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Hot Mamas

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

In northern California, our weather can be unpredictable at times. We've just gone from rainy and 55 degrees to sunny and 89 degrees in a matter of days. My body has a difficult time acclimating to such a dramatic change in temperature and I know the cows like to ease into the warm weather as well. We had some hot mamas on the ranch this weekend.

We're back down to foggy and 50 on Monday morning and to give these ladies some leisure time, they were turned out into the yard along the driveway leading up to our house.

School drop off can be a little tricky as we weave our way through the mamas that have clustered along the driveway.

Cows enjoy the cool weather. They also produce more milk when it's cool and are happier overall.

With access to all this tall green, lush grass, there's always a rebel or two that go for my mother-in-law's plants instead. Oh dear.

Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to leave a comment. I love to hear from you! Have a fantastic day
!

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Farmers Sharing Farmer Stories

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

A while back, we shared a post about a Utah farmer’s visit to the almond orchards of central California with farmer Brent Boersma of 4th Generation Farms. Trent Bown, a dairy farmer, and his wife Holly attended the World Ag Expo in Tulare, and used that trip out to the Golden State as an opportunity to experience some of California’s amazing agriculture sights and sounds. For each farm or ranch they visited, they produced a beautiful video, paired with a will-written post about it. The almond video was the first one.

Trent and Holly have since released two more videos of their California agriculture production. The second video featured Ray Prock, a Modesto-area dairyman, committed to good land and animal care so that the farm may continue to the next generation. Ray discusses how he began working on the farm as an adolescent, and the joy he has in seeing his son becoming more involved.

The most recent video that Trent and Holly have shared through the blog UsFarmGuys.com features Jeff Fowle, a cattle, sheep, and horse rancher at the extreme north end of California. Family values, tradition, and a strong bond with the animals and environmental all matter deeply to Jeff.

These videos all show distinctly different sides to California’s agriculture, but they all have a few things in common. Trent and Holly capture just how dedicated these three men are to good stewardship of the land, so that their families may continue the business. They show a deep passion for the trade they do, and a love of their work. It’s great to see such candid videos with scenes from the daily life of these three dedicated producers!

Thank you so much to Trent and Holly for working alongside California farmers and ranchers to share their stories. And thank you for your dedication to agriculture as a whole!

Trent can be contacted via his Facebook profile and his dairy’s fan page, Google+, and Twitter.

Tags: Brent Boersma, Cattle, cows, dairy, farm, hay, Holly Bown, Holly Christine, jeff fowle, ranch, Ray Prock, Sheep, Trent Bown, Utah, Video
Posted in #agnerd, Animals, CA dairy farm, California Farmers, Communities, Farm & Ranch Life, Livestock, Livestock Production, Raising Animals, Ranching, children, cows, dairy, ranch life | No Comments »

Where is all that milk coming from?

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012

In an interview this morning, I was presented with the following multiple choice question…
Of the following, where is the most milk produced?

New Zealand
United States
India
European Union

Give us your best guess by participating in the poll at the top left corner of this page. The poll will close on April 4th, and the answer will be revealed. To participate in this poll, please visit www.durrerce.blogspot.com.

This strictly refers to total milk production, not per cow production… No help from Google, please guess/answer on your own!

Posted in Cow, Milk Production, Uncategorized, cows, dairy | No Comments »

Is my milk safe?

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Cleanliness and safety is something that we think about before we even think about milking the cows. Cleanliness starts with the cow beds andalso by keeping our cows healthy . We wash our milk pipelines three times a day once between every milking shift, the milk tank is washed once a day after it has been emptied and the milk pumped out and onto the tanker truck. Food safety is something paid close attention to on a dairy farm here are few pictures showing what we do to produce healthy refreshing milk!

This tank cools the milk and stores it at a chilly 39 degrees. This is a brand new 5000 gallon milk tank we installed a few months ago.

Inside these stainless steel tubes the milk is filtered before ending up in the milk tank. Fresh new filters are installed before each milking shift.

This is a plate cooler that uses water to help cool the milk by nearly 20 degrees before the milk enters the milk tank.

This chart tracks the temperature of the milk and is changed every 48 hours. If you notice the two spikes in temperature they are when the tank is washed daily after the milk is pumped into the milk truck to be taken to the milk plant.

This sink is where the cleaning agents are m ixed with water to wash the pipelines the milk flows through. It is like a big dishwasher for pipes and is used after each milking shift.

the cows teats are dipped with an 1% iodine and lanolin solution to keep them soft and clean.

Although hard to see because it is a clear gold color this is a peroxide based teat sanitizer we use before the cow is milked. It also has lanolin in it to keep the teats soft..

The cleaning agents are automatically added to the wash sink for employee safety.

We even take safety as far as protecting our water supply from being contaminated with cleaning agents or milk.

The milking machines are washed in between every milking shift

Tags: california, dairy farm, environment, food, milk
Posted in California Farmers, Cow, Farm Safety, Livestock, cow picture, cows, dairy | No Comments »

Lazy Summer Morning

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011

Here is a cow picture for Wordless Wednesday.

A few of our cows enjoying the cool morning before a hot summer day here in Central California.

These cows were just moved into this pasture yesterday and are relaxing in the grass. With all the late rains we had here in the Central Valley and now the heat the grass is growing very quickly in the pasture. these cows need to get up and get to work eating it down!

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