A day on the farm...Manitoba style

Dawn breaks behind the barns

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Garry has been asking for a blog post about the farm here, with photos, so yesterday I carried a camera around. I think he is excited about seeing the farm in June for the first time in three years without snow on the ground.

As normal this week I woke up at 4 am, and tried to do quiet things until other people were awake! Just before seven am Seth is out waiting for the school bus with his friends the puppies, who are now almost 1 1/2 and  who want to play. After he gets on the bus I walk over to the barns.

Everyone wants attention, even Noah's cat who has escaped from the house

Someone is making feed for the milk cows already

It's a big corn silage pile

Waiting for new feed, these cows are already milked

Here it comes!

Meanwhile someone has moved the cows on the other side of the barn to the milking parlor and cleaned up with the scraper on the bobcat (really it's a NewHolland ) and it ready for the cows to return after milking.

The cows pass through an automatic sort gate on the way back to their barn, which puts any cows who the computer knows need attention into a separation pen.

 

These cows are on the way back to that new feed

While these girls are waiting to get bred or have their feet trimmed before returning to their group

Lined up in the breeding area

Now I am going to walk to the milking parlor area.....through this hallway which goes around it
so you can see the guys in action. The cows go into the parlor from a holding area, each get into an individual stall, where their udders are cleaned, and milking machines are attached by the crew. When the sensor indicates that the cow is finished, the machine comes off automatically, and someone dips her teats in an iodine based product to prevent bacteria from attacking her udder. When the entire side is finished, someone pushes a button, and  the gate in front of the cows lifts up and they are on their way back through the sorting gate, which reads her radio frequency eartag to decide if she goes back to the barns or is on the list to get caught in the pen. The cows are milked three times each day, which means they give more milk and are less likely to get mastitis (an udder infection) than cows who are milked twice a day. All sick cows who require antibiotic treatment for any reason are in a separate barn, where they are milked and taken care off by a different crew.

the left side is getting dipped

and there they go!

The front of the milking stall drop back down for the next group of cows to come in

Meanwhile the group on the right side...

 

are getting milked- pipes carry the milk 

right into the refrigerated tanks where the milk truck will pick it up

There are two big milk tanks (coolers) much bigger than ours in Ukraine!

The rest of the tanks are in the equipment room, which has a basketball hoop for when the boys want to practice

 

This smaller group of cows have yellow eartags, because they tested positive for staph, a type of contagious mastitis, which can spread between cows during the milking process, so they get milked last

Noah and Josh looking up info on the computer in the barn office

Well. I guess that is enough for now, although it is only 8 am on  Thursday morning, in the next post, I'll show you the calf barns and my trip out the fields