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.

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.