WI Farm Trip - Day 2 - The Milking of the Cows!

At the Barrett farm, the cows are milked twice a day, and it takes about 4 hours each time.  After our cave adventure, we headed over to the dairy part of the farm.  Outside was a group of calves, still being fed milk at mealtime (instead of grain/hay/etc when they are weaned).  We got there just as it was time for the calves to get their milk.  Mrs. Barrett (Chad's mom) was getting large buckets full of milk from the cows that were these calves mothers, and walking with them over to the calf area and dumping it into their bowls.  Can't get the IE out of me, as I was thinking about how the system to be improved to avoid the backbreaking labor and loss of milk due to spillage.  These are the calves that have been weaned from their moms but not yet off of milk.

Calf pens

Hungry little calf!  They were cute.

At one point this morning, one of the calves broke free from its rope, and escaped.  It didn't go far, still hanging around the calf area, but they had not yet caught it and put the rope back on.  So Dave & Emily thought they'd have a go of it - it's just a little calf right?  HA!  It would have none of it.  They finally reattached the rope when they brought out milk for the little one.

Off to watch the milking area.  I was not aware of the magnitude of the milking process...for some reason I thought it might be manual, and maybe we'd get a chance to do some milking.  Not so.  It's all machinery.

Here's Kate, using a teat disinfectant that goes on before the pumps do.  It stains everything, which is why she is wearing gloves and careful not to get it on her.  All the cows have green teats which looks a bit strange.

Cows with the milking machines attached to them.  Once the cows are empty, the pump automatically drops off and the usher that cow out and bring another one in.  Some cows are done separately, if they were sick (on meds) or are still giving milk to their calves, etc.  Milk from those cows does not go into the large sterilizing machine to sell milk to the public.

Now we're off to see where the cows are kept.

Pens for the adult cows.  So many! Check out those huge fans!

Intimidating large animals.

Zach and Sam petting a young calf - still nursing; they are kept near their moms until weaned

Counts, Ulricksons, Barretts, minus Jess the photog

Off to see some other workings of the farm.

Love this.

This is a manure pit.  It is HUGE.  It's visible size is deceptive.  Emily was telling us that it is very deep too - 20+ feet (?? can't remember).  She said they had a lot of fun when they poured the concrete but had not yet started putting manure in.  They took bikes, skateboards, etc into it.  Like a giant empty pool.  That now has manure.  They sell the manure for fertilizer, and do well with it.

Getting close to dinner time, so we loaded back into the car and drove the 100 yards back to the young Barrett house.  Before dinner we went for a swim in their above-ground pool.  It was a bit strange b/c the water was an odd greenish color due to the ph levels being at the max.  We still went for it. We had a yummy meal of spaghetti w/ meat sauce & garlic bread.  Zach spent the rest of the evening alternating between jumping on the trampoline (he LOVES this).  After the little kids went to bed, the rest of us stayed up watching tv, and playing games.  Anna taught us a fun word game that I will certainly use with my kids when they get older.  Tell a short 1-2 sentence story with 2 separate words, that when combined, make a compound word.  Ex: The neighborhood had a fire so terrible, they had to fly in firefighters = firefly.

Off to bed!  Big day tomorrow at CIRCUS WORLD!