[ SHOWGSD-L ] Dairy Farms

From: "Anja Heibloem-Stroud" <Anja_Heibloem-Stroud@xxxxxxx>
To: "showgsdlistnew" <Showgsd-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:07:56 -0700
I spent 8 years milking approx. 450 cows daily. These cows were monitored 
several times daily, had food/water all day long, available to eat all day 
long. Most were bred by AI, but we did have a clean up bull running in the 
fourth herd. We milked twice a day, and filled a five thousand gallon tank each 
day, that was picked up everyday. The milk was tested each day for foreign 
substance including antibiotics. Twice in the 8 years I was there we lost whole 
tanks of milk, because we had a bad cow get milked into the tank. There is 
nothing quite like watching 5000 gallons of milk washing down the drain. The 
cows were housed in freestall barns were each cow had her own stall she could 
walk into and lie down. The herdsmen walked the freestalls a couple of times a 
day to scrap out any manure into the walkway so it could be washed down. The 
barn had a automactic wash system that flushes a couple or more times per day. 
Each freestall barn has a paddock area where, during good weather the cows were 
free to walk out and exercise, butt heads or what have you. A stressed cows 
produces no milk, no milk equals no money. Dairymen treat their cows as well as 
they can, to produced the most milk they can. Our milk was sold to the cheese 
plant, not for milk but only cheese. I took a gallon of milk home daily, my 
dogs loved it, as did I. I made my own butter, but my cottage cheese never made 
the grade, but the dogs ate my mistakes. Cows go dry (which means hopefully 
they are pregnant) about 8 to 9 months after they come fresh (which means they 
have their calf). The calf is taken away from the cow about three days after 
birth, and if everything is OK with the cow she goes into the milk string at 
about 4 days. The dry cows are housed in paddocks for about 8 weeks, then put 
into the pasture where if everything went OK, they had there babies. Sometimes 
cows couldn't get pregnant again, those we milked until they didn't produce 
enough to off set their feed costs. Eventually all cows reach that stage in 
their lives, and then as we used to say, they went to McDonald's!
Anja Heibloem-Stroud
  www.pet-net.net/hausmekon/<http://www.pet-net.net/hausmekon/>
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[ SHOWGSD-L ] Dairy Farms

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