What We Do

6/15/13

 It has been over a year now since we started our "Dairy-o" as the kids call it.  What a year!

We started out milking about 80 cows and are now up to almost 150.

We have an almost full-time employee named Juan who milks the cows for us 6 days a week - thank goodness for him!  Milking times are 4am and 4pm, and it usually takes until 6:30-7 to be done.  When Juan is off, Kyle has to milk.  The kids and I go at about 5-5:30am to help Kyle finish up, then in the afternoon we get Grandma or Nana to baby-sit and I help out.  I help Kyle get the barn ready, push cows up and clean.  He's not brave enough to let me try to actually put machines on... let's just say milking does not come naturally to me.  I'm trying and it's working - for now.

Kyle does all of the other work himself - feeding, cleaning, treating sick cows, breeding, getting supplies, etc.

The kids have made custom artwork for the dairy office to make it nice for Daddy :)

In January, we decided that it would be more cost efficient to raise our own calves (with a lot of coaxing from my Dad). We bought some calf hutches and dove in head first - having no clue what we were doing!  Raising calves is not as easy as it looks.  They get sick really easily and require a lot of time and TLC.  It is saving us some money though, I think!

We are up to around 30 calves in hutches at any given time.  They get milk twice a day, during each milking of the cows.  Kyle does it in the morning so we don't have to wake the kids up so early.  Every afternoon the kids and I go to the dairy to feed them and free Kyle up to do other jobs around the dairy.  The kids get a little impatient sometimes, but are for the most part pretty good helpers and good sports.  

Colby's job is to empty and refill all of the water buckets

 Maci "helps" by raking the straw and debris up to keep the area clean.

 The cows help by eating and giving us nice babies and then lots of milk to feed the babies!

 This one was a little premature, isn't she cute?

 We also empty all the left-over grain from the buckets and refill them with fresh.

 Hard at work!

 Then we gather up the bottles that were given earlier with water and electrolytes for the calves that are under the weather so we can clean them and fill them with milk!

 We get milk fresh from the line as the cows are being milked so it's the perfect temperature for the calves.

This is our milk tank...

 Filling all the bottles...

 Then load them up in the wagon!

 Colby very often gets distracted by the neighbor boys - Malachi and Nathaniel.  It's a good distraction for him mostly.  Keeps him happy when work gets a little long.

 Maci likes to help push the cart - it gets heavy with all of that milk.

 Drink it up babies!

 We only have to hand feed the brand new ones who haven't learned how to drink from the holder yet.

 Maci helps to gather the empty bottles and put them back in the cart.

 Kyle usually stops by for a little while to check on how the calves are doing while they eat.

Then we have to head back into the hot barn to wash the bottles.

Washing takes a while because we have to be really thorough to make sure the bottles are clean and won't grow any germs that will get the calves sick.

 "Colby, we're all done!  Let's head home."

Go home, eat, sleep, repeat!