Seth and Jonah are watching a new episode of Ben10 – along with Clone Wars- the shows they want to watch on satellite television. Must be some sci-fi gene they got from their father, I guess. They were excited to get in the house with minutes to spare from helping Garry feed the cows for the second afternoon, with Maxim on vacation.
I asked Jonah what they did to feed the cows while we were waiting for Garry to pick us up after church (we had gone to Morningstar while Garry went to Victor’s church.) Jonah says they had to fork hay from the giant pile into the wheelbarrow and feed it to the cows, and fork the corn silage from the bucket of the front-end loader that Garry scooped from the plastic-covered pile behind the barn for them , then Garry shovelled a wheelbarrow of brewer’s grains (this is wet grain- a by-product of beer making) from outside to give them (it is raining again today-“Dad has rubber boots”) and Seth gave them grain (“in proportion to the amount of milk they give”) and stirred it around (handmade TMR- we have a big tractor-driven machine in Manitoba to mix feed.) Jonah was bedding them up with straw bales from upstairs while Seth was feeding grain. It says how much milk they give on a little card on the feed alley side of the name cards over the cows.
The neighbours think Garry is wasting perfectly good feed under those cows, (they don’t use bedding when the cows are inside the sheds all winter) but the milker ladies like it, they think it will keep the cows warmer. It is not quite as much straw as Garry’s Uncle Marinus used under his Holsteins when he milked cows in Ontario, but the cows are sitting pretty compared to the other cows in the village!
I think that they are getting a tablespoon of salt also as we bought a case of cheap people salt at METRO (think Costco) two weeks ago for the cows. Maxim thought it was strange when Garry explained that the cows got a spoonful of salt to eat every day.
Garry bought another open heifer from a couple who came here this afternoon; Maxim had phoned to say they were coming to try to sell Garry one. Garry says she’s a little red heifer; now he’ll have to order some Jersey semen to breed her. They were from Nadeeah, another nearby village. He was able to understand and answer many of their questions about what we are doing here- in Russian of course! Garry thinks they said she was bred two weeks ago but we’ll see if she needs to be bred again. He asked them to have their son walk the heifer over here.
He has found out that there is a company in a nearly smaller city (Salonya) that will store whatever he wants to use for AI breeding (this means that you get the cows pregnant with frozen high quality bulls instead of the local bull) It turns out you need a special permit for liquid nitrogen (which is what goes in the storage tank for the frozen semen) here in Ukraine. I’m not sure if that means Garry will be using the local guy to do the work or just bring him the semen. He’s been breeding cows since university, although Josh took over most of the work at home a few years ago.
He also struck a deal for three fresh heifers (he says they are small and skinny but not ten years old- they just need to get their health tests done before they come here) and a small Zero 300-gallon milk tank- the kind that works to cool the milk just like at home. Soon no more milk cans sitting in water- the cooler weather has helped get the milk to cool faster- but still we are trying to show modern farming techniques here!
The milkers and milk buyers insist the cans need to stay with the lids cracked open- they scoop out the flies with a tablespoon Victor took out to the barn the first time the lady buyer came. I keep wanting to close the lids when I walk through the milkhouse. I noticed that they did put a netting curtain over them one day to cut down on flies or maybe it was the ducks and cats! There is a -2 in the forecast, so hopefully the flies will be gone soon.
Zera the fresh heifer is giving 5 liters of milk in the mornings, soon she’ll be our best milk cow (the rest are pretty stale.) Production keeps coming up with all that good feed- this morning’s milking was a new record amount- 116 liters. The younger lady milks Zera one quarter (or teat) at a time into a mason jar according to Garry. He’s not sure when she’ll sit down on her stool with her bucket to milk her but the heifer is pretty calm after being milked a couple days. The ladies feed the calf with its head in a bucket, sucking on her finger to start him drinking. They fed him about 2 liters of colostrum (that thick sticky first milk)Wednesday evening. Then Victor took some home and the ladies asked Garry if they could have the rest.
In Ukraine it is used to make a special cheesecake-like thing with eggs and sugar that is baked in the oven. Victor says that they sell colostrum for 50 grivina a liter in the market (regular milk is going for 7, we get 4 on farm). We now have two samples of it in the fridge. Garry’s parents even tried some of the ladies’ stuff. They said in Holland people use colostum to make a pudding. Personally I didn’t touch it- I have spent too much time getting covered in the stuff trying to get it into at least a thousand newborn calves.
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