Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

Farms and ranches provide habitat for many different kinds of wildlife. These Canadian Geese were enjoying time alone in the pasture while the dairy cows were being milked this morning. After all the stormy weather and tremendous amount of rain this week, I am thankful for the sunshine and the opportunity to enjoy the gifts of nature on our farm.

Hay Dates with the Dairy Farmer

Providing a balanced diet for our dairy cows assures that our cows will be healthy and provide good quality milk. Hay is one of the important ingredients in our cow's diet. We purchase alfalfa and orchard grass hay from a farmer in Missouri who is located about 45 miles from our farm.


On our return from visiting a friend at St. John's hospital in Joplin this afternoon, Ryan and I had a hay date to sample the hay that our hay farmer baled last week. Hay sampling will provide information about the quality and nutritional value of the hay. This hay is wrapped in plastic to help preserve the nutrients. Ryan used a hay probe to sample six different bales from each row of wrapped hay. My involvement on this hay date was to follow behind the farmer and cover the entry site of the probe with Gorilla tape. A farmer's wife will do anything to spend a little quality time with the farmer!


The six samples from each row will be mixed in a bag , labeled with information about the hay and mailed tomorrow to the lab for analysis. The hay analysis will contain a long list of information about hay nutrients such as the moisture content, the percentage of dry matter and protein. All of the results from this sample will provide important nutritional information for our dairy nutritionist to use in formulating a perfect diet for our dairy cows.


Hay dates with the dairy farmer provide good nutrition for our cows and quality milk for all consumers!

Flavored Milk:Nutrition in Disguise

Dairy farmers have been spending money on dairy nutrition research and product development for more than ninety years. I am proud of all the nutritious dairy products that we have developed for all consumers. Flavored milk is one of the products that has been developed to meet the need of children and adults who may not like unflavored milk but want the nutrition that it provides. I think this video produced by Midwest Dairy gives great information about flavored milk:http://youtu.be/XVf2R-q0ov0 .

You can also find alot of information about dairy farming and dairy nutrition at http://www.midwestdairy.com/. Sound science,research and dairy farmers stand behind our dairy products. We appreciate the support of all dairy consumers!

Dairymom's Thankful Thursday

Since celebrating Cody's graduation last week from Missouri State, I have felt a mixture of pride,excitement and thankfulness. I am very thankful for these two sons who represent the fourth generation to live and work on our family dairy farm.

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?