Grazing Cows

I was out in the pasture yesterday evening, sitting there with my notebook of bull proofs and a note section for confirmation faults on the cows to try to focus on when I mate them.  Of course, I was quickly surrounded by a curious group of bovine, who wanted to use me as a scratching post, lick the notebook (so glad I put page protectors on my bull proof pages), rub their wet noses on the notebook, sniff me, and pester me until I scratched their heads :). 

But, as I sat there I was just thankful to God for the chance to sit in the sunny pasture and look as His creation.  He truly is the master artist, and I am thankful that (for now anyways) He has allowed Danny and I to be stewards of this group of animals.

I got to view all kinds of cows while I was out there...

...there were shiny cows

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....and curious cows

...and cows that were in heat

...and even a cow that wasn't feeling so good

 We caught her today and gave her some things that will hopefully help her feel (and look) a little better.  She didn't have a temperature though, so that is good.

 

I love watching the cows.  It just amazes me to see how God designed everything so perfectly to fit in this universe He created. 

 I have been reading in Psalms here lately, and I am seeing just how important and how much emphasis the psalmists put on praising God.  So often I forget to do that and instead I grumble about everything that isn't going exactly how I want it to go.  When I do remember to focus on God instead of the things that trouble me or bother me, it doesn't necessarily make my problems go away, but it is then that God reminds me that He is sovereign and that everything that is happening around us and to us is not too big for Him to handle.  He is never surprised or unprepared for it.  This realization allows me to rest in Him and trust that no matter the outcome we are still in God's hands, and I find so much peace in that.

Milking Pigs

Does anyone else have issues with dirty tail heads?  We have a few cows (more than a few) that just get right piggy after they freshen and don't really clean up until they go dry. 

I apologize for the blurry picture, but you can see what once was a tail is now a huge clump of manure.

And another view of the same tail....

We don't like docking tails (making so the cows tails are only 14 to 16 inches long), so I have resorted to cutting off all of the tail hair that I can. 

Much better!  Much cleaner! and the cow will stay cleaner now as well!

This makes the dirty tails easier to deal with, but it is only a band-aid and not a "real fix" for the problem of why we are getting dirty tails in the first place.  We asked our vet, and he said that it could be due to a cow having a broken tail bone or from when she is in heat and being mounted--that can sometimes permanently injure the nerves that they use to move their tails.  These are possible reasons, but they don't explain why some cows habitually clean up when they are late lactation or going dry and are terrible pigs right when they come fresh.  We have been testing for Johnes, but the samples are showing up negative there as well.  Is it just do to the stress from calving? Why only some and not all?  Why do some cows' tails never get dirty?  We don't know.  If anyone has any answers or insight, we would be thrilled to hear your thoughts. 

Until then, as my husband so hilariously stated today just before heading down to the barn, "Some day I am going to buy a herd of cows, but right now I have to go milk the pigs."  :)

Blessings to you all, and may the Lord bless you and keep you in this much needed rainy weather.

A New Vacuum...Pump

Busy, busy, busy!  We are thankful for spring, but the warmer temperatures and growing season has added to our things to do.  I am enjoying the change, though :).

Last week, we had the vet out to analyze our milking procedure and equipment to see if there were any things that we could change to help our SCC (somatic cell count-this is one of the ways the industry measures the quality of the milk.  The lower the somatic cell count the more we get paid for our milk).  One of the things he suggested was a new vacuum pump for the milking system.  The one we had was old and allowed way to much fluctuation on the vacuum levels.  Well, while he was there, one of the pumps died (we had a weird two oiled vacuum pump system).  This was not the first time that has happened, but it was the last.

We called Agri-Service in Hagerstown, MD and scheduled them to come out the next day and install a new one.

We had to use the tractor to pull the old one out, because it was so heavy.  It was actually two pumps with an oil reservoir.  That pump was taken out in two pieces.

And the oil reservoir ...

Then, they put in a shiny, new, OIL-LESS pump.  So nice not to have all of the oil all over the place.  The old pump made a mess of the whole corner it sat in because of the oil.  Also, the oilers would sometimes quit working from time to time and deafen you if you were too close for too long.  So, Danny would try to open up the oilers more, which would fill the room up with smoke.  Needless to say, we are THANKFUL for the new pump!

for some reason, Blogger won't upload the picture vertically...
but the pump is still pretty :)

Then, the technicians from Agri-Service tried to drill a hole out of the side wall to run the muffler pipe out.  Easy yes?  Well, yes it would have been if there wasn't 6 inches of concrete to drill through. :)

They didn't quite have the equipment to go through all of THAT, so they came back another day and finished installing the muffler correctly :)

Hooray for a new vacuum pump which means better care for our cows, and hopefully lower SCC!

Two May Calvers For Sale - SOLD!

Danny has decided to sell two of our May 2012 calvers. I do not have recent pictures of them (hopefully I can find some time here soon, but I do have some old pictures of the two cows for sale.)

They are both three-quartered cows. We don't have any issues with them, but they are due late in the window and they are milking out of three quarters, so we figured we will let them go. We are asking $1,000 a piece for them, because they are due in May (which is only a month away).

If you are interested in either cow, please contact us at amazinggracedairy@gmail.com or call
301-302-6133 and leave a message, because I do not answer numbers I do not recognize.

215 ~ $1,000 Due 5/13/2012

This picture was taken in April of last year right after she freshened.

Her best milk in a lactation to date was 15,633 lbs with an average butterfat of 3.3% and an average protien of 3.1% in 325 days. She is due on May 13, 2012 to an AI breeding to a lineback bull
Rocky-P Red.
(Please keep in mind that we are a seasonal grazing herd and our rolling herd average is 11,500 lbs)

703 ~ SOLD!!



This is an Angus/Jersey cross. She is very even tempered and easy to have around. We milked her as a dairy cow and she did
well for us, but she would make a fine addition to a beef herd as you can see, she keeps more flesh on her back than most dairy cows. This picture was taken in October of 2010.

On her last full lactation, 703 milked 10,659 lbs in 297 days with a 3.8% lactation average butterfat and 3.4% protien. Last year she freshened in May and milked 7,385 lbs in 252 days with an average lactation butterfat of 4.3% and protien averaging 3.2%. (we dried her off with the rest of the herd) (Please keep in mind that we are a grazing herd and our rolling herd average is 11,500 lbs)

She is due on May 23rd and bred to a Dutch Belt/Ayrshire Bull.

She is polled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I ALSO CURRENTLY have some bull semen available. I am sorting through my semen inventory and realizing I have quite a few bulls, which are nice bulls, but not the direction that we need to go in for our particular farm. They are available at the cost we paid for them, which seems to be a couple dollars cheaper than what they are available for this year. I am not personally able to break up a bull into smaller units because I did not keep my empty canisters. So, unless you have the extra canisters that you are willing to use - I will have to sell all of the units I have for one bull together.

Here they are:

FINISH AYRSHIRES (once sold by Genex-but as of this year they are no longer available)

Record 263AY2724 - 1 straw $11
Piuha 263AY1713 - 10 straws $11/straw
Orava 263AY1611 - 12 straws $12/straw
Priha 263AY1785 - 10 straws $10/straw
Passeli 263AY2516 - 14 straws $10/straw
Octav 263AY1610 - 5 straws $10/straw

UNITED KINGDOM AYSHIRES from Taurus

Wroughton Lord Winston 76AY753 - 8 straws $10/straw
Ardmore Crown Napier 76AY752 - 4 straws $15/straw

AMERICAN AYSHIRE

Maple-Dell Soldier 76AY716 - 4 straws $25/straw

NEW ZEALAND AYRSHIRES through Taurus from LIC

Nigel 190AY9 - 10 straws $20/straw

NORWEGIAN REDS through ABS (proofs in link are on second page)

Holund 252NR10285 - 4 straws $16/straw

AMERICAN LINEBACK from Taurus

Rocky-P Red 76LD551 - 3 straws $10/straw (POLLED)

If you want to have one of your sales guys come pick them up, I am fine with that, but I will need cash at pickup or a check mailed first to make sure it clears before they come.

I have dealt with
Josh Sanders from Taurus
Amos Horst from aAa (he has been here to pick up straws before)
Mark Fleck or Gary Fogel from Genex
and I can't remember the sales rep's name from ABS, but he is a very nice gentleman and has been here once or twice to drop off bull straws. Otherwise you will need to bring your tank to pick it up. We are not likely to be able to deliver unless you happen to be on our way somewhere.

Please email us if you have any questions and we will give you a phone number through e-mail once we verify you are a legitamate person who is serious about purchasing some straws and not some spam or scam.
Totally unrelated to cows, but not so unrelated to things being sold--
please check out my items for sale at:

http://www.amazinggracedairy.webstore.com/
http://www.amazinggracedairy.ecrater.com/

Blessings!

Down Cows

We have had to deal with several "down cows" lately.  It is not an overly joyful experience and generally we have one in for or five that never get back up.  This past week we have had two down cows.  Both cows decided to go down on slippery concrete during milking time.  The one that I have pictures of had to be drug off of the feeding pad before we could load her in the bucket of the tractor to take her to a place that she could hang out for a while without getting stepped on by the other cows.

 
Fortunately, the manure actually acted as a grease that made so that us dragging her off of the pad didn't scrape her up.  Unfortunately, the manure is what made so that we had to drag her off of the pad before we could pick her up, because it was too slippery for us to work in to get adequate footing for what we needed to do.

She managed to go down right after milking, so we couldn't clean off the concrete without moving her first.  You can
see the line where we dragged her off of the concrete. 

Next, we loaded her into the loader bucket on our tractor.  We HATE dragging cows anywhere, because they are much more likely to get injured--just the opposite of what we are trying to do.  Loading them onto the bucket looks awful, but besides being uncomfortable, but they aren't in pain and it allows us to move them to a clean place where we can take care of them and keep food in front of them.

Finally, we arrive at the destination.  Nice clean grass with sure footing so that she can have a better chance at getting up if she tries.  Also, it is a small paddock where the other cows can't swarm around her and eat her food and drink her wanter.

She is scowling at us, but in a much cleaner environment then the manure caked pad that she fell down on.

We got the vet out later that day, and he gave her some calcium and magnesium.  He said she should get up.

He was right!  Later that day she was standing up, and now she is back in with the milk cows!  Praise the Lord!