From Our Farm: Chore Time

Twice a day, we bring our cows into the barn for milking. We have two barns-one is a stall barn with an attached parlor used in the winter and the other is just the milking parlor on our 90-acre irrigated summer pasture.


This is our winter parlor. This parlor is a Double 7, meaning we can milk seven cows on each side with a milker for each. We bring the cows in from the holding pen through the two doors on the right. The cows face away from the center aisle or 'pit'. The chore people stand in the pit and put the milkers on between the cow's legs. Once done milking, the cows are sent out the far door and back out into the barn where they are fed hay bales and TMR (a mixture of grain, minerals, and corn silage) in the feed lane. They also have access to the winter pasture.


This is our summer parlor. We bring the cows in through the system of gates you see at the far end of the parlor. As you can see, this is a much bigger parlor. It is a Swing 14, meaning we can put 14 cows in on each side but swing the milkers from side to side as the cows finish milking. The exit doors are not pictured. The cows go out of the parlor and walk back to their pasture until the next milking. We feed the TMR out in the pasture.

From Our Farm: Calf Chores

When a calf is born, we usually separate it from the mother shortly afterward. Because we do not allow the calf to nurse on the mother, we need to bottle feed our calves twice a day for 8+ weeks. We feed them a gallon of whole milk per day and introduce hay as early as possible. We also free-choice (leave out for them to eat when they want to) whole oats at least a week prior to weaning. Kelp and sometimes minerals are given with the oats.


This is a calf bottle. It holds 2 quarts of milk. That's a pretty big bottle.


This is a mob feeder. We can feed 2-5 calves with this feeder. After being bottle-fed for a while, we usually train our calves to drink out of this. They still get the same amount of milk but we will begin free-choicing water when the calves are using these.

At a minimum age of 8 weeks (and able to eat a fair amount of hay and grain), our calves start weaning. We give them 2 quarts of milk once a day for two weeks and then stop giving milk altogether. Once weaned, we keep the calves for another month or so just to make sure they are eating hay and grain well before sending them over to our custom calf raiser.

From Our Farm: A Calf is Born

For those of you who have never been on a dairy farm, here is a peek into our farming life.


Step 1-A calf is born. Our calves are bottle-fed whole milk for 8+ weeks before being weaned. Once weaned, we will keep the calves on the farm until they are 3-4 months old before sending them to our custom calf raiser. They will stay there until they are old enough to be bred.


Step 2-The calf grows up. We bring the next batch of heifers (cows that have not had their first calf yet) back to the farm when they are about a year old to be bred by our breeding bull. After being bred and having a calf, we bring the cow into the milking herd.


Step 3-In order to produce milk, a cow has to 1. have a calf and 2. eat, eat, eat. We feed hay, corn silage, and a mixture of grains and minerals during the winter months. This is taken in the feed lane at our winter barn.


Step 3(cont.)-From mid-May to mid-October, our cows are on our summer pasture. We move their paddocks twice a day to allow for fresh grazing and feed corn silage and a grain/mineral mix. There is nothing lovelier to me than seeing the cows grazing contentedly on all that lush green grass.

Why is it that....

when things seem the worst, something always happens to make it better?

Crabby baby had Mommy up half the night.
Calves didn't want to cooperate during feeding.
Cranky, hungry baby wanted Mommy ALL DAY LONG.
Garden in need of planting, weeding, and watering but baby not happy about being outside.
Mommy ate too many carbs, didn't drink enough water, and WAY behind on dishes/laundry/housework/etc.
Mommy REALLY didn't want to do chores but had to.
Mommy was very tired and just as crabby as baby.

Just when it seemed like it would never end, baby looked up at Mommy and grinned...right before sticking his tongue out and going Pllllbbbbbbb (accompanied by copious amount of baby drool) It's V's newest trick and he's so proud! Suddenly my bad day didn't seem so terrible anymore. (Besides, shortly after Daddy came in and took pity on Mommy. He held baby and fed him a bottle.)