Another Marc Farm Post

Alas, I have been working on farms again. So you get to hear about it! :-P

I just finished with 2 weeks of farm work on a dairy farm. Now I needed to commute to the farm, which was 40 minutes away. This meant for 2 weeks (no breaks, farmers don't get days off, neither do I) I was at the dairy farm from 5am until 7pm. This meant I was awake from 4am until 9-10pm. Not much sleep. It sadly stressed my body and I developed a purulent mucus cough. In Dec I have developed the same cough that lasted for about 3 months. It turned out to be MRSA. The doctor decided to run a culture first time around with me this time. Meds seem to be working.

Now about the farm. It was a dairy farm with Holstein-Friesian cows (the black and white cows). This breed of cow is amazing at producing milk. One cow can produce about 7000L/year. In really good farms, where the conditions are right, Holstein-Friesians can produce up to 16000L/year.

My days on the farm were pretty routine. I would arrive at 5am. The farmer would already be out herding in the first group of cows (about 100). I would set-up the milking parlor while I waited.
This is an image of the dairy milking parlor. Each side holds up to 8 cows. They are fed during milking so several reasons: 1, to distract them, 2, to see who is sick (sick cows wont eat the pellets), and 3, so that you can feed specific amounts to specific cows.

The cows would come in, and I would (with the farmer working on them too) enter their numbers into the computer (which activates the feeder and logs how much milk the cow produces). Next the teats were cleaned of dirt and other stuff by wiping it with a paper towel. Then you strip the teat. Teat stripping is when you milk out each teat 3-4 times. This serves the purpose to remove the milk plug formed after milking, removes a good number of bacteria that may have traveled up the teat canal, and it is a good way to check for mastisis (infected utters). Finally I placed on the milking clusters. The milking clusters are automatic and remove themselves when the flow rate gets low. That is it. I then repeated this for 130 cows in groups of 8 twice a day for 10 days straight.This is a view from where I worked for about 2.5 hours. Spoiler... if you like milk but would be put off by gross stuff, don't read the rest of this paragraph. Cows poop... and pee... while milking. It is a mess. There is poop and urine flying everywhere. Yes some of it lands in the milk... Not much though, these levels are regulated closely. And being at this level made me an easy target for poop and pee... Yes, I was covered. But I wore protective clothing (waterproofs that were hosed off daily).

When the cow's group were done milking they were let off into this holding area. They were here until I could bring in the other groups of cows. So when most of the group was here, I would go out on a quad bike (ATV) to a field and wrangle in the next group (about 35 cows) while the farmer continued to milk the rest of the first group.

This is an image of me bring in the herd, well the last of the herd on the quad. You can see some of the fields of the farm and the surrounding area. It was beautiful, especially when it wasn't raining.

After I brought in the herd, I would release the finished cows, and resume milking. After the milking was done, I had to clean-up the parlor and the holding area. This meant I had to scoop cow poop, which is more like gravy consistency then poop. I got to use one of these poop pushers (pictured below). I had to push the poop from the milking parlor and the holding pen into the slurry pit. This took about 1 hour (large area, large amount of poop, on my own).

The rest of my day was filled with chores around the farm, and on his other farms (he owned 2 other farms). I would get a break from 10 until 2. He fed me 4 star meals, like stuffed pheasant with caramelized apples. Definitely a plus. At 2 I would care for the calves. Now dairy farms can't exist without calves. You need each cow to give birth each year for it to milk. The calves are either used to grow the herd (if female) or, in this farm, raised for meat (if male). I would feed the calves, bed them (give them more straw to lay on), and water them. Then the milking process repeated. Except in the afternoon, I brought in the cows both times.

One day during the weeks I was on the farm, the farmer took me to the Royal Highland Show. Which is a huge agriculture show.... HUGE! They have farm equipment for sale, livestock bred shows, education tents, etc. It was huuuge! About 2 square miles. It runs for 4 days each year. I happen to run into my friends who were also on a dairy farm. Their farmer was entering a few of their cows into the breed show.
This is an image of the breed show. This farmer is waiting to show his cow. The farmer has a uniform to wear, which changes for what breed of cattle they are showing. The cow is prettied up. They clean them, put paint on them, put oil on the utters to make them shine, and millions of other things to get the judges attention. My friend's farmer's cow won best in her class and came in second for her breed (which is amazing if you consider this is the major breed show in Scotland).

My friends and I walked around after their breed show was over. They had chainsaw art, and you could watch it occurring (see video). They also had logging skill competitions, but we didn't stay to watch. We even got to a tent where they were showing off the new Nintendo 3DS (3D handheld gaming system that doesn't need glasses to work). And we ended up in our school's tent talking with to one of our professors. She was there showing kids how to diagnose foreign bodies using stuffed animals (which is an actual tool we use to practice the skill). She even quizzed us!

The best part... the free food! There were food sampling stations in two locations. One was a major food hall which they specifically where there to show off their food, and hope you would buy some. But the Scottish Argiculture College (SAC) had a dish off between farmers market (apparently this is actually a major competition in the farmers market world here, the winners get a coveted silver plate). So we got to sample amazing food and vote on it. The free food was my lunch that day.

And that was my dairy experience. Here are some pictures of the farm dogs and one of the farm cats. The poor cat had a tumor diagnosed 3 years ago, it covers about 1/2 of his face. The farmer will let the cat live until it is not getting around any more.