Let's go to the barn

Since the cows moved to the "new barn" and the classroom to the new building, I don't hang out there much. In fact, I told Garry when we moved to Ukraine I was retiring from farming, so it's his project. However on Friday morning I was recruited for one of my old jobs I did in Manitoba, writing down information during herd check.

Since Garry has brought the ultrasound machine back from Canada, he's become his own vet, checking if cows are pregnant. Max built a palp rail to put about six cows in (seven if they are small) so Garry can use it. 

First Garry and a couple students walked around finding the cows on Garry's list that were bred two months ago, then they chased them into the parlor. When they had six of the correct cows, they went into the area to be checked. 

Then we checked their eartags to make sure we had the correct cow, and I marked if she was pregnant or open (not pregnant). Then we did a second group, about half were pregnant, and half got injections of hormones to make them come in heat (be ready to breed). Of course, I wrote all of this down on the clipboard, so Garry knew which cow was which when we were done. Apparently the students were not as good as Garry wanted at this, so I now have a barn clothes outfit and rubber boots.

Today (Monday) was the day they should have been in heat, one was yesterday, and another this morning, according to the students milking. When Garry checked them, four out of five were ready to breed, so he did that, before we checked ten more cows. 

The locked cupboard with the meds, and records (the students 

sometimes think the notebook is spare paper and pages 

with breeding dates would disappear)

This time, four cows got injections, so they should be ready to breed on Thursday. Five were pregnant, including a cow that was four months along that we checked just because the students thought she was in heat this morning. Cows show heat by jumping on each others backs and standing sill, but some cows just seem to fool around when other cows are in heat, even if the they are pregnant. 

Friday I took some general barn photos, just a little tour for you to see what it looks like now. Like here's the heifer  barn they built last year.


Here's the hay (straw) shed that they are expanding this spring (the one where Garry hurt his knee in the hole). It will be about a third twice as longer I think he said (or maybe 60%, depends on the day, I've heard both now). You can see the new rafters sitting inside. The steel roofing is ordered already, so it should go fast once they get the posts in the ground and start building.

If you are wondering, here's some cow facts about the farm now. So far in April, 22 cows have had calves. The three months before averaged about 3 calves a month (or fresh cows) I think, so we are making lots of milk now. 500 litres, three times a day, so 1500 1800 litres each day. correction - or maybe just more since he told me? 600 litres a milking, selling 550 and feeding 50 litres to the many baby calves. Milking about 80 cows now I think, with a lot of dry cows and heifers outside where the sheds are. 

About one day of milk

The milk tank (refrigeration) can only hold four and half milkings, so we need the milk truck or the other buyer to come about every day, the truck from the plant is coming three times I week I believe. Garry plans to buy a larger milk tank next year. 

We could actually sell more milk to the buyers, so Garry banned all small sales, where people would show up during milking a buy a few liters of milk. He also figured it would be a good thing with the quarantine for the virus. 
The students made a sign for the door, which Victor says has (had?) two spelling mistakes. He also said the sign they made for the building site had spelling mistakes. Oh, well.

Milk not selling- I think

Here's Artom making feed for the cows, he was doing a good job when Garry got back after Christmas, so Garry didn't take back the job of making feed every morning like last year. Now he listens to sermons on the internet every morning before starting his day.