard to give the best care to our animals, but I will admit there are probably places for improvement that an activist might be able to see, that we might miss. In addition, I might not have this blog if it wasn't for activists who make consumers acknowledge that they really don't know where their food comes from anymore. Thanks to activists I have the honor and privilege to share with consumers and readers alike about the daily happenings on our farm, and that's awesome! So thank you animal activists for allowing me to have this great blog!

New Guidelines encourage 3 servings of Dairy each day!

2011-02-03T03:06:00.000-06:00

This week the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the new 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). As a dairy producer I have been following this issue closely. We produce a safe and wholesome product full of vital nutrients for consumers. Milk has calcium for bones, protein for muscles, Vitamins A & D, as well as magnesium, potassium, and phosphorous. We have always encouraged consumers to enjoy 3 daily servings of dairy and it turns out we were right on track!

Unfortunately Americans coming up short on their calcium consumption. Currently, Americans are consuming about two dairy servings per day on average. Adding just one more serving of dairy each day can fill some of America’s major nutrient gaps. Very few foods deliver dairy’s powerhouse of nutrients in such an affordable, appealing and readily available way.

Have you tried a delicious chocolate milk after a hard workout? Protein and calcium contained in milk help contribute to weight loss, while increasing lean muscle mass.
Try a drinkable yogurt for breakfast for a boost of dairy combined with probiotics for digestive health.
How about a low fat mozzarella cheese stick for a quick but filling snack for mid-day?
Just an 8 ounce glass of milk with your supper can help fill your 3rd serving each day!
New changes in dairy products offer even more healthy options!

Cheeses with lower sodium and fat levels.
Flavored milk with less added sugar -- that can help Americans meet the 2010 DGA recommendations without compromising on taste!

· Curious for more information? Check out the National Dairy Council's website for more information on the health benefits of dairy.

Through NDC, dairy farmers have supported child nutrition research, education and communication in their communities and schools for nearly a century. Dairy has been committed to children’s health for years. In 2009 we launched a joint effort with the National Football League, called Fuel Up to Play 60 (FUTP60) , that aims to help improve children’s health by bringing healthy eating education and physical activities to more than 70,000 schools. FUTP60 promotes good nutrition – including low-fat and fat-free dairy – and physical fitness in our nation’s schools to help defeat childhood obesity by allowing students to take the lead in choosing the changes they want to make, including access to healthier food and getting active with physical activity every day. First Lady Michelle Obama has also signed on with this exciting program!

Looking for more information, please see the links below!

Links to feature:

· Dairy Industry Joint Statement
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-federal-dietary-guidelines-call-for-americans-to-increase-their-consumption-of-low-fat-and-fat-free-dairy-foods-114954924.html

· Federal Government DGA Info
http://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/

· USAToday.com: “New U.S. Diet Guidelines Urge Less Salt, More Dairy”
http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/diet-nutrition/story/2011/01/Guidelines-urge-Americans-to-clean-up-their-diets/43092924/1

We encourage you to follow the new National Dairy Council (NDC) Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/NtlDairyCouncil/following) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/home.php#!/nationaldairycouncil ) properties and share the latest news on dairy nutrients with your followers. You can also:

Babies, Babies, Babies!!!!

2011-01-25T02:42:00.000-06:00

One of our many baby calves, this is Hauney.

So it's been a little while since I posted a blog, and it's not from lack of trying, but from lack of sleep. I think we have spent the entire month of January on "Baby Watch". We knew we were expecting a large number of calves this month, but you never realize how many there are until they are all born and ready to eat!!! So our tally (so far...I have one more cow due with a set of twins for this week)...

33 calves since Christmas from 29 cows.
18 heifer calves (girls)
11 bull calves (boys)
4 loved baby calves still born (I always miss my lost ones!)
Currently feeding 27 calves on milk!!! Lots of hungry babies to play with!

Even though we have so many calves, I can assure you that we are not skipping over our chores or doing a poor job. Each calf is important, just as important as their mothers. We strive to give each of them the best care possible, even if that means some short sleep nights and early mornings for us. I have been doing the 3am checks for calves this entire month. I am certain that I am checking my dry cows (expectant mothers) at least 10 times a day, waiting for the next little blessing. Cold Minnesota weather has also offered a challenge. It is critical that we move the calves quickly to get them into the warm nursery. It's also equally critical that we get our cows to the milking barn after calving. Both cows and calves are moved to prevent them from experiencing frost bite in these frigid temperatures (-10 to -20's last week). February looks to be a lighter calving month, and a much needed break for this active dairy farmer! Stay tuned for more pictures and videos from the calf barn!

Update: Cows are back on track!

2011-01-16T01:56:00.000-06:00

It's been a little bit since I blogged about our cows and how they have been doing, so I thought I would take this chance to post an update. Well as you read in CSI: Dairy Farm Investigation, we had a little bump in the road. After that post we had all of our forages tested. We test our silage, haylage, hay and straw about once a month to make sure that we know exactly how much protein, energy, minerals, and vitamins are in each. We build our diets around those forages, and supplement with grains to fill out the rest of our cows' nutrient needs. The tests came back in a couple of days and we learned that not only had our corn silage increased in energy, but our haylage was more digestible, and our alfalfa hay had more protein in it. All 3 factors caused our cows to get upset stomachs. Too many treats for them, and their diet was out of balance. So we fine tuned the diet once again, and after about 2 weeks on the new diets, we can say the the cows are back on track! They haven't gained back all of the milk they once had, but that's ok with us, their health is far more important! It's great to walk into the barn in the morning and see them all chewing their cuds so diligently! (we know we made the right choices then!)

Other than working with the new feed changes, we have also been busy welcoming a number of new calves to the farm. Be sure to stop by our Facebook Page to see new pictures of our new baby calves! The mother cows are doing great, and the baby calves are thriving. I checked the calving list tonight, and we have 14 more to be born this month, including 2 sets of possible twins!! I can't wait to meet them all!

Minnesota's Winter Weather has also been a challenge for us. We have been constantly bedding in our cows....to keep them warm and insulated from the cold. We have also been working move and remove as much snow as we can, since it snows here almost twice a week. Needless to say, we are experiencing a traditional Minnesota Winter, and all the joys it brings with. The forecast for the coming week doesn't sound too much more promising, but we can look forward to March....and thawing!

What's YOUR dream job?

2011-01-14T02:08:00.000-06:00

Last week, while I worked to bed in my little calves, I was listening to our local radio station. The radio announcer was discussing a survey of the general public, answering the question "what's your dream job?" Surprisingly, the top answer was to be a movie star/TV star/rock star and the second highest answer was a successful professional athelete. I pondered that question....what would my dream job be? I didn't have to think too long, as I knew without a doubt I would want to be a dairy farmer. Nope, I am not interested in being a celebrity, but instead a noble dairy farmer.

There have been many times in the past 5 years that I have been offered jobs that require less physical labor, less hours, and would pay so much more, but dairy farming offers me so much more than a living wage. The past 3 years we have barely made a living dairy farming (we hope to make a reasonable salary soon). We started farming well aware that we better not expect to be millionaires while dairying farming. So if it isn't the money, what could possibly make me say that dairy farming is my dream job???

I LOVE my cows! Everyday I get to work with awesome animals, which I have great respect for.
There's nothing more rewarding that a newborn heifer calf! Every time we have a new calf I am reminded of how so much of our lives is out of our control but how so much of it is also a great blessing!
Rising to the challenges! I enjoy challenges, I always have. As a dairy farmer each day has its own set of unique challenges....and I strive to meet them, it's very rewarding to save a cow, solve a problem, or help the herd be in their best health, etc.
Nature rocks! I complain a little about the heat and the cold in Minnesota, but at the end of the day I love the seasons, the weather changes, the wildlife, and the natural wonders that surround us...a great blessing! Who needs an office when you have the great outdoors???
Feeding the world, one milk drinker at a time! I am proud to know that we produce a nutritious and wholesome product that can help consumers of all ages maintain good health. I feed the World and I am proud of it!
Protecting the environment. We strive each year to be better stewards of our land, water and resources. Each year we make changes to help us improve and sustain the environment around us for future generations and that's a great feeling!
Sharing our story! I LOVE this blog and my SM activities which allow me to share our story with others who may never see a farm in their lifetimes. How awesome of privilege it is to share how milk is produced and how families like ours care for our cows each day.....so please feel free to ask questions, I love to answer them!

So...What's your dream job??? Would you consider being a dairy farmer instead of a celebrity? I would in a heartbeat!!!

Joke too funny not to share!

2011-01-14T01:47:00.001-06:00

A good friend of mine e-mailed me the following this week, and it was just too funny not to share. As a dairy farmer I understand this punch line all too well, but perhaps as a follower of my blog you may also respect the role we have in feeding the world...enjoy!!!

The North Dakota Department of Labor claimed a small Bismarck dairy farmer was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent out to investigate him.

Department of Labor employee: I need a list of your employees and how much you pay them.

Farmer: Well, there's my farm hand who's been with me for 3 years. I pay him $200 a week plus free room and board.

Then there's the mentally challenged worker. He works about 18 hours every day and does about 90% of all the work around here. He makes about $10 per week, pays his own room and board, and I buy him a bottle of bourbon every Saturday night so he can cope with life. He also sleeps with my wife occasionally.

Department of Labor employee: That's the guy I want to talk to... the mentally challenged one.

Farmer: That would be me.

CSI: Dairy Farm Investigation

2011-01-03T02:37:00.000-06:00

Well, besides Christmas and New Year's interrupting my blogging time, Jon and I have been spending a great deal of time at the farm. We really had a real life episode of CSI: Dairy Farm Investigation, on our farm this week. As always, we put our cows' health first. Healthy cows are Happy & Producing cows, but this past week the cows weren't happy. So....here's what happened:

Monday: We noticed 1 of our heifers (13 months old) was avoiding the feed bunk. This is odd behavior from a heifer, usually they can't get enough feed. Jon and I immediately thought she had pneumonia, so we brought her inside for a thorough check up. Much to our surprise we found that she had a LDA (Left-sided Displaced Abomasum). Something had cause our heifer Snowflakes to go off feed, get a gas build up in her stomach, which forced her stomach to move from its normal position. When an LDA happens, it has to be fixed immediately and their are 2 methods to fix it. The first option is a surgery, where a cut is made in the side of the cow, the stomach is deflated of the gases, and the stomach is sutured to the body wall, preventing it from floating out of position again. The second option is less invasive, but not always successful. It involves sedating the animal, rolling her onto her back to force the stomach to the correct position and placing a suture on the bottom of the animal to hold the stomach in place. We opted for the 2nd option, since it was be less tramatic for our Snowflakes, and since she was a small animal, it would be successful (and it was! Snowflakes is doing great now!). So once we fix Snowflakes, we started our investigation....something caused her to go off feed and get a LDA...so what was it???? We didn't want any more sick animals, but we were in store for more.

Tuesday: We noticed new fresh cows (cows that just had calves in the past week) were starting to struggle with their feed intakes. We watch our cows diligently, and because of that we noticed almost immediately that they were not eating enough feed. We worked to treat them with probiotics, vitamins, and minerals to help appetite, but it wasn't working. Our investigation continues....

Wednesday: We found another LDA animal...a mid-lactation (cow that has been milking for more than 100 days) which had suddenly floated a LDA! Luckily our vet came to our rescue, and we did surgery (with large milking cows we always do surgeries for LDA's to guarantee success). Our cow Ozzy, for no apparent reason also went off feed, filled her stomach with gas, and floated it out of position....now we were really concerned....LDA's in cows don't happen at that stage of lactation. We thought it could be our new alfalfa haylage that we started on Christmas, or maybe our new alfalfa hay that we had delivered on Christmas. So, we tested both feeds and kept on investigating.

Thursday: We noticed the cows were producing almost 5 pounds less milk per cow each day...this was a dramatic change! What seemed like a good day, was about to be a storm of problems brewing for Friday.....

Friday: 3 more cows floated LDA's! 3 more surgeries! 2 were mid-lactation cows and 1 fresh heifer! Now we were really worried! Did we have an epidemic on our hands? What was making our cows sick? How can we stop this? We started to brain storm, and after some thinking we put the pieces together and contacted our nutritionist with Cargill Animal Nutrition. After talking with Jeremy, we confirmed our suspicions. So....what was making our cows and heifers sick???? ........Our Corn Silage!

Diagnosis: Corn silage is a lot like wine...as it ferments, the longer it stays sealed the better it becomes. Corn silage fermentation helps to make the fiber more digestible, but as it becomes more digestible, the cow's rations need to be adjusted to ensure that the cows are eating enough fiber each day. If a cow doesn't get enough fiber in the ration, she gets loose manure, she has a reduced appetitie, she chews her cud less, and can even float a LDA! So our corn silage has been working hard these past few weeks to become better and better, but the cows weren't giving us the signals we needed to see to make the changes to avoid upset stomachs and LDA's. I would relate this to when we eat too many Christmas sweets...we have a stomach ache, and so do they!

Sollution: The sollution was easy! We needed to add more fiber! So we are now feed more total forage to our cows. The extra forage comes in the form of extra alfalfa haylage and corn silage. But we also added straw to our ration. Our cows are now eating 100 pounds of feed each day, that also serves them 1 pound of wheat straw. The straw helps to slow the rate at which feed goes through the stomach, but it also encourages the cows to chew their cuds more. Cud chewing is great for cow health~! So after making these changes already on Friday, we know we are back on track! It's so scary to see your cows getting sick and not know what is making them sick, but it is always rewarding to figure out the cause and return them to good health once again. As always, our cows health always comes first!!

Computer Down for Repairs

2010-12-28T02:21:00.000-06:00

Well I'm back! My dear, wonderful husband was left home alone with the computer a few days ago to tend to some much needed, end of the year bookwork, only to upload a virus to our dear computer! We luckily have a computer guy in the family and he was willing to take a look! We got the computer back before Christmas but I haven't had the chance to post anything until now.

I hope the Holiday Season is finding all of you in good spirits! Winter has decided to take a break here at Orange Patch Dairy. We were unable to attend 2 of the 3 Christmas celebrations we were planning to go to this weekend, thanks to some new calves. We had 8 calves born in the past 4 days (6 before Christmas & one on Christmas morning!). So far the total is: 5 heifers, 1 bull and 1 set of twin bulls. Since we have 8 new babies to feed, calf chores now take an additional 40 minutes each time, or 80 extra minutes a day. Bottle feeding calves is very time consuming but I love bonding with my new calves! I have pictures to be posted soon of my new babies, but for now I best be off to bed...we have at least one more calf coming tomorrow (I induced her mother today, since she is 5 days past due) and 5 more due before New Year's! Stay tuned for more posts!!

How Dairy Farmers get dressed for Winter?

2010-12-15T01:21:00.000-06:00

Well, we enjoyed weather today in the 10's above zero and that was a HUGE blessing. For the past 2 days it's been below zero for most if not all of the day. Yesterday's high was -2! We work hard to care for our cows and calves in these temps. Extra bedding is needed to make sure the animals can nest (tuck themselves in for the night). While working for our cows, we do need to care for ourselves. While I was waddling through the yard yesterday, I thought I would share the mountain of clothes that I wear each day to stay warm.

When I was 10 years old I was diagnosed with cold urticaria. Basically, I am allergic to the cold, snow, ice, frigid air, and most of all cold damp air. My body reacts to cold by producing hives...painful and itchy hives. I share this allergy with my father, so we often help each other find ways to stay warm. Even though I am allergic to the cold...I love living in Minnesota, so instead of moving I found ways to cope. As you can see in my picture...I allow very little of my skin to actually come in contact with the cold air. Once the temps are above 10 I can handle more exposure, but I still need to be careful. So,....in order to stay warm and cozy while I work 10-14 hours a day outside I wear LOTS of layers! So let's start at the top...

I usually wear a headband for my ears (they're very sensitive to the cold!). In the negative temps I sport the insulated face mask. I always wear at least 1 t-shirt and 1 long sleeved t-shirt, with a fleece hoodie on top. I added another long sleeved t-shirt yesterday to insure that I stayed warm. I wear a pair of athletic shorts, athletic pants, and a pair of jeans...all underneath a pair of insulated overall bibs. On top of that I wear an insulated coat. My feet enjoy 2 pairs of extra thick socks inside my insulated boots. I swear I wear almost 50 pounds of clothing and gear, but all of it is needed so I can stay outside comfortably, working for our animals. Sounds crazy I know, but I wouldn't trade anything, I enjoy being with my cows everyday...even in the Minnesota Tundra!

Bracing for the Worst, Hoping for the Best-Blizzard 2010

2010-12-10T17:42:00.000-06:00

Well, the weatherman has it laid out for us....ice starting within the hour, switching to snow at midnight. We are expecting snow through the day tomorrow, then winds to start early in the morning. Winds will blow up to 45 mph, with wind chills as low as -39 degrees by Sunday morning. Snow totals will be 8-10 inches here, with more closer to the Twin Cities. All of this means that most of Minnesota will be tuck in their homes safe and sound until Sunday, meanwhile, we will be working diligently.

We live in town and commute to the farm each day. It's a short 7 mile trip, but in inclimate weather it is a dangerous journey. With the Blizzard Warning we are work ahead to bed in all of the animals (we will need to repeat this tomorrow). We also fed the cows with extra calories today, making sure their bodies are prepared for the snow. Jon is putting up a snow break, to block snow drifts and protect the dry cows and heifers. I worked this afternoon to prepare my calf huts, removing extra snow and adding extra bedding. Finally, Jon and I are trying to decide if we will risk going home tonight safely to find out we may not make it to the farm tomorrow morning or should we spend the night at the farm. Since cows need to be fed each day, bedded each day, and milked twice a day; we have to be there. So....time will tell if Jon will be daring with his 4-wheel drive or if we'll be playing it safe, but ultimately our cows will always come first!

New YouTube Video-Making of a Butterhead!

2010-12-10T17:21:00.000-06:00

With all of my upcoming Holiday baking, I realized I never posted this video, so for everyone to enjoy...the making of the famous Butterheads at the Minnesota State Fair. It was a great experience for my sister (and for me too back in 2002!)!

Winter vs. Cows

2010-12-08T01:01:00.000-06:00

A frosty look at the farm...pretty to look at, hard to work in.

Well, winter is here. It was inevitable. Forecasts call for even colder temperature for the weekend (Sunday might not even make it above 0!). Cold is usually harder on the people working with our cows than the actual cows. We work hard to prevent any problems the cows might have with the cold.

First we provide them shelter from the snow, cold, wind, and moisture. Our barns are made to be cool inside. Right now the manure is freezing to the alleys, so you ask...why don't you heat the barn. There's a major problem with that....cows have winter hair! Cows grow a thick coat of hair each winter, by putting them in a heated barn they would sweat heavily and catch a "cow cold". Instead of warming the cows, we allow their hair to insulate them. We work hard to keep them dry and comfortable with fresh bedding often. With that thick hair they hardly notice the cool temps.

The cold dry air is drying out my skin. My hands are cracked....and it is also drying out our cows' skin. We use a special teat dip for our cows with lots of moisturizers in it (just like a lotion). We also make sure that cows leaving the parlor have dry teats, because wet teats can get skin damage and in extreme cold even frost bite!

The calves are the most susceptible to the cold weather. New calves are quickly moved from the calving pen. New wet calves can very easily get frost bite (especially their ears!), so we swiftly dry them off, put them in a calf coat, bed them in with lots of straw, and feed them lots of warm colostrum. As they grow we make sure to increase the calories that we feed them. Cold weather means they are using more of their own energy to stay warm, so we compensate for that by feeding extra milk each day. Calves also have unlimited access to calf starter.

Older heifers also eat extra calories and enjoy extra bedding. All of the extra effort is worth it, knowing our cows are doing well...it just takes a lot of extra time and work on our part. So...chores are taking a lot longer than they would in fall, spring or summer....bear with us, it's going to be another long Minnesota Winter.

A Collection of Misfits...

2010-12-01T01:09:00.000-06:00

Today was herd health day at the farm. Every 3-4 weeks the vet shows up to check the health of our new fresh cows, vaccinate cows and heifers, dehorn calves, pregnancy check cows that were bred, and check any cows that we need to have examined. Today was an excellent herd health! We had a a good report on our fresh cows, vaccinations went well and most importantly we had a number of cows that were confirmed pregnant! When looking over the list of cows that were pregnant, I decided that we had a small collection of misfits. It was interesting reading each name and thinking about that cow's life history.

Cows varied in ages, but each was a misfit in their own right. First we had a 12 year old cow, Terry, who is the oldest cow in our herd. She has had numerous calves, and again, is pregnant and due in July. Terry isn't the prettiest cow in the barn but she milks well and has calves...she stays healthy. We love her a lot. Second on the list was Zhilgen. She's a special heifer because she beat the odds. As a heifer she had a serious surgery. The vets told us that she wouldn't be able to have a calf someday, but we bred her anyways, got her pregnant and she successfully delivered a heifer calf. After that, we were told that she couldn't have another calf, but after a couple tries, we are successful! Third and fourth on the list were 2 cows that delivered calves months ago, but due to their high milk production they were not able to become pregnant. After many tries we finally got them to conceive, even one with twins! Fifth and sixth on the list were heifers that had many tries as well, but we got them pregnant. Finally, was Yevette! Yevette was a heifer that was born 33 days premature, and against all odds she survived! With a lot of TLC from Jon and I we nursed her, got her to grow, and now....she's pregnant with her first calf, due in July! We are so proud of Yvette and how well she is thriving!

After Herd Health, I walked through the calf barn and saw another misfit! On Thanksgiving Day we welcomed 2 new heifer calves. These girls were very fortunate that we had our Thanksgiving Dinner at Grandma's house, which is next to the dry cow lot. We were able to rescue them from the frigid weather, preventing frost bite. The first calf, Izzy did great from the get-go, however, the second calf, Thankful, wasn't doing so great. Thankful wasn't able to stand up, her legs were deformed, her ligaments were weak and unable to support weight. We nursed her and nurtured her. And finally today....6 days after her birth....she stood for the first time!!!! I was so proud of my little calf, I gave her a hug!!! Thankful was also a misfit, but with a little dairy farmer care she thrives. Dairy farming is all about saving the misfits....they are worth the time and effort.

A Time to be Thankful

2010-11-27T01:40:00.000-06:00

It's been a little while since I last posted, unfortunately I lost my Grandmother over a week ago, and was busy with the events that came with her passing. But from the combination of this loss and the coming Holiday, I had some time to reflect on what I am truly thankful for....

In life, we enjoy the presence of some very special people. People who help develop who we are. not through their directions or orders, but through their example. My Grandmother was and is still that person in my life. We hear that "you never know how important a person is until they are gone", but I know that my family was well aware of how important our Grandmother was when she was here. This Thanksgiving we celebrate without her here, but at the same time we know her spirit is with us. There are so many moments in my life that Grandma was there.

As a child, she would often babysit me and my siblings. We looked forward to spending time with her, hearing her stories about cousins from far away, looking at her pictures, enjoying her delicious cookies (she was the best cook I will ever know!) and her hugs. She would let us play as we wished, and if we accidentally broke something, she would forget it, as she was mostly happy that we were there with her.

As a dairy farmer's wife, she knew all too well the struggles that would face me as I told her that I was planning to return home to farm with my husband, a few years ago. She shared so much wisdom about making sure that we always remembered the most important things in life: God and family. She shared how proud she was of me to be working so hard to produce a wholesome food for the people of the world. Dairy farming is a noble profession, and she knew that. I wasn't wasting my college education, I was working to do something great; she knew that.

She had faith and passion for her God. Grandma was always praying for her kids, grand kids and friends. If there was something in life we needed help with, we would ask Grandma to pray for us, and she always did. Just knowing that she was praying offered us so much encouragement and confidence. She attended church almost everyday with my Grandpa. She enjoyed 63 years of marriage and 92 years of life, surrounded by the people that loved her most. She stood as a role model for all of us to be humble, modest, honest, prayerful, loving, caring, and responsible. I can honestly say that there are so many lessons in life that I learned just from looking up to Grandma, and how she would have handled them. I joked with my sisters last week, that we need to ask ourselves, "What would Grandma Do?" whenever we were challenged in life; hoping to become better people, more like her. So this Thanksgiving, I am truly thankful to have known a person as wonderful as my Grandmother, she will be missed, but she will also always be with us....God Bless You Grandma!

Feedlot Inspection Time

2010-11-19T01:08:00.000-06:00

Just like when we get inspected by the milk inspector, it is time for us to have our feedlot inspection. You may ask, "What is a feedlot inspection?" Well...it's a good thing! Since we operate a farm that has over 300 Animal Units, we are required by county and state laws to have an inspection every couple of years. Animal Units is a unit of measure of manure output from livestock. 1 Holstein cows = 1.4 Animal Units, therefore our 200 cows are equal to 280 animal units, but our additional heifers and calves add to that total.

Tomorrow we have our County Feedlot Office scheduled to visit us. As part of her inspection, she will be touring all accepts of our farm. We will present to her records of where our manure has been hauled, how much was applied, and what nutrients were in the manure for the past 3 years. She will inspect our heifer and dry cow lots to determine if we manage our runoff (making sure there is no runoff). She will be inspecting our manure storage for our lactating cows, to determine if we have adequate storage, as well as checking ground water (making sure it is free of contamination). Since we are over 300 Animal Units, we work hard to maintain our farm and have a nutrient plan.

Odor is another concern that our officer will be checking. We work hard to control odor through covers on our pits and hauling manure when the wind is blowing away from the neighbors, but there are a couple times during the year that the farm does smell....cow poop does happen on a dairy farm. We try to be as kind to our neighbors as possible.

Part of the purpose of this visit is also to make sure a new project that we have planned for this winter, can still be constructed. We are working to make some changes to our buildings for the betterment of our cows....so stay tuned for pictures and updates on what we have up our sleeves ;)

And then Winter Came...

2010-11-14T00:14:00.000-06:00

We were enjoying such a great fall. Temperatures were above normal, precipitation was below normal, and field work was coming along nicely. And then....WINTER CAME! So, if you know and love a dairy farmer then you know that dairy farmers almost always wait until the last minute for everything. Dairy farmers also try to cram as much work into a day as possible. Sticking to those two traits, we have been trying to do SO MANY different projects at the farm and in the field. Last night those projects came to a screeching halt. Jon and I worked so hard yesterday hauling manure before and after evening chores, all the way until we had so much snow on the ground that the skid loader was unable to move. So at 12:30 we headed home from the farm, snow was falling but it wasn't serious.

When we woke up this morning, it was SERIOUS! We had about 4 inches of snow on the ground, covering everything! We drove the truck to the farm to be safe, and for good reason, there were a number of cars and trucks in the ditches already, early in the day. The wet, slushy snow pulled the truck all over the road. Once we made it to the farm, we went about our usual schedule. I loaded the cows into the parlor and Jon got ready to milk. We fired up the milk pump, put on the first 12 milking units and then the power went out! Then it came back on!! Then it went out! Then is came back on!!! And then back out!!! So after getting annoyed with putting on milking units and watching them fall so many times, we decided it would be best to get the generator and milk with that instead. So, after a 30 minute delay, we finally got milking cows, but at least we had a constant power source! Turns out wet and heavy snow doesn't mix well with power lines.

We continued on with the rest of our chores, in the sloppy, wet, muddy, and cold conditions. It was mostly miserable not because of the moisture but because all of the wind blowing the snow. The warm soil was able to melt most of the snow. We only have about 2-3 inches of snow left, thank goodness! I am hoping that melting continues, and we can continue our quest to finish our fall season work. So to help you understand the difference, please check out some pictures of the BEFORE and AFTER of our first snow storm of the winter....

Last little glimpse of summer....

I still had snapdragons all the way through yesterday, I will miss them, until spring!

Snow in the heifer yard, covered everything!

An icy coating on all of my plants and flowers in front of the milking parlor.

DMI is Farmer Funded NOT Government Funded!

2010-11-13T18:10:00.000-06:00

Well, looks like they've done it again! Yet again, the major media sources (this time newspapers) have decided to run a story without checking all of the facts! This time, while it's not a direct attack on dairy farmers, it is an attack on our promotion group, Dairy Management Inc (DMI). DMI is under fire for promoting the consumption of cheese in partnership with Domino's. If you would like to see all of the misinformation corrected, please check out Year of Plenty Blog, where the truth is reported. I am instead going to talk about the most important "false" fact of the news story: DMI is NOT funded by tax payer dollars, but instead by hard working dairy farmers like us!

As a dairy farmer, we proudly pay $.15 per every 100 pounds of milk that we sell for the Dairy CheckOff. With 100 cows, averaging 85 pounds each day, 365 days a year, we produce about 3 million pounds of milk, thereby contributing over $4600 each year to national and local advertising, research, promotion, and nutrition education. About 1/3 of this goes to national (DMI) and about 2/3's stays local (Midwest Dairy Association). We are confident that our money is being spent carefully, because each of these organizations are managed by boards composed of dairy farmers, elected by dairy farmers. Each year, area dairy farmers volunteer their time to work (for those of us who don't have the time) developing and approving new ideas. These boards and organizations are also responsible for making partnerships with restaurants, schools and even the NFL! Recently, DMI partnered with the NFL to develop Fuel Up to Play 60....a program that targets childhood obesity through nutrition education (yes, diets rich in low fat dairy products!) and physical activity.

DMI supports nutrition, health and wellness with over 50% of their annual budget. Research is being done at various universities across the country innovating new products to promote wellness. I remember while at SDSU, 5 years ago, research was being done on making low fat cheese more taste appealing (obviously fat in cheese helps give its flavor, and as an industry we are working to improve the flavor of low fat cheese as an alternative for consumers). Research is also being done to improve sustainability on dairy farms just like ours, through management practices. Some of the local funds also support the Minnesota Dairy Princess Program....Princess Kay of the Milky Way; Not tax payers, but dairy farmers, funding all of these excellent projects.

DMI is a source of pride on our farm. As a farmer, we are also busy working to care for our cows and land, leaving little time in the day for promotion....that's where DMI steps in to fill that void! We appreciate their efforts on all fronts involving dairy. As a local dairy princess coordinator, I am greatly appreciative of funds to help educate kids and adults about dairy farming and products. But, yet again, DMI is funded by the dairy check off...not taxes. So....tax payers can rest easy, your money isn't funding DMI, dairy farmers are funding DMI!

Wish my Camera had Smell-O-Vision!

2010-11-12T00:11:00.000-06:00

Today we opened our first bag of 2010 corn silage for our cows' lunches. We were filled with anticipation this morning as we speculated what we might find in that silage bag. As you may recall we made 8.35 bags of corn silage this past August. We worked so hard to get the corn chopped at the right moisture, with the right level of starch in the corn, and chopped at the correct length (check out our video to refresh your memory!). All of these factors help to make corn silage an amazing food source for cows. Not only is corn silage a great source of energy (corn starch) but it also an excellent source of fiber (plant leaves and stalk) for our girls. We feed roughly 50 pounds of corn silage per milk cow each day, making it the primary food of our cows. When we chopped our corn this past August, it looked like the picture below. The plants were green & the corn was bright yellow.

We sealed it inside the plastic silage bags like a ZipLock bag, with a coating of inoculant (good bacteria used to help preserve the silage). When we seal the bags we never know for sure what we will find when we open them. Every year it is a surprise. We hope that we did our jobs right; that we did the best that we could and would have an amazing feed for our cows. Each year we strive to do better than the year previous. This year we planted a variety of corn that was expected to be higher in digestible fiber for cows, therefore also higher in energy (cows also derive energy from fiber digestion!). So when the big moment came and we opened the seal on our silage bag...this is what we found!!!!

Yep! I sure wish my camera had Smell-O-Vision! This corn silage smelled great! It has a sour aroma to it, but with hints of a sweet flavor. The sour is the vinegar that is produced during fermentation in a silage bag and the sweet is the beloved lactic acid, which makes silage awesome. It's odd that we look forward to our silage, but our cows' health and well being depend on our ability to make good feed. This silage was so tasty for our cows, that they ate more than we expected today and we will have to increase the amount fed to them tomorrow! Hopefully this will result in more milk production as well as continued good health for our cows!

Baby Pictures!

2010-11-11T00:14:00.000-06:00

Our lives revolve around our calves right now, so I thought I would share a couple pictures of my adorable girls! Please feel free to check out our Facebook Page for more pictures of calves and activities this fall! Enjoy!

Autumn, she was the lucky girl that broke our streak of bull calves. She's very special to us, and she's very spoiled. We pet her head, scratch her ears, and rub her back every day!

Not 4 Me, named after a song written by my husband's band. Her mother is named after the band. Not 4 Me is very spoiled as well. Her favorite activity is getting her ears scratched.

Not 4 Me also enjoys her lunch! She and her fellow calves drink about 1 gallon of milk at each feeding, with 2 feedings everyday. She's already growing so quickly!

Calving Season in Full Swing!

2010-11-02T00:35:00.000-05:00

Well, I haven't posted in a little while thanks to the beginning of our calving season. It's so exciting to greet all of my new calves. We calve cows year round, but thanks to the seasonality of the herds that we purchased 5 years ago when we started farming, we calve heavily during the fall and winter months. The farmers that owned the cows before we bought them enjoyed not calving in the hot summer months and during planting. Therefore, we have LOTS of babies to be born in the next few months. Last week we were expecting 10 calves. With a 120 cow herd, that's almost 10% of our herd calving in one week!! We only had 7 calves born, currently I have 3 cows that are 3 days over due. We broke our bull calf streak last week, as we had 4 heifers born in a row! (followed by 3 bull calves in a row, but we are still pumped about the heifers!) The calf barn is once again busy, as is the fresh cow pen. Each morning Jon now has to check a handful of fresh cows to make sure they are doing great. It's awesome to be busy caring for our cows, this is my favorite time of the year. It's very rewarding to help a cow deliver a healthy calf, raise and nurture the calf and watch the new cow excel. I am hoping to post some of the awesome calf pictures in the coming days, so stay tuned! Off to bed, I might have some new calves waiting for me in the morning!!!

Time to change our Rubbers!

2010-10-27T02:25:00.000-05:00

I thought I would run with a funny title tonight. Today and yesterday we have been working with rain, cold and wind, which has forced us out of the fields for the time being, but has allowed us time to do some much needed maintenance in the parlor. We have a great milk equipment service representative that visits our farm on a monthly basis to evaluate the equipment we depend on everyday to milk ours cows. His job is to do check ups on our cleaning systems, milking systems and our milking pump. Duane has been working with us for the past 6 years and we love him! This week was time for our milking inflations to be changed. Milk inflations or milk liners, are rubber liners that we use inside our milking units to gently sqeeze the teats of our cows, removing milk safely and comfortably. Check out this animation from our supplier to get a better idea how milking works! The purpose of the milking unit, claw or cluster is to stimulate the cow to let her milk down on her own, by making her relaxed and comfortable. The inflations gently squeeze the teats, while the vacuum pulls the milk away from the udder. The claw collects the milk and sends it to the milk line, and onto the bulk tank.

These rubber inflations are critical to making sure that we have healthy cows. These rubber inflations help to make sure that the ends of the teats of our cows are smooth and soft instead of dry and cracked. I hate dry skin and so do our cows, especially on their teats. If the inflations were working incorrectly, then we would have dry teats and as a result an increase in mastitis (infection of the udder). So...as you can see it is very important to change our rubbers on a regular basis! Inflations have a hard job. On our farm they last about 3 months, then it is time to install new ones. We are currently trying out some new inflations, to improve our cow health even more. At this time we are very excited about the results that we have! Cows love the new inflations! (we know because they didn't kick off a single unit since the install!)

Maintaining our equipment makes sure that we continue to have healthy cows and we produce a safe and nutrition product!

It's a Girl!!!

2010-10-23T00:16:00.001-05:00

Finally!!! We can report that we have a heifer calf! We had 9 bull calves in a row, and from the looks of things, we were thinking that this too would be another bull calf. Cow #312 was due 7 days ago, typically when this happens, it means that it's going to be a bull calf (male). Not always is this the case, but typically if a calf is born late, it is a bull. 2 days ago, we decided that #312 waited long enough to have her calf. We decided to go ahead and induce her delivery. We gave #312 medication to begin labor on Wednesday at 2pm. On Thursday at 1 pm #312 finally began displaying signs of labor. We watched her very closely. She progressed slowly, but after 3 hours we decided it was time to intervene. We walked #312 from the dry cow yard to the calving pen. #312 needed a little help to deliver her calf, so we hooked up to give a pull with each of her contractions. At 4:30pm on Thursday, we successfully delivered a beautiful HEIFER calf! After almost a month, we finally had a heifer on our farm and she was beautiful! We had to check her twice just to make sure we had a heifer, and I quickly named her "Autumn". #312 went to work cleaning Autumn off, and we worked to make sure #312 got plenty of warm water to drink after such hard work. After an hour we moved Autumn to her new, freshly bedded stall and we moved #312 to the milking barn. #312 literally ran to the milking barn! She knew exactly where she was going. She found her feed and water waiting for her, as well as all of her friends! It's so great to see a fresh cow doing so well!

What to see #312 licking off her calf? Check out our video below!

Liberty also means Responsibility

2010-10-22T02:02:00.000-05:00

I have always intended this blog to highlight the good work that dairy farmers do everyday for their animals and land. I have never intended it to be a place for talk of politics, but today, while driving tractor and listening to the radio, I was prompted to include a little politics in my blog. So here's my story...

Here in Minnesota our media has been filled with so many political ads! Yesterday, in the mail, we received mailers about our Republican candidate for US House of Representative. The flier was printed by the Minnesota DFL, and they reported that the Republican candidate had received thousands of tax payer dollars but, if elected, would vote to end government funding to the "poor" and "middle class". After further inspection of the flier, I discovered that the tax payer dollars that this candidate received were from various Farm Programs for his farming enterprise. Some of those same funds were distributed to our neighbors and my in laws. This definitely was a shock to me, to see a simple fact found on the Internet to be skewed in such a way to portray a candidate as an abuser of the system. I will definitely acknowledge that each political party is guilty of this practice, but that doesn't make it right. Even more angering was to find out today on the radio, the millions, yes millions of dollars being pumped into the political machine built to confuse and persuade voters.

As a voter, I take this liberty seriously! We are so blessed to live in a country that give us a say in how our government operates. I don't care what political party you vote for or with, but what I do care about is that you take time to seriously consider the responsibility that comes with the liberty of voting. In my Agricultural Policy class in college we often talked about how ill informed the voters have been in the last few years, and how this has been accelerated through the media. Instead of researching the issues, voters will vote based on the letter D or R behind a name, or even with the more popular commercials on TV. As we draw nearer to the election in a few days, I ask each of you to take the time to review the issues that are important to you. Please vote on those issues instead of voting on the R or the D. Please take the time to consider issues that are important to you before you vote....and make the best decision for your communities, because voting carries a great responsibility with it, make wise decisions.

Word of the Week: Flexibility

2010-10-16T02:22:00.001-05:00

Jon chopping soybean straw at sunset last week. (Check out our Facebook Page for more pictures!)

This week has been all about flexibility. First, Thursday, we had a full schedule and we fulfilled most of that schedule. I worked hard to continue washing away the dirt and crud of summer in the milking parlor. Jon worked to prep the manure spreaders for hauling this weekend. We finished those tasks, loaded 5 bull calves for the neighbor who buys them and raises them, and bred a heifer that was in heat. We then found out that we had some unexpected visitors stopping in for a tour in a mere 20 minutes!! WHOA! That's short notice! I had left some supper cooking at home and had so many other things to do at home that night, how were we going to find the time to give a tour?!?! Thankfully, my father in law stepped in to give the tour. We gave a short demonstration of milking and the milking parlor for our friend from town and his Colombian exchange student. The student, Juan, had so many great questions about the technology we use to milk cows. How could I not spend some time with him, talking about how we provide nutritious milk for consumers? I suppose we spent about 30 minutes with Juan and our friend. It was great to share with Juan, how we care for our cows and our land as well. Needless to say I didn't get the rest of my jobs done for the night.

Then on Friday, Jon and I worked so hard to milk, feed and bed the cows. Calves and heifers were fed. I loaded up hay at my parents' house, drove it home and unloaded it. Jon worked on more prep for the manure spreaders, and then we were finally able to start hauling manure. We hauled 10 loads to our neighbor's field and had to stop for evening chores. After completing calves and setting up the milking parlor, we loaded in the cows. Apparently our cow Judas (named after the band not the apostle) needed to run into the parlor for milking tonight. But instead of sprinting safely into the parlor, she slipped and fell in the holding pen. She wasn't the smartest cow in the barn tonight, as she drug herself a few feet into the parlor. This was a problem, because we wouldn't be able to help lift Judas with our usual equipment. Jon had to use some special lifts from the farm shop. While he gathered supplies, I chilled out with Judas, making sure she was comfortable. Sometimes when cows slip and fall it takes a little time to get them back up, dairy farmers just have to be a little patient with them, and offer them a little help. 30 minutes later, Jon had Judas lifted up, standing on her own, and doing fine. Our fear when cows fall, is that they may become injured. Working quickly helps insure that injuries are minimal (sore muscles) instead of serious (broken bones or tore ligaments). Judas didn't even show signs of a fall after milking tonight. She felt so good, she tried to come back into the parlor for some more fun! Silly cow! Hopefully she learns that she should walk to the parlor instead of running next time. Nevertheless, we were delayed from finishing milking on time, and since Judas was blocking half of the parlor, we could only milk at 1/2 speed for those 30 minutes. If we had scheduled plans for our Friday night, we would have cancelled them, but we luckily had no plans.

So often in the dairy industry flexibility is critical. Cows need care 24 hours a day. Sometimes they can handle themselves, but sometimes they need help. I can remember times growing up at home, when my dad would have to miss a concert, a 4-H show or a church event because he needed to stay at home with a cow that was calving or had a piece of machinery break. We grew to understand that Dad would have loved to be at our events, but he had a responsibility to his farm and his cows. Now, I share that responsibility to my farm and my cows. I know first hand how frustrating it can be to work so hard to finish chores so we can leave to an event, only to have something happen, turning our plans upside down! But, at the end of the day, our cows come first. Their care is our priority and our responsibility and we take that VERY seriously. So....here' hoping that tomorrow will be a little more predicable and a little less random (but I am counting on something random to happen, like a new calf!).

A Tale of Two Harvests...

2010-10-11T01:07:00.000-05:00

In Minnesota we have been enjoying some AMAZING weather! It's been a record breaking week! We had 90's for 2 days this week, and 80's for 4 days. Last year at this time we had 2 inches of snow on the ground, 20's and most of the crops were in the field. This year most of the crops have been harvested, bedding is being made, and tillage will start in a few days. We have been so blessed this growing season with ample rain and heat. Our soybeans and corn have produced quite the bounty!

We are looking forward to the next few days to make more bedding for our cows, heifers and calves. Dry bedding helps us keep our cows clean and dry, in addition to keeping them healthy. Winter months and wet weather require literally tons of dry bedding to allow us to do a good job caring for our cows. After we wrap up bedding, we will work right into manure hauling. We have a few storage units holding months worth of cow, heifer and calf manure. We can't haul all of our manure in the growing season, so we store it until the fall when we can hit the fields hard. By applying the manure to fields, according to our agronomist's recommendations, we utilize all of our farm nutrients and reduce our need for commercial fertilizer. We also apply manure on some of our neighbors' fields to help make sure that we don't over apply manure on our farm. We use manure as a trading item with our neighbors. In exchange for valuable nutrients and organic matter, we get the opportunity to make bedding from our neighbors' corn and soybean fields. So it's a win/win for everyone. So...hopefully I will get some pictures up soon.

God Bless our Veterinarians!

2010-10-08T01:13:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been a busy week already! We returned from our great vacation to WI and World Dairy Expo, to well cared for cows. I can't say enough about the guys that we had hired to watch, feed & milk our cows. They did an awesome job, above & beyond the call of duty, and we thank them for that! It's always nice to come home and know that the cows were cared for.

One of the other key players while we were gone was an excellent veterinarian from our local clinic. We had 5 cows calve right before we were about to leave to Expo. We wanted to make sure that while we were gone these cows got the same excellent care that we provide for them on a daily basis. Our feeders and milkers already had their hands full, so we decided to bite the bullet and hire the local vet to make a visit on Thursday and Friday mornings. Dr. Sue was on call and willing to do the job. Dr. Sue came out on Wednesday so that we could give her the health history of each of the 5 cows she would be caring for. Yes, that's right, we keep very detailed medical records on each of our cows to help us make the best decisions for their care. Dr. Sue would be responsible to check each of the 5 cows for a variety of different symptoms that can happen just after calving. Using her 5 senses and a few simple tools (thermometer, urine ketone detection strips, & a stethoscope) Dr. Sue would be able to determine the health of each cow. Every morning, we do this very same thing for each of our fresh cows. While we were gone Dr. Sue found no infections, just one cow with an upset stomach. She treated the cow with probiotics, yeasts, and alfalfa meal. By the next day the cow was as good as new. When we came home those 5 cows were in great health!

Then, on Tuesday night, we were in a pinch and needed a trusted veterinarian again. At 10:15pm, we were wrapping up chores and Jon notice a lot of blood puddled in the alley by the cows. He knew exactly what he was looking for....a cow with a punctured hole in her udder. A cow's udder circulates about 400-500 gallons of blood to make 1 gallon of milk, so if cow milks 9 gallons a day, that's 3600-4500 gallons a day pumped through the udder! A punctured cow can bleed out very quickly. Jon found a fresh cow named Sprinkles, drinking water, oblivious to the fact that she was bleeding out onto the ground. Sprinkles had a hole, less than an inch wide in her udder, pulsing blood onto the ground. Jon acted fast, putting his hand on the hole to apply pressure and stop the bleeding. Then Jon called for me. We moved Sprinkles to the "vet area" where she could be treated and I called Veterinarian 9-1-1....each night and weekend our local vet clinic has a vet on-call to handle emergencies like this. Jon and I had no idea what to do, but thankfully after a 30-minute wait, Dr. Greg arrived to help us out. We very swiftly worked to stitch the hole shut. It was careful work, as Dr. Greg did the sutures and Jon applied pressure to the wound, preventing further bleeding. After about 40 minutes of patient work, we were able to permanently stop the bleeding without Jon holding Sprinkles udder. She didn't even know it happened....and when we let her back to the pen, she went straight to the feed bunk to eat (as though she wasn't about to bleed to death an hour previous)!!!! If it wasn't for excellent veterinarians like Dr. Greg & Dr. Sue it would be very difficult to care for our cows. Vets do amazing work and help us out in our times of need, times when the situation is bigger than we can handle. Dairy farmers have an excellent sense about their cows & they know how to care for them, but sometimes we need someone with a more experienced resume. So, GOD BLESS OUR VETS!!!!!!!

Pedicure Day at the Farm!

2010-09-27T02:04:00.000-05:00

Well, I'll be busy the next 2 days at the farm. We are giving the cows their second pedicure for the year. Each year every cow on our farm have their hooves trimmed. Hooves get over grown, especially in the summer months, so it's time for a good clipping. When we are finished, each cow will be walking with a little more spring in their step. What to know about what this looks like? Check out our video from hoof trimming video from 2009!

Flash Flooding!

2010-09-25T02:35:00.000-05:00

2 days ago it started raining at about 1pm, stopping all farm field activities, and it continued to rain for almost 24 hours producing almost 4 inches of rain onto of already saturated soils. As a result, we experienced a Flash Flood and we are currently still in a Flood Warning. Some MN communities to the south of us had even more rain! It was reported that over 10 inches fell in less than 24 hours southeast of here. Want to check out what that looks like? See fellow dairy farmer Merri Post's pictures to give you an idea what the flood looking like. At Orange Patch Dairy, we had a LOT of standing water in the cows and heifer yards, as well as flowing over field roads to the south of our farm. It was amazing to see so much rain fall in such a short time period. Corn and soybeans in the field are now standing in water, in some places the water is almost as high as the ears of corn and soybeans are completely submerged. This flood will be delaying what was going to be an early harvest, but that's how it goes in nature and agriculture.

All of this water reminded me why it is so important to work to protect our farm environments. With this much water, we did experience runoff from our cow yards, and yes that runoff water did contain cow manure (fast moving rain water will pick up cow manure and wash it away). BUT....when we built our new barn, we had to develop a plan for an event just like this!!!! When we built our barn 5 years ago, our county required us to build a drainage ditch with a natural grass filter strip and a sediment catch. This ditch works to collect runoff water from the cow yards, stop top soil from running away, and stops cow manure from floating into the area rivers via our drain tiles & ditches. It's a really simple design; yesterday we got to see it work. The runoff water (complete with cow manure) runs into a large zig/zagged deep dug ditch. This ditch is filled with naturally growing grasses and native plants from our area. These plants slow the flow of the water, allowing the soil and manure particles to drop out of the water solution. The plants also use nutrients in the water to grow. By the time the water flows to the sediment catch, the water is pretty much free of manure. This water now flows into the drainage tile and to the drainage ditch.

We were able to build our ditch with funds from NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) EQIP (Environmental Quality Incentives Program). This federally funded program gives grants to farmers who apply, to improve their livestock operations to better protect the natural environment that surrounds their farms and the animals that make their farms habitats. Rest assured that the dollars that we received went straight to the engineering and construction costs of our ditch. We worked hard to design a system that would be able to handle most heavy rainfall events for our area while conserving the amount of space that it uses. I know that this ditch is working well for our environment as well as providing habitat for a number of ducks and geese that like to stop buy for a swim. So, at times like this I would like to thank the NRCS for the funds to protect our environment and our farm for generations to come!

Looking Ahead

2010-09-22T18:28:00.000-05:00

Yikes! It's been a little while since I have posted something again. That's not really intentional, but be have still been in a whirlwind of busy-ness at the farm. Now that the silage is off of the fields we have the opportunity to haul manure to add fertilizer and organic matter to the soil for next year's crops. Today we got rained out of the fields, and we expect we won't be able to get into the fields for the next 3-5 days, since we are in a Flood Watch until Friday. Oh well, rain delay!!!

We have also been working diligently to plan a much needed "vacation" to World Dairy Expo. We can't just pack up and leave, as cows need care 24 hours each day, so we have been working to find people that are available to milk cows, feed calves, and feed cows while we are gone. Not just anyone can do these tasks, we always look for qualified individuals that know how to handle animals with respect and care. We want to know that our cows are in good hands while we are gone. As of right now, we have enough people to milk and feed calves, just looking for a feeder for 3 days. I am so excited to breathe the sigh of relief that we have found people to replace us. I am also excited to have 3 days off to enjoy a little bit of Wisconsin (my favorite place in the whole US, beside MN) and see friends and family!!!! Now we have to work to train the new milkers, organize protocols (so they know what to do in case something should happen while we are gone) and re-stock all supplies, so they don't have any issues. So, this next few days we will be working diligently to get stuff ready!

We are also looking forward to "Calving Season". At our farm, we have a few months during the year that tend to have the most cows and heifers calving. Those months are usually September through March. We look to have about 14-19 cows and/or heifers calving each month!! That's a lot of little baby calves and mothers to care for, but we look forward to it each year! I love the calves and my husband enjoys caring for the cows. We will be required to put more time in at the farm to care for all of these animals, but that's ok. So stay tuned for lots of stories about baby calves and the joy that brings us!

We're not Lucky, we're Blessed!

2010-09-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

Well, we wrapped up our 5th cutting of alfalfa this week, so as a result I have been working on that and recovering from the end of forage season marathon. It's been crazy, so a couple of days this week, we did the necessary chores and then came home for a nap (a much needed nap). The last load of alfalfa haylage was loaded into the silage bagger on Tuesday night at 7pm, and we celebrated with a good 'ol local beer (Grain Belt Premium Light)! It was a tasty beer! After working so hard this summer to make excellent, delicious, wholesome food for our cows, we figured we deserved the treat for ourselves. As we reflected on the past few months, we started to call ourselves "lucky", but I stopped short of calling us lucky. "We weren't lucky, we were blessed," I exclaimed. Jon looked at me, "I suppose we were."
As farmers, so much of what we do depends on nature. And nature is unpredictable, unmanageable, and uncontrollable. It's our faith in God that helps us pull through the though moments in life and on the farm. God protected us from storms, hail, wind, floods and droughts. God helped us work safely this summer, so that we were able to make tons and tons of feed, while the friends and family that helped us were kept safe. God helped us dodge some untimely rains, but also received some timely rains. Our first crop of corn yielded greatly, a miracle in our eyes. God protected our alfalfa from bugs and pests the entire summer, allowing us to grow alfalfa without spraying it with pesticides (saving costs and making better quality feed without insect damage).

So many times during a growing season, the crop can be destroyed, but we know we were blessed. Our former priest told us once that farmers are some of the closest people to God. "Farmers have to be close to God, to battle nature, feed the world's hungry, and work countless hours without recognition, while providing for their families." Those words have always stuck with me. Watching my grandparents and parents (who also farmed) I know that our priest was correct; they all have great relationships with God.

So, as the forage season of 2010 ends (we have some combining to do yet, but most of our crops are harvested) we THANK GOD for all of the blessings and miracles that we have received, for we are not lucky, we are blessed!!!!

Videos from the Princess Kay of the Milky Way Coronation

2010-09-09T01:09:00.000-05:00

Me and My Sister Angie!

Angie and Princess Kay of the Milky Way Katie Miron, of Hugo MN

Our family, gathered to support Angie!

I know I haven't been blogging much lately, but I have been recovering from a whirl wind of activity surrounding the Minnesota State Fair. We, in Minnesota, lovingly call the State Fair the Great Minnesota Get Together...and for good reason, it is a great opportunity to connect with many fellow farmers and also with consumers. There were so many opportunities to connect, and I did partake in a few of these events. So, to highlight these events, I will be blogging the next few entries about all that I was part of or observed. First on deck, is the Princess Kay of the Milky Way Coronation. This year, my youngest sister served as a finalist for Princess Kay of the Milky Way. She was not chosen for Princess Kay, but she did have a blast serving the dairy farmers of Minnesota at the State Fair. She also had the opportunity to have her likeness carved in a 90 pound block of butter (more about that to follow).

So to start out my blogs, below is a video from the beginning of the coronation, which showcased each finalist, sharing a valuable message about dairy products and dairy farmers. Here's Angela's message:

Next up, a video of introductions from fellow SDSU student Brittany Morse, of Lyon County and Angela Sellner:

Corn Silage 2010

2010-09-01T23:41:00.000-05:00

Well I know it's been a long time since I blogged, but I am hoping now that a majority of our forage harvesting for the year I will have more time to devote to this blog. Since we were busy chopping corn silage last week, taking about 4.5 days to chop over 2800 tons of corn silage for our cows from about 135 acres of corn, I thought I would do a short/long/informative recap of the week's events.

A little information about corn silage first though. We strive to feed our cows a high forage diet (a diet composed mainly of fiber/forage instead of grain, which promotes excellent rumen & cow health). The vast majority of our diet's forage comes from corn silage. We like corn silage because it not only provides valuable fiber material for our cows but also highly available energy in the form of corn grain. The corn grain in corn silage has been processed (crushed so that rumen bacteria can digest the corn starch to make proteins to feed the cow) and the corn is also wet-also making it more digestible. Our cows eat over 100 pounds of feed each day, and over 50 pounds of that is corn silage. As such a large portion of our cows' daily diets, corn silage quality becomes very critical.

Excellent cow health on our farm starts with excellent nutrition. We harvest our corn at 65-69% moisture. A normal corn plant is about 75% moisture, but after the corn grain is mature, with the onset of fall, corn plants begin to dry down and lose moisture. With the warm temperatures this summer and excellent growing conditions, we had an earlier than expected harvest of silage. We also had to work faster than expected to beat the weather. With temperatures in the 90's and strong southerly winds, the clock was ticking. Usually corn will lose about .5% of moisture each day in normal temperatures, but with the increased temperatures we were losing more moisture than expected. We pushed even harder to finish the harvest, and thanks to an awesome friend of the family (who donated his time and his tractor) and an awesome brother in law...we were able to reach our goals. On Sunday night/Monday morning we ran the last load of corn silage into the bag, celebrated with a beer and "hit the hay". Monday we sealed silage bags, and boy did they smell amazing! I LOVE the smell of freshly fermenting corn silage. It's comforting to know we have most of our feed for our cows for the upcoming year in bags. We have been truly blessed! Please feel free to check out the pictures below from the week's events as well as a new video I added to YouTube.

Rows of delicious feed for our cows this coming year.

Chopping corn silage in "our" corn field.

Filling the bagger (the machine with packs the corn silage into the long silage bags).

My brother in law and our friend showing off, as they are side winding corn silage into the 2nd silage box so that the chopper doesn't have to stop chopping.

Thanks to the dry and warm weather we had a fair amount of dust on our field roads coming into the farm.

Tall rows of corn, green and full of nutrients for our cows!

Last load of the night! It was a hard one to get in, thanks to some break downs, but we got it done!

Corn Silage is Ready!

2010-08-24T02:42:00.000-05:00

Today we check our corn to determine if it is ready to be chopped for silage....and it's ready!!!! How do we know that it's ready? Well, I drove out into the field this afternoon and collected samples of corn stalks. In each field I chose 10 stalks of corn and chopped them with the chopper. We collected a sample of the chopped corn, measured it, and dried it with a Koster tester (which removes water from a sample with the use of heated air). After re-measuring the sample we can determine the moisture of the total corn plant. It is ideal to chop corn silage at about 65-69% moisture to be packed into the silage bags. Today's samples told us that the corn is about 64-70% moisture, so it is time to start chopping!!! BUT....we are not ready to chop.

Last September, we basically destroyed the processor on our chopper. The processor is part of the chopper which crushes corn grain and corn cobs into smaller pieces which are more digestible for cows. By processing our corn we are also able to cut the leaves and stalks into larger pieces which encourages improved rumen health for our cows. This processor is a critical part of our corn silage chopper...and we haven't fixed it since it broke. Today we hit the ground running, making sure that we get the chopper fixed! Jon and his brother Marcus worked long into the evening tonight, putting on the new processor. They are not done yet, but it did rain tonight which buys us about 1 day of additional time to get it ready to rock. We have 9 bags of silage to make this year (each about 250 feet long and 10 feet around). It will be a long task, but with some help from neighbors and family we will get it done as quickly as possible...so the marathon begins!!! Corn silage season is here!!!!

Corn Silage Season is coming fast!

2010-08-17T01:44:00.000-05:00

Our Silage/Grain Corn Variety on July 26th, 2010...looking great! (I'm about 5'7" for a reference for height).

Our Silage Variety plot, noticeably taller than me! Some as high as 10 feet!

On July 26th, 2010 Our corn was looking pretty darn nice! This is plant producing 2 ears of corn! It's going to make delicious feed for our hungry cows!

Seems like we were just talking about the beginning of summer, starting hay season and the 4th of July, but it looks as though we have blasted through the county fair, the MN State Fair is only days away, we finished our 4th cutting of alfalfa last week and we are looking at starting corn silage in a matter of days as well! Where did summer go!?!?!? Above are some pictures that I took of our stellar looking corn crop. As you may recall, Jon and I are growing our first field of corn, to be chopped as silage for our cows. This 25 acre field will feed our cows for about 3-4 months, so it's not really enough for the year, but it helps to be able to raise our own feed instead of purchasing ALL of it. In order to make enough corn silage for our cows this year we will need to chop about 120 acres to feed each of our cows, heifers and calves for the coming year. We will fill about 9 silage bags (250 feet long and 10 foot diameter) as well as 2 upright silos, for about 3000 tons of corn silage.

We planted 2 different types (varieties) of corn this year. We planted our "usual" variety which is a conventional (no genetically modified traits) which can be used as a grain corn (tends to be harder and higher in starch) or as a silage corn (plant material, leaves and stalks are more digestible for cows to eat). We also planted a "test" plot where we are trying out some silage specific varieties that are even more digestible for cows. These 4 varieties (you might notice the difference in heights in my picture, since they are drastically different) are also GMO (genetically modified organisms) varieties. We are not sure what to think of these crops yet, as we will need to feed them to the cows and let the cows tell us what they think (it's their opinion that really matters!). Right now we know that the silage specific varieties are VERY tall and are making some nice ears of corn, however the conventional variety is producing some even NICER ears of corn, some plants with as many as 3 ears/plant!!! In the end though, we really focus on making excellent feed, that provides energy and fiber for our lovely ladies! It's what our cows tells us about our feed that really matters....if they don't like it, it does us no good, therefore a HUGE focus on quality is key. Stay tuned for more info from the fields and if you are interested, check out our Facebook Page for more pictures of corn and alfalfa! and some cows too!

Hello Blog, I am back again!

2010-08-11T02:47:00.000-05:00

After a little time off to work on various other projects for the upcoming county fair, I thought I would just let everyone know I am still alive and kicking. It's be crazy at the farm right now. It's been raining about every 2-4 days and we are trying to make 4th cutting alfalfa in between showers/storms. Our corn is loving this weather though, as it thrives with heat and moisture. The cows are hanging in there with the heat. Milk production has come down about 2-3 pounds per cow and their feed intake is down. I wouldn't want to eat in this heat either. Thank goodness for sprinklers and fans, those things have paid for themselves 10 times over already! I know that the cows will be fine as long as we have sprinklers on them.

Other than that we have the county fair this week, which means I will be busy with the princesses, the anniversary for the princesses, the dairy show and well....hopefully a demolition derby or two! Stay tuned for pictures and more stories!

Where has the summer gone?

2010-07-26T18:38:00.000-05:00

As I write this short blog, I am pondering where in the world has the summer gone? Seems like just weeks ago we were still in June, enjoying June Dairy Month & various promotions, but now we are closing in on August, including county fairs & the great Minnesota State Fair. Our summer has definitely not decreased in "business"! In the coming weeks I will be working diligently on my various projects for the Brown County Fair, mainly around the 50th Anniversary of the Brown County Dairy Princess Program. To learn more about this great program, check out our blog at http://cowsncrowns.blogspot.com/. So...If I am a little slow at blogging, please bear with me =)

Back at the farm things have been incredibly busy as well. July was our busiest month of the summer for calvings. We had 14 cows have calves, 10 of which were heifers. This means that I have almost quadrupled my calf chores. I am not complaining, but merely stating that I have more chores. Those calves, especially the youngest ones, require lots of time and care to make sure they have an excellent start. I can proudly say that my new girls have been doing great! Lucy, our first registered (full bred Holstein with papers to prove her family tree) even calved in with a beautiful heifer calf, which I have named Luciana. I will try to get some pictures posted.

We have been getting a LOT of rain at the farm. A couple of nights we had some flash flooding, but all in all the cows and corn have been doing great! Our silage corn is putting out ears & in full tassel. It has stretched out to almost 10 feet tall!

I hope to post pictures of these events soon!

Summer Cooling for Cows 2010

2010-07-18T19:00:00.000-05:00

With the temperatures rising this week at Orange Patch Dairy, it has made it very apparent that cow cooling is critical in the summer months. We provide shade, sprinklers and fans to make sure our cows are comfortable every day. As the temperature rises, the sprinklers run more frequently. Cows really enjoy the sprinklers, like kids at a water park. By cooling cows, we make sure that they do not become stressed. Heat stress is a serious condition in cows. Heat stress can cause a number of health issues and illnesses, therefore...it's definitely important to keep the girls cool!

Fire Safety 101

2010-07-14T01:02:00.000-05:00

On Friday last week, we learned a hard lesson on fire safety, but a good one. A lesson which taught us that we should never take for granted farm safety and knowing what to do in a critical situation. At 1:50pm on Friday I decided that since it was hot out I would double check that my dry cows were getting enough water. On my way past the new dairy barn I smelled smoke. As I look up I could not determine where the smoke was coming from. Once I reach the road I saw the source....our calf barn (the previous milking barn)!!!!! I was driving the 4-wheeler and pushed it as fast as it would go. Once I reached the back of the barn, I saw the flames! The large fan at the back of the barn, which was used to keep our calves cool was now blowing the flames further into the calf pen. The calves bellared in fear, a horrifying sound. I rushed inside to unplug the fan and try to chase the calves out. Fear filled the calves, they wouldn't move, so I left the gates open and rushed outside to call 911. As I called 911, I ran to the house to get my father in law. I jumped on the 4-wheeler a got Jon. Once we got back, in a matter of minutes, the guys were in the back of barn fighting the flames with a garden hose, and us girls (my sister in law, my grandmother in law, and I) were pailing water onto the flames as well. The round bale of corn straw that I had in the back pen was on fire, as was the bedding in the pens. At this time, most of the calves in the pens had been evacuated and we were in the process of moving the others out of the front of the barn (about 40 total). It took about 14 minutes from the first 911 call until the fire department arrived...it's a 10 minute drive from town, so I thought that was pretty darn fast! At this point the guys had the flames down to only a couple smolders. The fire department took over looking for hot spots (we had a couple walls that were close to igniting). We removed the round bale and ripped it apart, hosing it down.

Once it was all said and done, we had family and friends there to help us. We cleaned up the wet smoky bedding and by 7pm, the calves were back in the barn!!! It's amazing but no calves were hurt, no people were hurt, the barn is slightly burnt but still in tact, and everything was ok!!!!!! Truly a miracle!!!!! We know we had some angels that day!

Thank you so much to those who came to our aid, the fire department, our quick thinking family, farm safety classes, those who check in on us to make sure that we were ok and most of all thank you to God for protection from what could have been an incredible disaster!!!!! Check out the damage picture below.

Our calf pen with blackened steel in the back where the fire was burning.

Note the plywood, where the fire department ripped a hole in the wall to find a hot spot.

Burnt plywood.

Gates and steel all blackened from the flames. Our plastic windows also melted.

2nd pen where the round bale was sitting. The steel is now black as well.

Summer Pic from Orange Patch Dairy

2010-07-13T01:43:00.000-05:00

Peas ready for harvest on 6/25/10.

My father in law's cows out on pasture.

Fuji the calf, checking out the grass at a local dairy promotion for June Dairy Month.

Jon, adding corn silage to the TMR (Total Mixed Ration) Mixer, making the daily feed for the milking cows.

My view from the corn field on 6/24/10. Looking good!

One of my cows, being weird, picking her nose...they don't have fingers, so how else should they do it?

For more pictures from our farm, please check out our Facebook page!!!!!

Mental Health Day!

2010-07-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

Every once in awhile the grind and stress of a dairy farm gets to us. I would say that every couple months or so, we try to take at least one day off from the farm, making sure that we can relax and someone else is in charge of the cows. Thank you so much to our awesome helpers, milking and feeding the cows and calves while we were gone. On our day off we decided to celebrate our 5th Wedding Anniversary and the 4th of July. We went to a local amusement park to "relieve" some stress. It was an awesome day! As a result though we had to work hard before the day off...and work hard afterwards to catch up. Who knew cows were more work than milking and feeding? Yep, we needed to bed the calves, heifers, and cows in before we left and then when we came back. There was cows to breed, heifers to treat (one got sick with bloat while we were gone) and there were various other small projects to work on. But every once in awhile it is nice to walk away from the "To Do List" and come back refreshed and renewed! I know the cows appreciate that we are in a better mood...and we do too!

So I am back and caught up...and ready to blog some more...so stay tuned, I have a bunch of pictures and video to share in the coming weeks.

After the Storm

2010-06-26T02:41:00.000-05:00

View in Sleepy Eye, on the south side of the storm as it passed to the north of town.

Looking to the southwest of Sleepy Eye, as the storm passed to the east, producing some very ominous rotating clouds! Jon called me from the farm as he also watched this storm.

Damage: Pipe on our manure pump was blown over and twisted off. Nothing a little fixing tomorrow won't fix, but it looks bad. We also had a number of trees lose branches thanks to the VERY strong wind (excess of 65 mph).

Pea combines parked in the field south of the farm, where they were harvesting peas up until the storm hit. Thanks to the power outage they were waiting for the plant to re-start and send the trucks so they could unload their hoppers full of tasty peas.

Jon hooking up the generator to the power box by our milking barn, however, since we hardly ever use our generator, we didn't know it wasn't in working condition until we tried to get her running. Thank goodness for the Linemen that got the power back and running so quickly!

Heifers checking out the storm damage, now that they were no longer afraid to be outside.

Rainbow at the end of the storm. We were definitely blessed to be so protected, family & friends are safe, crops are still standing, & buildings are undamaged.

Tonight I expected that I would be able to write about our peas being harvested today, I even have pictures and video to post, but Mother Nature had some different plans for us. This afternoon at about 6pm, our local area saw some very serious storms move through. We know of a couple of farms that experienced damage and some crops that were either blown over or are hailed off (hail stones shredded the plants and the fields will need to be replanted in serve cases). One dairy farm near Courtland lost their dairy barn and had to relocate about 800 cows to various farms in the area. Thanks to the help of area farmers they were able to safely move these animals. I can only imagine what those girls were thinking when the roof blew off their barn! So between tornadoes, strong winds (65mph or more) and hail (as big as 4.25 inches!) it made for an eventful evening locally. Thanks to the wind, we experienced some damage out at the farm. Thankfully the corn is still standing, but my in laws did lose some trees and branches from trees in their yard. As you can see above the manure pump succumbed to the power of the winds as did my flowers planted around the milking barn.

The biggest challenge of the night was the power outages. We were without electricity on our farm for about 1.5 hours. Without power we were not able to do much. Electricity runs so much on a dairy farm: water pumps, well pumps, milk coolers, milk pumps, lights, fans, curtains, sprinklers, etc. So our cows had no fans or water until the power came back on. We couldn't feed calves since we didn't have hot water for them. Without electricity we couldn't milk cows either! Rest assured though our milk stayed cool in its insulated tank. The milk was about 42 degrees once the power came back, definitely safe and cool. We would usually hook up a generator, run by a tractor, but tonight we discovered that our generator is not running (will be fixed tomorrow). So we waited patiently for the excellent linemen of our local energy cooperative to fix the down power lines. They promptly came out after the storm and we had power in about an hour! Bless those men! They do good work! The cows were a little crabby about being milked about an hour later than usual, but we got through it. Thanks to Brown County REA! You do great work! Hopefully I will be able to report less stormy news tomorrow! God bless!!

Behind the Scences of a Colorado Beef Feedlot

2010-06-25T00:12:00.000-05:00

Today I took the time to read an article that has been circling around the Ag community online. It's worth sharing, that is for sure! It features a vegan, Registered Dietitian, Ryan Andrews, who was allowed to visit a 22,000 head beef feedlot in Colorado. I'll admit that I expected this article to spread further untruths about animal agriculture, but I was pleasantly surprised by this man's ability to be open minded during his visit and to make some astute observations. Even though he walked away still not interested in eating meat, he did walk away with a new perspective about beef and animal agriculture. So please take the time to check it out. Cattle Feedlot: Behind the Scenes

Got it DONE!!! Making Hay when the Sun Doesn't Shine!!

2010-06-22T00:48:00.000-05:00

We have successfully finished out 2nd cutting of alfalfa! It was a challenge and if I ever meet a weatherman in person I might have to ask him the following: "How can you still have a job after being wrong so many times?" Our weather forecast for Thursday was for rain, which we missed, thank goodness as those storms were filled with wind, hail, and tornadoes. We pray for those who were hurt by these storms. On Friday it was supposed to be about 80 degrees and light breezes, but we had mid-80's and a strong dry wind....which accelerated the drying of our alfalfa, much faster than we anticipated. As a result our hay was dry sooner than expected, and we had to move faster. At midnight on Friday, Jon, I and my brother in law Marcus decided that we were going to keep on chopping alfalfa until we saw dew, which would make the alfalfa too wet to chop. But as long as there was no dew we were able to keep on chopping.....and we kept on chopping alfalfa until 9 am Saturday morning. Yes, you just read correctly, we chopped through the night and finished right before morning chores. That means that Jon and I worked about 35 hours straight without any sleep. We finished chopping and jumped right over to milking, feeding and our morning chores. At 2pm we made it home, and took a well deserved nap for 5 hours! We were very happy that we finished our 130 acres of alfalfa even if we had to work that hard to get it done. Unfortunately since we worked so hard and in the dark, I don't have any pictures of 2nd cutting alfalfa, but if you saw the 1st cutting, it's pretty much the same thing all over again.

It's great to be able to work with my brother in law as well. He's an excellent worker and never stops until he finishes a job~which is great for chopping alfalfa! We worked that hard to chop our alfalfa because we know from years of experience that high quality feeds make healthy cows which in turn make healthy nutritious milk. Focusing on quality has helped us gain so much in milk production, but more so in cow health. As cows are ruminants, forages and forage quality make a huge impact on health.

We also had a successful morning on Friday taking our 6 day old calf Fuji to New Ulm for the KNUJ Dairy Day at the Glock. Fuji visited with many adults and kids, celebrating June Dairy Month for a good cause: area Food Shelves. Now that she's home, Fuji is spoiled and looking for a head scratch almost every hour! She's so darn cute though, neither Jon nor I can say no to her...so we give in and she's getting even more spoiled. I have some pictures of her that I hope to post soon!

Rain Delay

2010-06-16T01:19:00.000-05:00

I just thought I would take some time to blog, as I might be missing in action for the remainder of the week. We are patiently waiting for Mother Nature to cooperate with us; we are waiting to cut our 2nd cutting of alfalfa. We have enjoyed some much needed rain for the past few days and it has been great for the corn and soybeans, but it has made a mess out of our silage bag pad and we know our alfalfa fields will most certainly be moist and soft. Today we saw the sun for the first time in days, and it was a welcomed sight! With a little bit of a breeze we started to see dry soil again. We will need more days like this before we can hit the fields, but it sounds as though we have a chance of rain again on Thursday.

Time will tell, but for the time being, Jon was able to haul liquid manure over to the neighbor's harvested pea field. It's great to have such ag-friendly neighbors who appreciate the value of cow manure and its ability to grow great crops! We definitely appreciate having neighbors who will take our cow manure. By doing this they help us make sure we don't over apply nutrients on our own fields as well as stay within the limits of our manure management plan. Plus, sharing manure with neighbors helps them grow awesome corn too!

We were also able to take some time to work on a cow who suddenly developed a sore foot. Isabel, our 3 year old cow (who has had 2 calves and is pregnant with her third) started to favor her front left foot on Sunday. Sometimes cows will injure their feet like people do, misstepping. Other times cows have a more serious issue like a sore or infection. We trim the entire herd twice a year, which eliminates most problems, but since it's been about 5 months since the last trimming, little issues like this sometimes pop up. Isabel continued to favor that foot, so we decided yesterday morning (Monday) that she needed some medical attention. We lifted her foot with a rope, as we don't have a hoof trimming chute. She was actually a great patient. She calmly stood on 3 legs as Jon diligently worked to carve out the bottom of her foot. He carved hoping to find the problem, but we didn't find anything wrong with her foot! When we were about to give up on Isabel, Jon checked for a second time between her toes and found what appeared to be a small sore. Sure enough, that was our problem...a small sore that looked to have developed from a small stone getting stuck in her hoof. Cow's hooves are much like our fingernails, so they can pick up stones occasionally. We removed the small stone and the hoof tissue that was damaged. We applied some salve to help heal Isabel's foot and wrapped her up. While Isabel didn't start walking perfectly right away, she definitely was running around today! Keeping a close eye on our cows is critical to keeping them healthy. By catching Isabel's foot injury early we prevented any further damage to her foot as well as the risk that she could have slipped, fell and hurt herself even more. We work hard to prevent injuries and illness, but early detection also helps maintain healthy cows!

Hopefully I will be doing hay soon...pictures to follow!

Keen Attention to Detail at South Dakota Dairy

2010-06-12T00:35:00.000-05:00

Meet the Gross Family of South Dakota. They are another example of excellent dairy farmers who's keen attention to detail has allowed them to take excellent care of their cows.

I may be in and out these coming days, as we are preparing for the 2nd cutting of alfalfa for the year. We are also going to be hauling manure tomorrow. Yep, that's right, it's time again to haul out some manure and water from our barn and parlor out to the fields. We have some excellent neighbors who raise peas. These peas were harvest today, clearing the field to be planted with soybeans, but before they plant some soybeans, we will be fertilizing it with cow manure. It's really a great exchange. By hauling manure to our neighbor's farm, we are making sure that we don't over apply these valuable nutrients on our own land and we are also keeping up on neighbor relations....who could really turn down free fertilizer? So, we'll be busy in the fields, but I hope to have some pictures to share when I get a chance in the days to come. Happy Summer & June Dairy Month!