Cow Milking Experience

Last week I was talking with second grade students about dairy cows and how dairy farmers work to produce milk. My assistant in the picture is ,Frieda, the Arkansas Farm Bureau milking cow. Just as I was talking to them about how we have a nutritionist to help us formulate our cow's diet, the school food service director and her staff came to observe our lesson in milking the cow. It was a great opportunity to talk about why healthy food choices are important to kids and cows! How do you milk a cow?

I explained that on our dairy farm:

• First the cow's udder and teats are washed, then a milking machine is attached




• Milking machines apply vacuum which gently removes milk from the cow's udder
  
  



• It takes about five minutes to milk one cow. With milking machines, farmers can milk about 100 cows per hour
  
  



• Cows are milked two times a day

Everybody gets a milking experience!

You can find more information about dairy farming at http://www.dairyfarmingtoday.org/ or dairy nutritional information at http://www.midwestdairy.com/.

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

As I watched the machine wrap the alfalfa hay today for storage, I was thinking about the many different tasks that occur every day on our dairy farm. I am very thankful for all the modern machinery and equipment that helps us to feed our dairy cows, care for the land and produce a great dairy product!

Trust a Trust?

With instant knowledge of all subjects at our fingertips on the computer or cell phone, I feel overwhelmed at times with information overload. With so much information available, who can you trust to tell the truth about how food is produced in the United States? There are so called experts that call us family farmers by names like "Big Ag", "Industrial Farmers" or "Factory Farmers". Maybe these experts don't realize that 98% of all American farms are family farms or maybe it's easier to attack us because we are less than two percent of the population that produces food for the rest of the American population and the world.

The word "trust" in my old dictionary is defined as "assured reliance on another's integrity,veracity, justice, etc." When looking at information presented by any group of people that uses the word trust,ethical or humane in their title, I would ask you to look further into their mission statement and reason for being. This is especially important when making decisions that require a trip to the voting booth for legislative activity that will affect all Americans.

Farmers and ranchers love to share information and have conversations about how we work every day to provide food for all of our families. Here are some web sites you can trust to find out how family farmers and ranchers work ethically and humanely to provide safe affordable food:

--Dairy sites:

http://www.midwestdairy.com/

http://www.dairyfarmingtoday.com/

--Dairymoms like me in the Midwest:

http://www.jerseymama.blogspot.com

http://www.ourudderlydelightfullife.blogspot.com/

http://www.dairyair.typepad.com/

http://www.themagicfarmhouse.wordpress.com

http://www.topwindsdairy.blogspot.com/

http://www.dairyruminator.blogspot.com/

--Farm and Ranch blogs across America:

http://www.causematters.com/

Trust a farmer?

Mother's Day Gift

A Mother's Love

A mother's love is special

It's a present every day.

A gift that came from heaven

That God has sent our way.

Her job is never ending

She's there all day and night.

To be there for her children

And be their guiding light.

Her thoughts are with them always

Even if they are apart,

Her children have a special place,

Deep down inside her heart.

Mother's are a special gift-

A gift from up above

This world would seem so empty

Without a Mother's love.

-T. Entzminger

Happy Mother's Day !

Milking to the Music

What kind of music do the cows like? That was the question from one of the visiting University of Arkansas students a couple of weeks ago. We were standing in the milk parlor watching the cows being milked when the student spotted the radio suspended from the ceiling. I quickly responded,"Country, of course, and sometimes in Spanish!"

After laughing about the music, we did have serious discussion about how the cow's environment affects their production performance. In past studies about the affect of music on cows, it has been found that cows adjust to reasonable levels of continuous sound. Farmers and researchers have also agreed that continuous radio play with a variety of talk and music can actually have a calming effect and may stimulate the milk let down reflex.

Our dairy cows have always been exposed to music at low volume while they are being milked. Low volume is important because loud or alarming sounds can startle cows, causing erratic behavior. We make a point to use a calm gentle voice and keep the music at a pleasant level. No matter what kind of music is played in the barn while the cows are being milked, we are committed to our cow's health and well being everyday because that is how we provide you with safe,high quality milk and dairy products!

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

My Mother celebrated her 80th birthday just a month ago. She has always been an inspiration to me, an encourager when times are tough, and a true mentor to me through my lifetime.
I am thankful for the special relationship that we enjoy and the fact that we will be celebrating Mother's Day together.
Happy Mother's Day!

Flavored Milk Memory

One of my favorite memories about first grade was drinking chocolate milk after our afternoon recess. When my boys started school, I found out that afternoon milk was a thing of the past. I was shocked. Thankfully they could still have their choice of white or chocolate milk for lunch. That choice was important to me then and now because as a mother I know that not every day's school lunch would be eaten by my child or any child. Milk,flavored or white, always offers a great nutritional package. As things evolve, will flavored milk completely be removed from the school menu? I hope not and here are the reasons why:

• Studies show that children who drink flavored milk drink more milk overall,have better quality diets, do not have higher intakes of added sugar or fat, and are just as likely to be at a healthy weight compared to kids who do not consume flavored milk.



• Flavored milk contains the same 9 essential nutrients found in white milk.



• With school lunch budgets feeling the increasing stress of high food prices just as our family food budgets, it would be even more costly for schools to add the additional food it would take to replace the important nutrient package of flavored milk.
  

As in all decision making, we need to look at the sound science and research that support decision making about nutrition. You can find more factual information about flavored milk and a great blog post written by Midwest Dairy's registered dietician Caroly Hudson titled "Flavored Milk=Nutrition in Disguise" at http://www.midwestdairy.com/0p48b1be47/dairy-makes-sense/airy.com/Op48b1be47/dairy-makes-sense.