Day #4: Highest Milk Production (part 1)

We, like most other dairy farmers, pay a company to test our cows every month to know how much milk they are producing, as well as how much fat & protein is in that milk.  It helps us keep an eye on changes that we may not have picked up in general day to day care & milking, and allows us to see how the cows are doing.

Last month's high test cow @ 123 pounds (14.3 gallons) per day was 8013.

Full Name:  Po-Cop LuckyStar Vodka
We Call Her: 8013
Age: 5 years, 5 months
# Calves/Lactations: 4
Lifetime Milk Production: 87,245 pounds or 10,145 gallons

Interesting info:
Not much.  She is a good milk cow.  She doesn't have any problems (mastitis, feet, etc.).  She comes in, gives milk, eats, sleeps, and drinks - she must appreciate all we do for her, and we appreciate that.  She does got back to a really nice cow of ours that died suddenly in a heat wave shortly after Brent & I got married.  She had serious "attitude", but her daughter is pretty even keel.  We are really looking forward to several more lactations from this girl!

Day 3: Tallest Cow #11009

Full Name:  Mi-Mi something or rather (Hmmm....can't seem to find that registration paper)
What We Call Her:  #11009 or "Tall Girl"
Age:  5 years, 3 months
# Calves/Lactations:  3
Milk Production to Date:  47,432 pounds, 5,515 gallons

We bought 11009 in a group of cows from our neighbor when we built the new barn 2 years ago.You'll meet more of them in the 30 days, and that's great, because we only bought 15 cows, and most of them are still with us!
She is so unbelievably tall that I am surprised that she fits in a lot of places (like the hoof trimming chute, or even or stalls), but she does.  She sticks up nearly 3-4" above the next tallest cow.  She also ranks as one of the slowest cows on the farm, but not THE slowest - you'll meet her later....

  

Day 2: The Oldest Cow - #864

Full Name:  Po-Cop O1 Buttercup 864
What we Call Her:  864
Age:  8 years, 6 months
# Calves/Lactations:  6
Lifetime Milk Production:  140,301 pounds, 16,314 gallons

I am many times asked how old cows live to be, and our goal is somewhere between 8 & 9 years old, so that those cows will have at least 6 lactations, and produce over 150,000 pounds of milk.  864 is close to that, and hopefully, will make it there; however, like anyone that gets older, her legs/hips/knees/ankles are starting to wear out (you can even see a bit of gray hair starting to show up on her neck), but we keep wrapping and tending to her the best we can, and doing what we need in order to try to keep her a productive member of the herd.
She is a decendent of one of the "orange" cows that we bought in Wisconsin at a sale when Brent came home to farm.  They simply had orange tags, but their daughter turned out to be a pretty good cow!

Day 1: Highest Scored: Lucke

This begins the week of "-est" on the farm.  First up, is our highest scored cow.  

Full Name:  Luck-E-JK Outside Thunder

We Call Her:  Lucke 

Age: 8 years old, 1 month

# of Calves/Lactations: 7 calves/5 lactations - 2 sets of twins

Lifetime Milk Production: 102,697 pounds or 11,933 gallons

We bought Lucke at a sale in 2008.  We didn't go expecting to buy her, but when she sold she was stuck at a really low bid, and so we jumped in.  She scored EX-90 a few years ago at our farm, only the 3rd cow to ever do so.  She has had 2 sets of twins, and she is aptly named "Lucky" because she is still with us, despite more than her share of issues after those twins.  

She just calved again in October, and we are really excited about her heifer calf, Luxury.

Back with a Theme - 30 Days of COWS!

Ok, so since Ainsley got tall enuf to reach the keyboard & mouse; blogging (or anything computer related) came to pretty much a screeching halt, but we are back with a theme to join in on the 30 days of blogging in November.
What else would we talk about besides.....COWS!


Their quirks, interesting stories, all the things that make them individuals and let us identify them from the "business" end.  I once read an editorial about a new dairy that was being built in a neighboring county.  It was a "factory farm" according to the writers and the cows were nothing but "robots with interchangeable parts".  I've used this statement many times to tell consumers that if they are robots with interchangeable parts, I would LOVE to know where the parts store is, as I would be a frequent customer (for some reason rear feet seem to be the issue of the week).  If I could just replace the cows, it would be easy, it would make it easy to just go to bed and not haul feed and water to Jelly who survived a bout of milk fever last week to be in the barn again for her 4th lactation or Lucke who seems to have a catastrophe every time she calves, but somehow, with a lot of TLC comes out of it.  But, we can't just go out and replace them.  It takes a lot of time, money, and blood, sweat & tears to get these cows in to the milking herd.  It takes years of genetics and decisions and work to get them to this point.  The farmers in South Dakota are realizing that you can't just go out & buy cows to replace ones lost in the Atlas Blizzard, and it is the same with our herd.  And there are cows without names, just #'s, and they are no less important to our farm.  In fact, they are usually the ones that make the milk that pays the bills, and just go about their business without all the fuss.  Our farm has 98 cows on it right now, along with about that many heifers and calves.  I'm going to profile 30 of them - their full name, what we call them, their age and # of calves, info on how much milk they give, and anything interesting about them.  If our farm had 3,000 cows, I'd be able to profile cows for 365 days without thinking too hard.  I made my list up in the parlor tonite, and since it is still November 1 - this counts for starting.
Meet the herd @ Po-Cop Dairy!

Day 1:  The Highest Scored Cow - Lucke
Day 2:  The Oldest Cow - #864


Join in with other bloggers on My Generation

Hurry Up & Wait....

And then run like mad.....

And then wait again.  And then, try to run, but breakdown, and then run like mad, get "just bout done", get soaking wet, and then wait again.  This has been the story of our Memorial Day weekend/week.

The alfalfa is planted (this should have been done way back in early April, but didn't get done until mid-May due to the late spring).
The corn & beans are planted.  This went fairly smoothly, and most are out of the ground already.

Now, its time to do hay, but the weather is not cooperating.  Haylage (anything with "-lage" just virtually means chopped up, so in this case chopped up hay) makes up almost 40% of our ration that we feed to our cows, so it is pretty important to get this done in a timely fashion.  Luckily, we still have haylage from last year, so our cows have plenty to eat, but everyday we wait to get the new crop in, the poorer quality it is.  You see, hay is not just hay.  We test our haylage frequently throughout the year to see what nutrients are available for the cows.  Brent and our nutritionist run this info through a computer program to tell us what nutrients we are missing, and then our feed company makes a custom supplement that we add to the total mixed feed ration (TMR) to make sure our cows have all the necessary nutrients.  If our haylage is better quality, containing more nutrients, we need less of, and less expensive supplement.  This is good for us financially, and good for the cows in that they get to eat the "real thing" instead of synthetic.  There has been lots of research done on the optimal time to harvest alfalfa, and that is when the the quality, which deteriorates as the crop grows, meets the quantity necessary to make it worthwhile to harvest and regrow another crop.  This is usually just as/before the plant starts to bud.
   Chopping alfalfa for haylage is a process that requires 2-3 days of dry weather.  We thought we had this necessary break last Friday thru Sunday.  So, we mowed the hay Friday morning, but alas, Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday turned out to be cool, and while not exactly wet, not exactly dry either.  Some light rain came & answered the question for sure Sunday night that we wouldn't be chopping on Monday.  And, so the hay sat, and sat, and sat.  This isn't good for the hay itself, which is sitting outside losing nutrients, nor is it good for the next crop of hay where the pile of hay is laying on top of it in the field, waiting to dry.
  Some wind and heat came along Tues & Wed.  Wednesday at noon I got a text from Brent, "We are chopping today".  WHAT!  Shocked, I scrambled home early.  Gail & I milked cows, while Warren & Brent chopped.  Then Grandma sat with Ainsley while I helped haul in.  Around 10 pm, we called it quits,

 Brent finishes packing the last load with the skidloader in the dark

but with a 70% chance of rain that night, we made sure to cover the bunker with plastic to prevent it getting wet. 
If you ever want it to rain - bait it - mow hay, leave feed bin lids open (this was done a LOT last summer in hopes of rain).  If you don't want it to rain - prepare - cover piles of hay, etc.  So, of course, we awoke to no rain on Thursday morning - while we were glad, we were a little annoyed that we went to the extra work of covering things, just to uncover it again the next morning. 
Brent & Warren finished chopping the 1st field, raked and started on the 2nd.  I came home at 1, changed, and was about to jump on the tractor when I noticed there were too many tractors in the barnyard.  The chopper tractor was backed up to the shop; uh-oh.  What was thought to be a simple fix was not, and required a trip for parts, and didn't get back up & going until milking time.  So again, Gail & I milked cows while Warren & Brent chopped.  As we watched the storm that missed us the night before get closer & closer, we all went fast & faster.  3 loads of hay were still in the wagons as the skies opened up and started to pour.  The bunker got covered as fast as we could, so hopefully, we saved as many nutrients as possible for our cows for the next year.  There are still another 25 acres of hay to go yet just for 1st crop, so let's hope we can get a real 3 days of dry weather in succession in order to finish this up, with a little less waiting and wondering - it's rains havoc on scheduling. 

And, while we are thinking about - please be careful with equipment on the road!

What's For Dinner...I Say Beeeeeeef

Brent uses this (a lot) to entertain Ainsley, and that's been necessary as we have all been spending nights out in the barn milking.  Thank goodness for a solid week of good weather, allowing us to get almost everything planted.  However, it's left us pretty tuckered out, and not a lot of time to make supper.  Enter in one of the kitchen's most wonderful inventions - the crockpot.
I was asked to write about different cuts of meat, and how they are getting a new labeling system for Illinois Farm Families.  Overall, if its from the loin - grill it; if it's from the shoulder or rump - low & slow, and these short ribs also fall into "low & slow", as they have lots of bone and some fat on them.  It's a pretty easy meal to come back to at the end of a long day and get an actual meal to keep you going during these long weeks.
 
Korean-Style Short Ribs
1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 c. light brown sugar
2 T sesame oil
2 T rice vinegar
2 T fresh ginger
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (I only use a pinch)
5# beef short ribs
1 1/2 c. shredded carrots
For garnish:  sesame seeds & green onions
Serve over rice

Blend 1st 7 ingredients to make sauce.  Place ribs in slow cooker, and pour sauce over.  Cook on high for 6 hours or low for 9 hours, or until meat will start to fall off the bones.  Skim & discard any fat from the sauce, and pour the liquid into a saucepan.  Add 3 T cornstarch & 3 T water, and bring to boil for 2 minutes to thicken  Stir in carrots.  Serve over rice, add ribs, cover with sauce & garnish as desired.

We enjoy it!