Garry's new job

On Saturday Garry phoned his mom to get his brother’s phone number (Charlie’s 50th birthday) and asked her if I had written on the blog about his new job. I told him I might have if he’d TOLD ME about it! So when he was at the farm with the big herd last week to talk about the crop planting, he somehow volunteered to do some herd managing, and will get paid a percentage of the increased milk payment. Which is why he was over there on Thursday and Friday mornings, checking the place out, before he suggests changes to make. The farm is in a village about 10 km away, named Molazaharina (or something like that).
Now the story Garry was telling Victor and Maxim about the guard trying to chase him off the day after they were over there to talk about stuff makes sense. They were laughing because he said one of the ladies gave the guard a talking too- waving her finger under his nose all the while (it is typical of older ladies scolding someone.)
I know Garry wants to change the ration- they will need more than the 4 ton of brewers’ grain they picked up on Tuesday. He says the ration is way too dry because they are feeding dry corn silage and straw- the brewers’ grain will increase protein, moisture, and make the corn silage last past June first. Spend a little to save a little later, and make more milk. The herd there is averaging 10 liters a cow a day, and our herd is doing 20 liters. The cows there could make more milk with better feed for sure as genetically they are at least as good as the ones we are milking.
Garry tells me that everything is fed the same ration, at the same time, milking cows, dry cows, and heifers. They go through twice a day and throw some grain on top. Not all the milking cows can get to the bunk to eat the grain, so first priority will be getting the grain to the milk cows. Getting more brewers’ grains mixed in the ration will fix this- they won’t need to feed additional grain, and everyone will get some. Right now with the 4 tons they bought last week they are putting a small amount in.
He says that the fresh feed is being fed on top of the old feed that was not eaten from the day before. Next change- getting that swept up and fed as part of the dry cow and/or heifer feed, so the milking cows get the best stuff possible. He says he watched milking in the parlor, there are meters so he could see how much they were giving- the highest producer had 12 liters (they are milked twice a day, I believe) and most were at 6 or less. From the number of young calves in the calf barn, he doesn’t think many cows have calved recently. He says the calves look good, all work in there is done by hand- there is no shortage of workers- but thinks they may need more protein.
Another change he wants to make is for the springers (dry cows who will be calving soon) seems like they are getting the worst accommodations on the farm- they get moved to some tiny stalls with no straw for bedding (remember straw is for feeding cows here.) So he tells me he is going to spend a couple hours a day over there for the first two weeks- then just check that things are being done right for a couple hours a weeks after that. He takes a thermos full of coffee with him and his new travel mug when he goes, instead of playing spider solitaire on the computer while drinking coffee in the morning.
Guess it will keep him from underfoot- the boys and I are finding we are just getting schoolwork going in the morning when Garry and Maxim come in for coffeetime, and turn on the TV, boil the water, and wonder what I have made for breakfast or cook their own (don’t be fooled- Garry had toast and coffee before going outside and Max usually warms up leftovers in the microwave first thing in the morning. Jonah has been taking my computer- the one they use for biology into their bedroom, where they do their math lessons. Still the computer program with the other courses is Garry’s one on the desk in the kitchen and the same one everyone else is checking the internet on.
Monday morning- still no internet up- we are supposed to be getting a different internet service today, but we’ll see how that goes. Of course I put a new phone card on our internet credit on Friday- in the middle of posting the internet cut out- now we have a 50 grivan credit with Kievstar.
Garry came back from the other barn today wondering why they bed up the bred heifer barn beautifully while the milk cows and sick/springing cows get no straw. He says the milk cow barn looks like the stalls are only cleaned when the alleys are scraped (and that does not happen everyday.) The springers had a little old silage under them, but the cows are all so dirty (which means mastitis must be a problem- udder infections from bacteria entering the udder- cows produce less milk and lower-quality milk- there are white cells fighting off the infection.)He’s also wondering if the cows relay get fresh feed everyday- or just when its gone. Yesterday’s low temperature (it was -14 C again at 7 pm last night) must have frozen the water over there sometime on the weekend- someone had a hose and was filling the barrel when Garry was over there, and the milk cows were fighting over it which means they had been without water for a while. Since milk is mostly water you can bet production was down a lot this morning.
Garry says he picked up a lady walking out to the highway from the other village, she knew who he was and talked all the way to the turn on the highway to Nikolipolia, where he dropped her off to catch a marschuka . She wanted to know all about us and our farm here, sometimes she talked so fast he couldn’t understand her, but he answered lots of questions in Russian. He also tried his phone while he was in the other village- he says the cell tower is there- but still didn’t get through to me- the network is still messed up.