...and the winner is...Maddie Moo!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EACH AND EVERY PERSON WHO TOOK TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY AND WENT TO THE PROUD TO DAIRY SITE AND VOTED FOR MY PHOTO!

AND EXTRA SPECIAL GREAT BIG GIANT THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR SPONSORING AND RUNNING THIS PHOTO CONTEST:

TABITHA CROMER 

Marketing Communications Manager

at Innovacyn, Inc. (the makers of Vetericyn)

ALAN LEAVITT 

Publisher 

Progressive Dairyman magazine

WALT COOLEY 

Editor  

Progressive Dairyman magazine

and 

EMILY CALDWELL

Web editor

Progressive Publishing

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PROUD TO DAIRYby Progressive Dairyman

THE CHALLENGE

Show us your pride:  Participate in the June Dairy month photo contest!

Do you have a Proud to Dairy hat? Snap a photo of yourself wearing it and upload it to Proud to Dairy for a chance to win prizes from the makers of Vetericyn Wound Spray: http://proudtodairy.ning.com/profiles/blogs/show-us-your-pride-participate-in-the-june-dairy-month-photo. Don't have a hat yet? Earn one by posting a blog or video and tell us why you're Proud to Dairy!

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So I made a blog post AND I posted a video.  They sent me TWO hats!  I put my hair up in a bun, headed out to do chores, stuck my Proud To Dairy hat on my head, and Mom snapped DOZENS of photos with her cell phone.  Eventually we got some good ones. 

Do I look PROUD TO DAIRY, or what?

Photo contest winner:  ME!!!

Tell her what we have for her, Johnny!

  TWO of these

and one of these!

These prizes have a combined value of  $120 (or more, depending on where you buy them)!!!

I had my choice of three products.  The third option was Umbilical, Navel & Udder gel.  I figured with as many flies as there are, I had better get two of the pink eye spray.  Darn those flies!  I will NOT let them get the best of MY girls!  As soon as these come in the mail, I'm going to be heavily armed!  I've already used Vetericyn wound spray and liked it a lot.  That's why I was extra excited about this contest.  I wanted some more Vetericyn products for my supply box!  They are GOOD stuff!

Thanks again to all the individuals who made this contest and these prizes and my WIN possible! 

Thank you!  Thank you!  THANK you!

 

PART 1 By Special Request: ROAD TRIP!

I feel like I'm moving out when we pack up for a trip to a show.  For a state level competition, our school dairy team will travel with anywhere from 30 to 40+ show animals.  It takes a lot of supplies to care for that many animals.  We take at least two two-day, one three-day, one four-day, and one five-day trip each year.

Some of the many items we have to take include multiples of:
Sealed barrels and buckets with measured feed...plus a little extra, just in case.
Hay
Water barrel
Show halter for each animal
Rope halter on each animal
Automatic waterers for cows and bred heifers
Straw for bedding
Pitch fork (sifting poop from bedding)
Flat blade shovel (scooping poop)
Clipping chute
Body clippers/blades/oil/extension cords
Head clippers/blades/oil/extension cords
Top line clippers/blades/charger
Shampoo
Water hose
Towels
Scrub brushes
Top line brush/powder/special hair products/dryer
Body brush
Paper towels
Fight-Bac (anti-bacterial spray for milking cow's udder)
Feed pan for each animal
Gallon can to measure out feed for each animal
Camp chair (which you shouldn't get to sit in very often because you should usually be busy doing something)
Divider panels to put on both ends of the big heifer/cow section to keep the bedding and the animals from drifting to either side.
Wheel barrow (to carry the poop)
Flat bed wagon to deliver hay down the aisle
Giant fans on brackets to keep the milk cows cooler (too hot means they don't want to eat or produce milk)

I know that I'm forgetting something.  That's why we keep a lot of our supplies in specific boxes, so we don't have to gather as many things together each time we load. If you DO forget something, there are always vendors like SULLIVAN'S who can sell you your missing necessity.

Don't get me started on what all I have to pack for myself!  Just imagine packing for a five-day trip in preparation for freezing cold, rain, and heat...PLUS preparation for getting soaked while washing at least three of those days.

We use several trailers.  The big aluminum trailer's gooseneck has supplies strategically crammed full.  That trailer usually has the front section full of young heifers.  The back two sections are full of older heifers.  Production milk cows live at dairies, so they will come in other trailers and at other times.
The smaller steel trailer is crammed full of supplies.
Normally, one trailer and one set of workers is dropped off early in the day for initial set up:  install dividers and fans, bust straw, make beds, install waterers, unload supplies, set out hay.
Then we also use private trailers to bring animals.

When you load an animal, it must first have a rope halter put on its head.  This halter adjusts like a slip knot to fit to the size of the animal's head.  You always walk on the left side of the animal.  A section of rope hangs from the halter that you use as a lead.

Animals are loaded one by one according to size and condition.  We basically load from smallest to biggest.  Each animal is securely tied in a slipknot fashion to a post in the left side of the trailer.  They are tied closely together.  This causes their rear ends to slant to the right side of the trailer.  We put the ittie bitties in the very front to keep them safe from bigger heifers.  Dry cows and large bred heifers go in last.  Milking cows are in a different trailer and are also arranged from smallest to largest.

Some animals step up into the trailer easily.  Others, you have to get up in the trailer yourself first and pull.  Some walk to the edge of the trailer and won't step up.  You have to pull and have someone else give them a little goose around their tail area.  That gets them moving!

So imagine loading all of this stuff.  Then unloading and setting it all up properly.  Then at the end of the show, loading it all up again, and finally, when you get home, unloading it all...AND cleaning out all the poop from the trailers that had animals in them!

PART 2 By special request: WASHING!

When you show your animals, of course you want to present them in the very best condition for judging.  This means they must be clean and clipped.

Washing a dairy heifer or cow is quite a chore.  They must be clean everywhere...and I mean EVERYWHERE.

Because they are outside animals, they have dirt from head to toe.  They also have manure pretty much all over them in one form or another:  fresh and mooshy, dried balls or clumps, or ground up manure dust.

Items I use for washing include:
water hose
garden hose sprayer nozzle
household scrub brushes (nylon bristles)
soap
bath towels

If using stock show facilities, there will be a "wash rack".  That is a place with rails to tie your animal's halter and water hydrants to hook up to.  If you are doing this at home, you will need someplace close to a water hydrant where the animal can be tied.

You don't need a super long hose.  The more you have, the more it will get stepped on and tangled.
Before you begin scrubbing, take a good while to soak the animal completely.  This will loosen the dirt.  The more they are soaked, the faster they will come clean.

Everyone has their opinion on soap.  Some people use dishwashing soap like Dawn.  Some people use shampoo like Suave.  I like the expensive stuff:  Orvus.  It comes in a giant jar like jumbo mayonnaise.  It is a semi-solid at room temperature.  As you rub it into their hair, it melts, and it's like the dirt just runs out.  I love it.  I wish they could be wash-rack clean every day. You use the scrub brushes to get them clean right down to their hide.  Their hair is going to be clipped really short, so we want them squeaky clean.  Don't get carried away on the backbone (top line) because we don't want any hair loss up there. (I'll get to that soon in the "Clipping" article.)

Scrub the body/torso (from the neck to the pins).  Also wash the belly and the udder and teats.

Scrub the head:  down the face, outside the ears, under the jaw, behind the top of head (poll).  Just don't get water in the ears (cover them with your hand/bend them closed one at a time).   Be nice and wipe water away from the eyes.  

Scrub the neck and chest-type area (brisket).
Scrub the rear end (pins, tail head, flank, vagina, anus, top/sides/underneath the tail).  Dissolve, scrub, pull-off and/or clip off any manure that hangs on to tiny hairs.

Scrub the legs.
Scrub the "armpits".
Scrub the hooves...tops, fronts, sides, backs, in between, and even underneath if you can get to it.
Their hooves can be black or white, solid colored, striped, or blocks of color.  Each hoof can be different on the same animal.  

Use a damp rag inside the ears...all the way in as far as you can reach with the cloth stretched over your fingers.  Scrub scrub scrub, and dig for potatoes!  Some shy away, but most like it.  (You should also clean the ears again with a clean damp rag about half an hour before you show.)

I feel bad for my girls having to be bathed in cold hydrant water, so I always towel them dry.  If it is very cold, I try to borrow a warm blower to dry most of their bodies...except the top lines.  Heat will make the hair shed, and we don't want that.


 

Spring Break Highlights

Things I did over Spring Break:

*movie, dinner, sightseeing with friends

*lots of tv
*spent the day at a friend's house
*tons of computer
*had a friend over
*"Words with Friends" x a billion
*took a friend to feed
(Got her to touch a heifer...She was TERRIFIED!)
*posted entries on my blog
*ordered two new bales of hay
*cut off the hay net/wraps

*cleaned out the creeper (creep feeder) but we call it the creeper like the big weird monster off Scooby Doo
*got my galoshes stuck in the mud
*smelled worse than I ever have in my entire life (sour feed from clean-out)

*fed/watered landlord's animals and got the mail while she was finishing up OYE
*delivered a load of trees to my MawMaw and GrandDad
*beaned my mom in the head with a basketball-OOPS!
*celebrated Daddy's three weeks of no smoking!  WooHoo!!!!
*fell asleep snuggling with my parents
*facial
*deep conditioning hair treatment
*picked up sticks in the yard
*talked and texted
*all my regular farm chores
*exchanged some jeans for my daddy (all by myself)
*made plans to order Brown Swiss semen
*watched video of my first premium sale
*bought feed

*bought some other feed
*unloaded in the rain
*moved 750 pounds of grain to storage containers a couple gallons at a time

*worked in the rain
*didn't have to run as much water because of the rain
*looked at Pinterest
*siliconed a split in the creeper hood
*set out rat bait in the barn
*spray foamed the holes and cracks in the barn...that we know about
*checked fence
*finished reading THE CAY
*read more of the Vampire Stalker
*watched more tv
*finished Vampire Stalker!  SO good!!!
*waited until time to do chores again!