Sunday, June 5, 2011

Dairy Tools of the Trade



Keeping up with information about our dairy cows is an important part of our dairy farming operation to insure healthy dairy cows and quality milk. One of our best tools for managing our herd information is through Mid-South Dairy Herd Improvement Association. This association is a complete professional testing,management and reporting system for dairy farmers.






Once a month, Greg, our Mid-south Dairy Herd Improvement technician, will come to the dairy farm to collect milk samples from each dairy cow during the morning milking. Each sample will give us information about the individual cow's milk production and qualities of the milk that include butterfat,protein, and somatic cell counts. Before Greg comes to the farm for this testing, I will have recorded all herd health information, breeding and calving records into the computer system. After each cow is sampled, Greg will enter the milk weight information on our computer system , transmit all of our records to the Mid-South office in Springfield,Missouri and send the milk samples to the lab for analysis. A few days after the test day, we will receive paper copies of the test information and be able to download the test information to our computer system.






Managing our dairy herd with information that we obtain from tools like our dairy herd improvement records assists us every day in making sure that our healthy herd is producing quality milk.

June Dairy Month--it's all about healthy cows,quality milk, and the dairy farm families that work everyday to produce a great product!

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