The Week in Three Words

OUCH!

OOPS!

YEAH!

30 Days of Farms & Families.....

Check it out:
http://farmprogress.com/prairie-farmer-blogs-30-days-of-farms-families-the-pollards-2781

Thanks Holly for thinking of us, and hope you enjoy reading about many other farm families from Illinois!

Come to Look at the Cows

To say we are tired on a regular basis is an understatement this time of year!  We've been working hard well after normal working hours trying to get everything done.  Last time I blogged, we had 76 milking cows.  In just two short weeks, we are now up to 87! Many of them are heifers, meaning it is the first time they have had a calf, or been milked, and so they require a little extra TLC.  Overall, things have been going very well.  One of our new heifers had twin bull calves that the vet had to come to help deliver (unfortunately the babies didn't live), and as a result, she didn't start off right, so the vet had to come again yesterday morning to do DA (displaced abomasum, a.k.a. "twisted stomach") surgery.  It went well, and she seems to be doing better.
Fortunately for our tired bodies (but, unfortunately, for the future of our herd), nearly all of the new calves have been bulls. In fact, we only have 3 calves in the calf barn right now.  This makes baby calf chores easy, but we'd love to have it full. 
Not only does the day to day cow work keep us busy, but we've also been finishing the odds and ends on the barn.  We put the last stalls in last weekend, Warren & Brent got our new fancy "counterweight" gates installed (pictures to come), and we are finishing putting a rock border around the outside.  Meanwhile, Warren has been busy harvesting.  The soybeans are done, and there are less than 200 acres of corn left to do.

However, we also had a special visitor this week.  We had what is called "Classification" at our farm on Monday morning.  This means that we pay an experienced person from the Holstein Association to come out to our farm and evaluate our cows.  They have a set of criteria for the "ideal" cow, and our cows are given a score based on how closely they meet the ideal criteria.  So, we spent a little extra time over the weekend cleaning the cows up a little bit, and milking at different times so that they cows would be full of milk when our visitor arrived.  It is a good way for us to get a different perspective on our herd - what things we need to improve upon, and helps us make decisions on what bulls to breed our cows to to make these improvements.

Mardi Gras after receiving her score

Our classifier, John, evaluating one of the cows

Kaliedoscope getting her VG score.  She is due any day now!

As usual, we were disappointed with some scores, satisfied with some, and pleasantly surprised with others.  The scores are broken down into categories of Excellent (90+), Very Good (85-89), Good Plus (80-84), Good (75-79), and Fair & Poor.  The highest scored cows in the country are 97, while the highest scored cow on our farm is Lucke @ 90 (look on the right sidebar at the bottom for her picture).  Another one of our Kay's went VG, and Kaydence herself picked up another point.  We would be very happy if all of our cows were Good or Good Plus young cows, that matured into VG (and hopefully, the occassional EX) cows.
Afterwards, I caught a plane to Omaha for a swine conference.  I've just gotten back and caught up, while Warren & Gail left this morning for San Diego for a dairy conference.....It just never ends!
Here's praying we get some heifer calves this weekend!

The "Other" Animals....

One of the most common questions we get is "Do you have dogs, cats, or other animals?".
Well, this allows me to write a blog about our parlor cats, seeing as we have a new one, who has just started to go exploring....

Brent petting his cats....

On the farm there are:
76 milking cows
20 dry cows (meaning they are in their 2 month rest period between lactations - hence they aren't milking, and are "dry")
20 bred heifers (pregnant girls who have not yet had a baby)
20 yearling heifers (girls that are not yet old enough to have a baby)
30 little heifers (ranging from about 1 week old, to several months old)
=~166 cows of varying ages

That is plenty to keep us busy!  However, we also have the typical farm cats (nope, no farm dog for the time being).  Every animal on the farm has to have a purpose.  The farm cats' purpose is to catch mice.  Some are better at it than others.  The parlor cats are among the lazier portion.  Why are they lazy?  Well, because they sit in the parlor waiting for us to give them waste milk.  They lounge on our towels that we use to clean the cows' udders with, sit on Warren & Brent's laps and get petted.....Yeah, they have it pretty easy.  I do see them wondering around the farm from time to time, but they always seem to come back by milking time.  The current parlor cats consist of Tank, Red, Spike, Momma Cat, and the white cat that they all seem to fight with.  Last week, Momma Cat had another set of kittens (Red & Spike being from her 1st litter).  They were born in the parlor, and are just starting to venture out.  I'm claiming this kitty for me!

The new little guy - peaking out thru the towel boxes...

Rest assured, I'll get to all your questions in due time!  It has been a busy couple of days on the farm, and I am tired (Brent is already in bed), so more questions will have to wait for another day!

Is it Stinky?

Hello to all my new blog readers from Ms. Mimlitz's class!  I am anxiously awaiting all of your comments, so that I can use them to come up with new ideas to blog about.
To answer Corey's question:  Is it "stinky" working with all those animals?
Well, yeah, a little bit!  Just like anything else that doesn't know how to flush a toilet; like your dog, cat, or even babies, animals will create some smell at certain times.  As long as we do a good job of removing the "stinky stuff" (manure) from where the animals are, and storing it correctly, or applying it to the fields as fertilizer for our crops, we can keep the odor to a minimum.  We have a holding pond where all the manure from our milk cows is stored.  When I used to come visit Brent at the farm before we were married, I didn't even know it was there, as it forms a crust on top that keeps the odor in. 
As soon as it dries up, Brent will begin to apply the manure to our fields.

The "spikes" on the front that are attached to hoses actually go into the ground, and inject the manure directly into the soil, where the crops' roots will use it as fertilizer next spring.

He uses this equipment to pump the manure into the tanker, and then inject it directly into the soil.  The manure has nutrients in it that will help our corn grow to feed back to our cows.  So, the cows help grow their own food!
We do the same thing with the pigs.

A typical hog barn

You see, all the manure falls through the holes (or slats) to a concrete pit, where the manure is stored until we can apply it to the fields.  As soon as the crops are harvested, the crews will be out applying manure to grow corn to feed the pigs.
It all works in a big nutrient circle.
So, yeah, animals smell a little bit, but I don't mind!

It just doesn't get any better than this!

This may look like a sign that Brent & I had a fight and I ended up on the couch.  It couldn't be farther from the truth.  My exciting Friday, now Saturday night, went something like this:

10:30 - Push up feed & check maternity - Bev just starting to calve.  Move to the couch & set the alarm for 1 AM

1:00 - Check on Bev - we have front feet, but they look big, so I try to help.  Bev wants nothing to do with my help.  We both go back to our respective beds.  I decide to give her another 30 minutes and check again before I have to wake Brent up to help me.

1:50 - We've got front feet and part of a head.  I think Bev knew she needed help, because this time, she let me get close enough to help.  1-2-3 pulls, and the calf was out.  Surely after all that I was not only expecting it to be a bull calf (Bev is nearly 10 days overdue), but I was surprised if it would be alive.....We have a heartbeat!  I used all the tricks I've been taught over the years - tickle the nose with straw - no luck; grab the tongue - good response there; I even tried some mouth to mouth!  A few more tongue grabs, trying to pull "ick" out of the airway, and some rubbing, and I had a good regular breathing, if not a little labored.

I made Bev get up - she's ok, and the maternal instincts kicked in.  She went to licking off her new GIRL with gusto!  I watched her go for 30 minutes, making sure the calf kept breathing, as I didn't think we were out of the woods.  I'm going to go check again, but at this point, surely she'll keep breathing.

I don't care who you are, or what you do for a living.....it just doesn't get any better than this!

Bev is black, so doesn't show up in this picture....but our new baby girl is breathing!

I knew...

When we got married, we knew we were both in agriculture, and that it isn't a 9 to 5 job.  That's ok; that's what we do, know & love. 
Multiple nights this week have been spent in the barn way past dark.  Tuesday night, we went to the neighbors to look at cows to purchase to fill the barn after milking.  Then Wednesday night, we came in after milking cows at 7 pm, ate a quick supper, and then went back out to the barn to install some of the last pieces in for our stalls.  In the process of all the building and installing, we were short pieces (a stall here, a cross piece there, a piece of channel & U-Bolt over here).  So, Brent went to Wisconsin to get the last of the missing pieces, so we could finish.  We hope to bring home those new cows from the neighbors soon and want everything to be in place.  I was still working with the impact wrench (it has become my new best friend the last few weeks!) after the timers kicked the lights off in the barn!

We had lots of "help", stepping on our extension cords & sniffing us and our stuff as we worked!

I guess this is payback for the night we had to drive out of our way on Thanksgiving to deliver a piece of manure equipment, or the Sunday we had to go earnotch pigs for a study.....

And, I'm sure they'll be many more!