Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Taking care of the cows

Our cows appetites' seem to be growing with the cooler weather, and we've gotten to the point of diminishing returns on adding cottonseed hulls to their ration. So, we took out some of the hulls yesterday and added crabgrass baleage into the TMR. This move lowered the overall dry-matter % just a little, but that's offset by the added nutritional value and the fact that it literally gives the cows more to chew on.

Well, the trough was clean this morning when I gave them their breakfast, so it looks like we'll be adding back some of those hulls and increasing the overal amount of feed they're getting.

The cows also seemed to be up in milk yesterday afternoon and this morning. The milk truck runs today so we can get a pretty good idea on the herd average. We're also weighing milk tomorrow morning, which will of course allow us to measure individual production.

We take good care of our cows because they take good care of us. In exchange for a nutritious feed ration, clean water, and plenty of space to lay down and roam around, our cows crank out the high quality milk that lets us make our living on the farm.

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