Search results for query: *

That's true Ron. Considering the farm only grew 5 or 6 years ago to now more than 600 altogether, I'd say they're doing well if only a couple have abcsesses though. Plus, I've heard vets say before to let them drain on their own. Once they do, I know I try to keep them clean but it's pretty...

Well, if I had the choice I would do something about it too but where I'm just an employee it's hard to make these decisions. Of course, there's nothing that can be done for the one with the abscessed quarter.

Are the pictures not showing up for you?

I posted this at another board but for those who aren't members there here you go... Here are a few odd things I see at work. Here's a picture of a cow who has an abscess on her brisket. This is a heifer who has an extra teat right next to her functional one. This cow pretty well only has...

born2run - We very rarely have meetings with the bosses. We had one in the fall last year before going to 3x but that was pretty well it. Usually we only have them if something is going to change or if there is a problem. It would be nice to know what's going on sometimes though! Thank you...

rkm - Nope, we don't get any bonuses :(. But, they do pay us pretty well and the incentive for doing a good job I guess is just to occasionally hear through other people that you do a good job. It would be nice to hear it from them sometimes though :). milkmaid - Thanks for your kind words...

Update: The cow that was down died early this morning. Also, I think the vet was out today but I'm not sure how many were operated on. It seems like lately DA's are happening all the time. One thing that I've heard is that at this farm they aren't great at sealing the silage. You can often...

I know weekends aren't normally all that great (28 hours in 2 days is very tiresome) but this weekend was terrible for sick cows anyway. We had a cow start to bloat on Saturday and today she died. Plus, we had 2 that needed to be treated for mastitis. One of those got her foot stuck between...

Milkmaid - I wish I had my own cows! If I don't work on a dairy farm in the future I will at least have a few home. If I went to college it would be the year after next. For the dairy specific course you need at least some experience so hopefully 2 years will be enough to get in. When are...

Yeah, all 5 ft milkers get salary. It's not so bad because we don't have any ot or anything plus some go slower than others. I think I'd rather have a smaller farm and be self-sustainable rather then getting into the more stressful aspects of dairy farming. But I'm not ruling out a manager...

Oh, I know what you mean now but I'm not sure if they get it :S. I know a lot of things would be different as far as the treatment of the cows if I ran my own farm. I figure I could leave, but if I did that would be one less "kind" employee so the cows would lose. Yeah, I guess it does take a...

We also do pregnancy checks in the freestalls. The sorting gate just makes it easier to put the ones in heat in the pen. Actually, cows we don't notice will often hang around the sick pen if they too are in heat. One of the brothers who owns the farm (herd manager I suppose) does the AI for...

Wow, it sure would be interesting to go and visit different farms. Everybody has a different system. For our feed there is a scraper that is timed to push it back every so often. We do a little by hand but the scraper does the bulk of it. (A little does get wasted at the end.) How big is...

Warning: long post! Wow, that's a lot of cows to milk! What size is your parlour? Do you use paper towels or cloth? You must keep your dip cups with you too eh? Or do you have spray? We also have two milkers at a time, but one of us will bring each group of cows up when its time (takes...

Wow, great pics. It's like a virtual barn tour :D. Yeah, we also use Delaval. The sick pen has 6 freestalls and we have room to tie at least 10 (I forget how many exactly). Herringbone would be neat to milk in. I find it hard to reach some of our heifers sometimes, haha. Does it take long...

As far as I know, they don't plan to expand. The barn is only really suitable for 280 or less but many farmers have had trouble making quota over the last year or so so it prompted them to buy about 20 new heifers. We expect to slow down soon enough. I do have plenty of pictures, haha. I'll...

Milkmaid - We don't milk them at all. I'm assuming whatever is in them will dry up. They look like regular extra teats...I was surprised there was anything in them! born2run - I milk in a double 16 parallel. The vacuum pressure was adjusted a few months ago and now that the crowd gate works...

Haha! We have at least two new heifers with 6 functional teats. (Well, functional but some of the milk is yellow-y.) This is the first time I've seen it and we're now milking over 300.

There have been a few at the farm where I work. Actually, this morning one of the highest milk producers aborted twins. The vet thought there was only one but after a while they checked again and sure enough, there was a second one. The cow was only 7 months into her pregnancy and amazingly...

At our farm there was a cow down for a few weeks who ended up getting up on the day she was going to be put down. Nobody really knew why but a back injury was suspected. Keep your faith!