2012 Fair - Our youngest childs 1st Junior fair

Getting the animals settled before show day. (Spring Yearling)

Getting a pep talk from the experienced showperson (big sister)

Big brother here for support!

She showed this cow (Dry Cow) as a calf in Kiddie Showmanship...Here they are together again years later.

Showing something more her size.  She loves this March calf and started walking her when she was a week old.  Too bad the calf came down with a kidney infection.  The only animal she showed that did not bring her a blue ribbon.

More family support...the neice!  Possibly a future showman!!!

 

Mom and Dad...the bigest supporters of all!

Showing off the days ribbons!

Here is what it is all about...Daddy, Daughter time.  Nothing is more precious.

Changes...

It has taken me a while to sit and write this update. Due to Todd's continued health challenges, working off the farm and other economical trials, we decided to sell most of our herd June 5, 2012. This decision has affected us from the oldest to the youngest. While we knew at some point we would need to pass the milking on to the next generation, we never thought it would come before the next generation was able to take over.

A special thank you to all those who helped us during this time (especially Miller & Co. Auctions). We are truly blessed to have had so much input, help and understanding while all this chaos was going on.

We continue our love for dairy farming and have a few heifers, bulls and cows in our ownership. During this time we are focusing on them and our new division...Huacaya Alpacas! Alpacas are entirely different from cows, but have one main thing in common...you need to understand genetics. As with our Holsteins, we plan to focus our alpaca breeding program on QUALITY. With time, we hope to be able to show our alpacas with the same success we have had with our cows.

 

Below are the pictures of our newest farm members.  They currently have just the two lanes and some shelter.  Their new housing will consist of six lanes and a new lean-to style shelter.  We are learning more about these graceful, curious animals daily and I look forward to posting more about them soon.

Our first Alpacas...they are all boys.  Left to right:Machu Pichu, Journey, Kennedy

The boys next to the girls.  This is a temporary home for them.

Manitowoc County Culver's Futurity 2010

This year has been so hectic for us that we did not bring our usual numbers to our county fair.  We did, however, participate in the futurity show.

Our futurity show is for 3 year old cows that have hopefully calved for the second time.  For those of you who have never been involved in a dairy futurity we will be registering our babies, born this year, to show in three years time.  The thing that seemed the most different for me is that all the people leading the cows are dressed in formal wear.  At our farm, we usually sign up as many of our babies as possible, so that when they are 3 we have choices.  You are not required to send every animal that is signed up, however, you can not take a 3 year old that wasn't signed up as a baby and now looks great.

One nice thing is that we sold 2 cows to a young couple that are just starting out.  Since they are just starting out, they would normally not be able to show until they have babies that are registered and have grown for three years.  In this case, both cows we sold them were entered in our county as babies and will be eligible to show for them next year.

My sister-in-law, Brenda, is just starting her third trimester so we were all a little concerned about her leading a cow, but as usual, she did a GREAT job!  Our cow, Cava-Lanes Durham Mary stood third this year in a group of 26.  Below are a couple of pictures from our futurity and county fair.

Brenda leading Cava-Lanes Durham Mary

Luke with Cava-Lanes Durham Marika

Our youngest child with Cava-Lanes Pronto Shantel

Do you have friends and neighbors like this?

How do you ever repay the kindness shown to you? We have had a very stressful year (as most people did), yet many positive things also happened.

One of the stressful things that happened was one of my husband's favorite cows injured herself. The vet called the injury a "stifle". Most cows do not recover from this type of injury. She was on a flush cycle at the time and the vet said all we could do was keep her comfortable, continue with the flush and see how she feels. After a couple of weeks, her leg did not seem worse so we continued keeping her on stall rest.

About a month after the flush we had the vet out to check her leg and give her an all over physical. We routinely check the cows for pregnancy after a flush to make certain that no embryos mistakenly remained. The vet liked the way her hip and leg were moving but informed us that she was not only pregnant, but it was twins.

This gives us some extra problems. With a leg injury do you want her pregnant? Much less trying to carry twins? She needs a pen to herself, with winter coming, we wont have that kind of space available...now what?

As we discussed all of this with our vet, he assured me that the leg was coming along better than expected and if we could find her the right situation, he felt she had a good chance of maintaining her health and the babies.

Since it was still warm outside we had some time to find the right "situation". My husband gave it a lot of thought and came up with an interesting idea. Spicey didn't originate on our farm, she was purchased from a farm that was no longer going to milk Holsteins, but milk Jerseys. He called the farm and asked about their winter situation. They, of course, remembered Spicey's dam and said they would love to help.

Spicey's pen is made out of concrete and we used several bales of straw to make her a pack. The pack was very thick, which is why her leg was not as stressed and she seemed to be improving. The Jersey farm had an outbuilding with a dirt floor and straw pack. This would be even more ideal for her leg. We were very excited to take her there. I was a little nervous putting her on a trailer because there is a step to get in or out.

We got her there and she got out of the trailer very well. She walked over to the feed and checked it out before looking around at her new herd mates. I am pretty sure she was wondering why they all looked like solid color heifers to her. She is a very large Holstein and Jerseys are a smaller breed.

While watching her to make certain that she would settle in without any issues, the Jersey farm owner told us that they would be happy to keep her until after she calved. This is a huge responsibility for the farm. Twins are difficult for the cow and the farm, but we weren't sure when we would move her during her pregnancy since we wouldn't want to stress her or her legs.

Incredible that they would want to help us like this! For those of you that farm, you know how difficult it is to find enough space for your own animals, much less make room for someone elses' larger animal.

We were on their farm last week and Spicey is doing great! She has good body condition, barely limps (you really have to look for it and know which leg to watch) and seems really happy.

They said the only time she shows her injury (or age), is when it gets really cold outside. Being 10 and a grandma, she gets a little stiff when getting up at first.

We are so very lucky and blessed that this has all worked out so well. I will try to come back in the spring and let you know how she fares during the birthing process and if the twins survive.

These are not the only amazing friends and neighbors we have...

We had a ton of help from people during our recent classification and Dvorak Farms has been instrumental in keeping us going since we took over from my husband's father.

I would love to hear from other people who have GREAT friends and neighbors that have helped them. In closing, remember to thank GOD each day for the great things and people in our lives.

Classification

With both of our new jobs off the farm, my impending surgery and classification all in the same week; I wasn't sure how things were going to go.

Classification happens for us every 7 months. Before we classify we clip, wash and primp our cows. On classification day, we get up very early (or stay all night) to do finishing touches. Even though the cows were washed, tails are done separately. As you can imagine, the cows continue to produce manure which has to be cleaned before the classifier gets there.

Due to my new schedule, I was not able to get pictures of the cows getting clipped. I do, however, want to thank Anthony Fischer (Fischer Heights Dairy), Jim Neuser, Eric Haupt and Luke Lindsmeyer. These guys came in and clipped all the cows for us.

I did make it to the barn for the first part of washing. Each cow is rinsed with warm water, then we add a whitening soap, and a final rinse.

Yes, that is a pressure washer, that our good friend Jason Miller of Millercrest is using. We are very careful about how much pressure is used as well as how long the spray is allowed on each cow.

A HUGE Thank You to Jason for all his time and effort.

Again, I was so busy during all this that I didn't get any pictures of us doing tails. For their tails we get a bucket with warm soapy water and hold it up to them while soaking the tail. Then we wash away all the manure, rinse and comb them out. Imagine how many times we have to change the water in the pails!

Finally, the classifier arrives! This is important to us and our herd because it gives us an idea of how our cows are doing against other registered holsteins that are the same age. Our goal is to improve our herds BAA each time we score. This is not an easy goal to acheive. A "BAA" is Breeding Age Average. Each cow is looked at individually and scored based on her age, height, leg confirmation, udder capacity, udder placement, teat placement, and so on. There are 17 traits for the classifier to look at; broken into 5 scorecard breakdowns. If you look closely, she is holding a hand-held computer for her to enter the "breakdowns" into. The paper she is holding below the computer is the individual cow's registration paper. The registration paper will be stamped with the new score and date that the cow was scored.

As she scores each cow, she explains to us what she views as the cows strength and weakeness. The score is based on a 0 to 100 scale. In our herd we have 2 cows at 92; 2 at 91; and 3 at 90. I stopped there as these are our excellent scored cows. The breakdowns for these scores are just as important as the overall score.

Having a herd of young cows will make your herds BAA a bit lower than someone with an older herd of cows. Young cows will typically start out with a lower score as they don't have the maturity that the older cows have.

There are many facets to being classified. There are some exceptions to this, but, each cow starts classification with their first lactation. Usually they are between the age of 2 and 3 years old. The score they receive each time they are scored can go up OR down, based on how the individual cow has matured. At the time the cow becomes 5 years old, her score becomes permanent. This means her score can no longer go down, she can, however, earn more points IF she continues to improve with age.

Each classifier has their own views, but are screened regularly by the Holstein Association to ensure that they are all as uniform in their assesment of cows as possible. Each time we have classified (since Todd and I have taken over the farm), we have had a different classifier. Classifier's are sent by the Holstein Association and we do not get to choose the person we get. This ensures that each herd is viewed by quality individuals that have a wide range of experience, but that don't see the same cows every time. Again, this helps to acheive the Holstein Association's goal of uniformity.

All in all we had a good day (January 19th). We won't know for a while what our new BAA is, but we were very excited to be listed, for the second year in a row, in Holstein World's list of top 200 herds in the USA for our BAA.

County Fair 2009

This may be a bit late, but we are proud of our kids and how we did at Manitowoc County Fair.

My (middle) daughter is learning a lot in the beef project and this year joined a 4-H group to compliment her FFA group.

This year she took a heifer and a steer. The red one is her heifer, she took Reserve Champion Market Heifer and her steer (the black one) took second in his class.

We are VERY Proud of you Midget!

Our youngest daughter showed in the "kiddie showmanship" class for the second year.

We also had three cows in the "Culver's Manitowoc County Futurity". The problem is that I am usually holding the manure bucket so I didn't get any shots. Sorry, I know pictures exist, I just don't have them. Hope I have better luck getting them next year. :)

Government Money?!?

Hmmmm, as a dairy farmer I am loathe to accept help from the government. Many reasons for this, just take a look at the "Price Stabilization" proposal. What a mess, anyway...

A new program was just rolled out. Dairy Farm Management Team. In this program, there is room for 50 farmers in Wisconsin to enroll. If accepted you would be able to spend up to $2000.00 in grant money to learn to manage your farm better. There is a 10% fee the owner has to pay towards the expenses incurred by this project.

We, Cava-Lanes Holsteins, were extremely blessed to be selected as one of the 50 farms.

What does this mean for us? Well, for us it means we get to have a group of people that are normally involved in our farm, come together, and discuss (very candidly) our farms' strengths, weakness and how we can better strengthen our positives and create fewer vulnerabilities.

As a beginning farmer, this is extremely valuable to me. I have so much to learn and so little time to learn it.

We are extremely lucky to be in Manitowoc County, our extension agent is the best! We have only had our pre-meeting and first meeting so far, however, many things were discovered and I can't wait to see how this ends. We only get 3 meetings on the government, then the rest is up to us.


A Great Big THANK YOU to all who are involved in helping us make Cava-Lanes Holsteins a better busines!

When One Door Closes...Part 2

This is my update as I have not written in the last six months. I truly thought with my husband being laid-off that I would have more time, not less.

Well that has not been the case. I would like to start by THANKING all of you who sent me messages and I am sorry I was unable to respond.

Since my last post "When One Door Closes", my husband has been hospitalized twice (I seriously thought we were going to lose him this last time), my daughter had to have an outpatient procedure and I had my own procedure done.

If all that is not enough, my husband has still not found a job. I have started to apply off the farm, but don't have the earning potential he does.

On the bright side, my sister-in-law got married. She is now a part of Gildale Holsteins!


We are very proud of her and happy for both of them!

Thank you again to all who have kept us in their thoughts and prayers! I hope to send another post soon!

Just in case, have a Merry Chritsmas and a Happy New Year from Cava-Lanes Holsteins!

Stress, Stress and Heat Stress?

With all the stresses of dairy farming...milk price, feed price, illnesses, breeding, cleaning, labor, and inspections. There are many more, but I am certain you get my point. Now, there is heat stress.


You see, happy cows are comfortable, well fed cows. Happy cows are the ones that make milk (it's true and not just a commercial). So what is my problem? The heat index has been over 100 for the last two days. Since we raise Holsteins, most of my cows are black and white. The more black they have the hotter they are.


The problem is I can't afford an air conditioned barn, keeping the cows in just makes them hotter as they emit large amounts of heat, keeping them outside gives them the opportunity to catch a breeze and some shade. A breeze would be nice for them right? Well it would be, IF, they didn't bunch up like this...





There were 3 groups like this all on the concrete, giving each other a ton of heat, foaming at the mouth and panting like dogs.



This is a huge problem because as they are foaming and drooling they are becoming dehydrated. Milk is primarily water and if they become dehydrated it depletes the amount of milk they produce. We keep our water tanks full with "floats". As the cows drink the water the float refills the tank until the tank is full and then quits until the water is depleted below the float line again.


Most of our cows have been "shown" at some point in their life so they know all about water and getting washed. A couple of years ago when we had some sweltering weather, I decided to put a sprinkler on the wood part of the fence. Of course I attached it with twine...that and duct tape keep the farm running you know. :) After a few days the cows decided to pull the sprinkler from the wall and that was the end of that.


This year I decided that I would try to find a tripod system like the commercial landscapers use. Fleet Farm just happened to have 3 kinds to choose from. My fence is 5 feet high so I decided on the tripod that extends to 6 feet and "mists" up to 1900 feet. Here is a picture of my new "cow sprinkling" system.

The one thing I miss using this system as opposed to the cheap up and over sprinkler is that I can not stop the water from going 360 degrees. I would love to set it at 180 degrees and keep the water just going into the cow yard.


While my cows seem to enjoy the shower, my horses do not appreciate such things. Most of the time they don't even care for the fan I have in their shelter. The nice thing about my horses is that they do enjoy going to the wash rack, having a nice bath and munching on my lawn while they dry. It also helps that I only have 6 horses; not like trying to hose off an entire herd of cows.


I hope all of you have a GREAT summer and find creative ways to keep our creature friends cool and happy!

Cancer Affects Us All

These pictures are from the 2007 Wisconsin State Fair...both of my daughters are sitting with Miracle...the calf from "the first walk" picture.

In January of this year (2009), Miracle gave birth to a heifer calf. From the time she gave birth she just didn't seem right. She lost weight, she seemed depressed but kept a great disposition.

The veterinarian came out repeatedly for a couple of months, then over Labor Day Weekend, her brisket started to swell.

Swelling in the brisket is not a good sign but could be several different things. She was treated for hardware, a throat infection and indigestion. Eventually, the vet said she didn't have long to live.

We don't like to lose an animal and definitely to like them put down on the farm. We kept her for a few more days and the swelling started to present itself in her legs. My husband and I made the decision to take her to a farm that will use her meat to feed other animals (a mink/fox farm). They scheduled putting her down with when our vet could be there to do a necropsy. The necropsy found she had a very aggressive cancer.

We made the right decision to put her down and end her misery as there was no cure for her cancer. This cancer affected our entire family as we all loved her and miss her terribly.