Testing 1…2…3…

The past week was full of tests! I’ll break it down by subject matter…

Engineering Tests…

As previously mentioned, I spent April 13^th and 14^th in Topeka taking the Structural Engineering exam to hopefully get my PE license. It’s a beast. I took it last October and did not pass. I think it went better this time, but I’m not sure if it went better enough. It is a national exam that states use for licensure, so the scores are curved based on nationwide averages, and they calibrate the results to previous exams. In addition, the two afternoon sessions each include four multi-part written problems. I was told by the proctor that these are each scored by 3 professionals to limit the effects of personal bias on the scoring. With all that factored in, grading is a bit of a process. As a result, I won’t receive my results for a couple of months. I expect them in mid to late June.

Cattle Pregnancy Tests…

On Sunday, we drew blood from seven cows for pregnancy tests. Those results came on Tuesday. A couple of months ago we ran our first blood pregnancy tests, with pretty awesome results. This time was a little bit of a disappointment (especially by comparison) with only 4 out of 7 positive, but we’re happy to report confirmed pregnancies to Atwood, Colby, Sanchez and Alexander (for those of you who know and care about bulls). We’ll be testing a few more in another two or three weeks.

Cattle Production Tests…

Finally, on Wednesday we started DHIA testing. DHIA stands for Dairy Herd Improvement Association. Here’s how it works: a lady comes once a month (starting last Wednesday) to test each cow individually. She measures each cow’s total milk weight and takes a sample of their milk to send to a lab. The lab then sends us milk weight, component percentages, and somatic cell counts for each cow. They emailed us the results the next day (and sent a paper copy through snail-mail). We intentionally waited until after my SE exam because I was supposed to be spending my free time studying rather than playing with milk data. Monday after the test, David called to set it up, and she came on Wednesday – great service!

We’re really excited about the impact DHIA can make on our herd. We don’t have milk meters, so until now, our production information for each animal wasn’t much more than an educated guess. Knowing which cows are high and low for each of these traits will help us with breeding choices by identifying which production traits need improvement in each animal. It will also help us determine which cows are and are not profitable, and when it might be time to either cull an animal or possibly dry her up early. Basically, DHIA reports are a great management tool if you use them (as we intend to). These tests should help us have happier, healthier cows – something we’re always striving for!

Milk weight for number 18, the highest for this test day.

 

On Any Given Tuesday

Last Tuesday started like any other day. I was at work in Kansas City, and David and his dad were getting ready to plant oats and alfalfa. At lunch (around 11:30) I texted Dave about some college basketball recruiting or coaching speculation I had read.  An hour later, I texted him again. I assumed he was driving the tractor and didn’t think much of his non-response. By 1:30 I was getting worried. Something wasn’t right. I usually text him over my lunch break, so he’s usually paying enough attention to respond.

Finally, I asked “is everything ok?” The response was a quick “call me when you can.” My stomach dropped, and a million scenarios raced through my mind while I immediately dialed. Farming is dangerous and sometimes unpredictable, and even when careful, things go wrong. Of all the terrible things that crossed my mind, this wasn’t one of them.

“The 4430 caught fire in the Morton building.”

A twitter friend of ours recently lost an entire shed and it’s contents to a fire.  The photo he had tweeted immediately came to mind.  Much of our equipment is in that building (baler, chopper, combine, and grain truck).

We were lucky, though. David’s mom, Sandy, happened to drive by not too long after the fire started and saw the flames.  She stopped and called the guys who were in the field down the road. First, they tried to pull the burning tractor out of the building, but it was in park and hooked to the planter, so their efforts were in vain.  They broke a chain and the back window of the tractor they were pulling with.

Two complete strangers who had seen the dark smoke stopped to help.  After the majority of the cab had burnt up, David, his cousin Kevin, and the strangers were able to carry five gallon buckets of water and mostly extinguish the tractor.  When the fire department arrived, they sprayed the tractor and the roof of the building to make sure everything was cooled off.  After talking to the John Deere dealership, they figured out how to take the tractor out of park, unhooked it from the planter and pulled it out of the building in case it were to flare up again.

The 4430 and Morton building a few days after the fire.

The tractor, which we had bought at an auction less than two weeks earlier, was a total loss. So were the planter monitor and wiring that were in it. The Morton building sustained significant damage, but that was all. The building is standing, and the rest of the equipment in the building is fine.

Farming accidents are as unpredictable as they are dangerous.  The tractor and planter had been parked since Saturday; no amount of caution could have changed what happened. We’ll never know exactly how or why the cab caught fire.  No doubt it was some kind of electrical short.  Now, we count our blessings: no one was hurt, the damages were limited, and we have insurance.  We’re thankful to the friends and neighbors who have offered advice and assistance, and to the two strangers who helped put out the flames.

Later that afternoon, David’s dad finished planting oats.  Tomorrow David will order parts to repair the planter, so we can get our corn in the ground.  Morton is coming later this week to assess the damage to the building and determine necessary repairs.  Anything can happen on any given Tuesday on the farm.  Regardless, we move forward with optimism about what next Tuesday has in store.

Hope Springs Eternal

Happy Easter! I hope everyone has enjoyed time with family or friends. Today I’m reflecting on how blessed our lives are. Each and every day we get the opportunity to care for and experience God’s creation. He gave us our land, our animals and each other.  He challenges us, too, but I often remind myself that God won’t give us more than we can handle.

This morning one of our heifers delivered her first calf, and it was a heifer. Mom and baby are doing great. The rye we planted last fall is growing well and soon will be chopped and added to our cows’ ration. We currently have seed for oats, alfalfa and corn ready to be planted to also be used as feed for our cows later this year. There is a constant circle of life at the dairy. Spring is an exceptionally busy time with field work needing to be done in addition to all of the daily chores (milking, feeding, etc), but Easter is a great time to reflect on the blessing that all of this work really is.

This year, in addition to helping at the farm, I have been spending much of my time preparing for my SE (Structural Engineering) exam. If I pass, I will be a Professional Engineer, allowing me to seal construction documents in Kansas. The test has two portions, each 8 hours long (16 hrs total next Friday and Saturday). It covers a wide variety of material, and as you can imagine, requires quite a bit of studying. It’s been a long road, but the end is in sight.

We also closed on our house last week.  David has been living in this house for over seven years, and we’ve been living here together for almost two.  The house needs a lot of work, and until now we haven’t been able to do much of that for fear of losing our investment.  We’re a little overwhelmed by the size of the project, but we’re also excited to finally get started.

As we face the stress of planting season, my test, and now home ownership, it helps to reflect on our blessings and appreciate that great challenges come with great rewards. I leave you with a picture of the newest member of our herd and some of the lyrics from one of my favorite hymns that helps me remember that we can and will make it through whatever we may face.

Easter Heifer Calf

God sent His son, they called him Jesus

He came to love, heal, and forgive.

He lived and died to buy my pardon,

An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.

Because He lives, all fear is gone.

Because I know He holds the future,

And life is worth the living just because He lives…

Happy Easter!  He is Risen!

What’s For Dinner?

Timer on the right now controls the feeders.

A lot goes into what a cow eats. Nutrition is incredibly important to many aspects of the operation. Not only does it affect their overall health, it affects their milk production, the fat and protein (components) content of their milk, and even reproduction and behavior.

We feed our cows a TMR (total mixed ration) twice each and every day after milking. It includes alfalfa hay, corn, corn silage, and a commodity blend.  The blend includes distiller’s grain, soybean meal, minerals and many other ingredients determined by our nutritionist and feed man at Wildcat Feeds.

We also feed our cows grain in the barn while they milk. This actually isn’t an ideal practice, but some time ago they stopped feeding in the barn and had a lot of trouble getting the cows to come in to be milked, so we started again and will likely continue until we build a new milk barn without feeders.

We recently had noticed reduced milk production along with some cows reluctant to come in or move up in the barn, so David looked at the ration to see if that might be the issue. We had been running our feeders manually with switches, which led to varying amounts of grain going to each string (group) of cows depending on when someone remembered to turn the feeders on and off. The first step to correcting the ration was to install timers so each cow would hopefully receive the same amount of grain while in the barn.

After the timers were installed, Dave tested the output of the feeders and found that there were significant differences in output between different feeders. He adjusted the outputs and tweaked the time so that each cow would get the same (appropriate) amount of feed every milking, no matter the order they come into the barn.  Previously, the grain fed in the barn had been only ground corn.  Cows prefer a consistent feed, so he also started mixing it with some of the commodity blend.

The results have been exactly what we hoped for.  We’ve seen a jump in milk production, and the cows are eager to come in the barn. Many of them are actually coming to the gate to be milked at or before milking time.  We just completed these changes last week, and there is usually some adjustment period, so we are hoping production keeps improving over the next week or two.