Welcome!

If you're going to know something about me, let it be this: I love cows.



I am also a proud participant in the dairy industry, and I think we have a great story to tell about our farm businesses, our animals, and our product (MILK!).



So welcome to the conversation; I'm devoted to dairy, and happy to answer any questions you may have.



Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Desert Spring and Calf Pneumonia

Greetings on a sunny, moderately windy day in Utah!
It’s rapidly becoming evident that winter is over, and although my New England-wizened self says there will likely be one more kick before winter calls it good, I think the worst is behind us.
As far as the calves are concerned, Spring in the west offers a few “exciting” changes, most notably, the wind. Going to school in Ithaca, I thought I knew a thing or two about “strong” winds- the kind that will blow you off a sidewalk and turn your umbrella (in Ithaca, you always carry an umbrella) inside out. Turns out, I knew nothing. 30 mph “breezes” are the norm in this town, and spring is typically the gustiest season- offering more than a couple 50+ mph windy days. The plus side is we presently have no mud to speak of at the calf ranch, and the flies (how there are flies already I do not know) can’t stick to anything long enough to be a real problem.  The wind does however, have the nasty habit of tossing empty calf hutches around and kicking up serious dust.
The other springtime challenge is nothing new to anyone who’s ever raised calves- pneumonia. After all, it’s no big surprise that 30-40 degree temperature variance every 24 hours can wreak havoc on the immune system of a month-old calf.
I was fortunate to land on a dairy that has a great Pfizer Animal Health drug rep who was able to hook us up with a vaccine that we spray up the calves’ nose before they come over to the calf ranch, followed by a booster dose at 5 weeks old. This stuff is awesome! No needles = happier calves; reduced incidence of pneumonia = happier calf manager!
In a perfect world the vaccine would work 100% of the time on 100% of my calves, but… perfection is in short supply, so I feed a supplemental grain pellet containing a low dose of antibiotic that is mixed into the regular calf grain. The antibiotics bolster the calves, providing extra protection during the cold-wet-wild temperature times of the year. Again, in the imperfect world, some calves are slow to start eating grain and therefore don’t get the preventative dose, so we inevitably have a few calves each week that will show signs of pneumonia.
As part of my typical day, I walk through each row of calf hutches, quickly monitoring the behavior of each calf, their bedding and their grain and water consumption. The benefit of the daily check means I catch sick calves before disease or injury is able to get out of hand. In the case of pneumonia, I look for a depressed calf with rapid breathing and/or a temperature of 102.5 degrees or higher. (100.5-101.5 is normal for those of you who might not have been on a dairy quiz bowl team in your youth J) As I identify these calves, I treat them with a one dose antibiotic of which I have become a huge fan. This stuff really works; it’s specifically designed to aggressively treat pneumonia in calves, so one dose given early into pneumonia onset has an extremely high efficacy rate- which means my calves feel better faster and continue eating and growing as usual. Even more importantly, it means I seldom have a calf that doesn’t recover fully and must be culled from the herd.
The cow lover in me very much appreciates that particular aspect, as selling or euthanizing calves that can’t get better, or just never fully recover, is by far the worst part of my job. Like most dairy farmers I know, I watch over all 600 of my current charges (in hutches) with attention that borders on obsession. I’ll do anything within reason to keep my calves healthy- and not just because calves that have to leave the herd represent an economic loss to the dairy farm. It’s actually because I hate to see a calf that starts out perfect at birth, suffer and be wasted due to something we didn’t do well enough. As such, most of my time is spent focusing on preventative measures, such as the vaccine and antibiotic feed additive, as well as optimizing calf nutrition and ensuring the cleanliness of everything the calf comes into contact with. It’s not the easiest way to raise calves, but doing things the right way doesn’t always mean doing them the easy way. If they could, I’m sure my calves would agree. I take their good health and rapid growth to be a resounding “we approve”.
So the desert spring can bring on the wind- I picked up a new windbreaker and I’m learning how to place calf hutches so they won’t blow away. The threat of pneumonia I could do without, but at least I’ve prepared the calves and ready to respond when prevention isn’t quite enough!

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Factory Farm? (part 2)

Good Morning all!
It's taken me a little longer than expected to get my thoughts together on the second part of the factory farm topic I started last week... but here it is.
First, I have a disclaimer: I don't condone animal abuse in any form, least of all to dairy cows. It is not my intent to sugar coat how we manage cows, and please do not take my arguments as defense of mistreatment of animals. If you need reason to support that claim, review my first couple posts to learn how my involvement in the dairy industry began. (SparkNotes version: 7 year old kid visits a farm and gets irrevocably hooked on big brown cows. 11 years of 4-H, a degree in dairy science, a small farm and several states later, I still own and show cows and now generate my livelihood from the dairy industry.) And I still <3 cows.
So... to the topic of the “ag-gag” bill passed in Iowa and up for referendum in several other states: I have very mixed emotions.
On one hand, as manager of the calf raising part of the large dairy here, I recognize that I can’t see what my employees are doing at all times. I train them to care for and work with the calves, I monitor how they perform, communicate when I see room for improvement, and retrain as needed- I have faith that my employees are handling calves as I (cow lover) would. However, I’m not watching them 24/7, and it would be beyond upsetting to find out my trusted employees were mistreating calves (I have faith this isn’t the case) via a youtube video.
Further, it’s no secret that undercover animal rights vegan activists will bate employees into poor behavior and gather months of footage to have enough for a few minutes of incriminating video. It doesn’t excuse mistreatment, but recognize that what you’re watching has been carefully crafted to elicit an emotional response that will lead you to send them money and cut meat and milk from your diet.
With that in mind, I think it’s fair for animal farmers to seek protection from malicious activists with a vegan agenda and the intent of destroying our ability to earn a living feeding a hungry world population.
On the other hand, we are living in a society that demands transparency. I feel confident inviting strangers to my farm at home, and my employers regularly host farm tours for neighbors, politicians and local school groups. Its remarkable how many people have left after visiting this “factory farm” (please read part 1) feeling really good about how the animals are handled and where their milk comes from!  So slamming the door shut on undercover footage sends out the message we might have something to hide. The dairy industry has a responsibility to regulate itself, and we do- look up the FARM program sometime (Farmers Assuring Responsible Management). 
 So, should we allow vegan activists access to our farms, knowing they are there solely to target us as cruel and unnecessary regardless of how well run the farm? C'mon people, we’re not dealing with a rogue vegan here- HSUS, Farm Sanctuary and the like are smart, organized businesses with deep pockets and a lot of research on what images and words will best get under your skin.
I can guess what you’re thinking… cruelty is cruelty and the videos find it.
            This point is my final piece to this issue and the one I find most troubling.
Since less than 1% of the population works on a farm, most people have no basis for understanding what goes on at one (same could be said for my knowledge of a restaurant or bank). Note, owning pets doesn’t count- cats and dogs are friends, not food. Back when more Americans had a personal connection to farms raising animals, farms were much smaller and more numerous. In the past 50 years or so, milk markets have been volitile, rural people have moved to cities and dairy farmers have learned a lot about how to better care for our cows- its simplifying things, but essentially a few big, enclosed barns went up, a lot of little red barns came down. A lot has changed that makes dairy farming look different than it used to be. This opens the door to interpretation of our new dairy farming methods- by hidden camera wearing activists who don’t think we have the right to raise animals to feed people.
For example, artificial insemination (AI), is the primary practice used to get cows pregnant in the US and Europe. It keeps our employees and cows safer than having several full grown bulls running around (think roughly the weight of a Prius and as unpredictable as having a 16 year old driving said Prius). It also allows us to pass only the best genetic traits along to each generation, and reduce genetic disorders.  AI technology has been around since the 1970’s and technicians (yes, it’s actually a full time job for a lot of people) undergo specialized training and refresher courses to learn how to carefully get cows pregnant using AI. I (cow lover) see this as a good thing, and yet, what is targeted on the latest animal rights vegan activist undercover video… AI (of course?!?). And I’ll bet a lot of people watching the vegan agenda video thought, wow, poor cows. Would they would still think so after hearing why we use AI? I guess I don’t know. But I do know it’s a practice that I use on my own cows (yes, I took a class to learn how, and yes we wear long gloves) and they don’t seem to have held it against me over the last 10 years, nor are they any less healthy than if I turned them out to rendezvous with a bull.
Does this mean every aspect of good cattle management could be made to look cruel? It sure is easier for an animal rights vegan activist to tell you it’s bad and wrong when you don’t know about why I might use it for my cows…. which means dairy farmers have a lot of work to do and you really should find a farm to go visit.


here is a link to more than you ever wanted to know about artificial insemination for cattle

and here is a link to information on other things we do to take care of our cows

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Factory Farm? (pt. 1)

Greetings on a beautiful day from Utah!
I hope the weather wherever you are is as nice as our early spring has been here- the calves and I are certainly enjoying the 60 degrees and sunshine dominating our weather pattern as of late! I even find as the nasty winter weather recedes, so too does the list of things to complain about; it's just harder to be in a bad mood when the sun is out! In spite of the sunshine-induced happiness, my good mood was dulled reading over the results to an impromptu "factory farm" search on Twitter this afternoon.

The negative banter from vegans and vegetarians condemning farms raising animals who are bound for the food supply was no big surprise, but the numerous "Gag order, why states are banning factory farm wistleblowers" did catch my attention. Several of the tweets linked to the articles below. I'll discuss them more in my next post, but take a look if you like.
http://www.good.is/post/gag-order-why-states-are-banning-factory-farm-whistleblowers/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/iowa-becomes-first-state-where-its-a-crime-to-lie-to-get-on-farm-to-record-animal-abuse/2012/03/02/gIQAv6wbnR_story.html

Same story, two different perspectives; both discussing the bill recently passed in Iowa that makes taking video and sound bites from a farm without the owner's permission, a punishable offence. Similar bills are up for consideration in other states including New York, Utah, Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana, and stem from the undercover videos released over the past couple years depicting animal abuse and neglect on "factory farms". I have numerous issues with these videos, which again, will come up next post. But clearly, I don't support animal abuse. I do want to make a point about the assault on large farms.
Just the term "factory farm" has been molded and twisted to imply negativity. I'm as much of an agriculture advocate as you'll find, and it sure isn't a warm and fuzzy term to me- funny because it wouldn't be a stretch for someone to say I work for one.
That's right, the dairy farm where I work would be the type targeted by those attacking "factory farms", predominantly because this dairy is large- milking over 2,500 cows, and housing more than 5,000 if you count the dry cows and calves.

But here's the thing... I'm EXTREMELY proud to be associated with this farm.

The dairy is family owned, just like 98% of all dairy farms in the US; and like many, it has undergone multiple transitions, changing it's shape and size to accommodate generational changes, advances in technology and evolving market trends. This dairy farm produces approximately 200,000 pounds (that's 23,250 gallons!) of super quality, nutritionally robust milk each day. This dairy farm supports more than 30 families from it's payroll, and pumps serious cash into businesses in the towns nearby. No doubt about it, it's a big dairy farm.
Our cows are kept in large open corrals- a novelty to this Northeasterner, where red barns and freestalls dominate the dairy scene- so you don't have to look hard to find cows being, well, cows. They walk to the milking parlor, they come back and eat, they interact with their herd mates, they drink, they lay down, they get up and eat again... all very normal and cow-like. They're also healthy, and not by accident; any dairymen worth their salt will tell you prevention is the name of the game, and these guys (like thousands from coast to coast) have serious focus on animal well being, and are constantly finding new ways to master the game.
So yeah, I guess size dictates that we will be called a factory farm... we care for a lot of cows which make a lot of milk that goes on to nourish a lot of people. But I hope the few notes above help you realize that being big isn't bad, nor does it make us better than my friends back East milking 60 cows in a totally different style. It's what has worked for this family and others like it to ensure this lifestyle can be passed to the next generation, and milk continues to be available to all us dairy-lovers out there. If that's factory farming... so be it. I love cows, and I'm proud to be raising calves, working for this large dairy.

In the next couple days I'll put together some thoughts on the actual bill that spurred all this talk of factory farms, but it's getting late and as always, the calves like their bottles of milk promptly by 6am.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Motivated Back Into Action

Greetings from Utah! I just returned from the Young Dairy Leaders Institue- a dairy industry initiate designed to teach young dairy farmers and industry participants how to share our story about raising the cows that produce the dairy products we all love!
After a LONG hiatus, I'm so excited to share the crazy changes in my life since mid 2011. First you'll notice I'm writing from UTAH! and more interestingly perhaps, that I'm writing from a DAIRY FARM in Utah where I am temporarily managing a calf ranch for some fellow former New Englanders! It's a big change from my risk management position in NY and I'm loving it!
For my Northeast friends not familiar with western-style dairy farming, it's still all about raising and caring for cows to make milk, but think less little red barns and more open corrals- with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop. Very cool.
My responsibilities here are focused on caring for the future of the dairy farm; the calves!
Here are a few fun facts:
We have, on average, about 600 calves in calf hutches any given day
We bring over 8-12 newborn calves from the dairy each day
We are raising both the heifers and bulls born at the dairy
About 2/3 of our calves are Holsteins, the rest are a cross of Jersey, Holstein and Swedish Red
Look for more info to follow as I show you how we raise and care for the calves, and a little more about my life here in Utah.