Milking
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The milking team consists of two groups of three milkers.
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We are currently milking just around 1450 cows.
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We milk three times a day and each shift is 12 hours.
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Our herd averages about 92 lbs/day.
Outside Crew
The outside team is responsible for cleaning and feeding each day. They also maintain all of our equipment and help with the cropping and manure spreading.
FEED
Our cows are fed once daily. We have a nutritionist that comes to our farm to make sure our cows are getting fed the right nutrients. There are different rations that are fed to different groups of cows based on age and what stage they are at in their lactation. We purchase all our grain and grow all our corn silage and haylage in the Upper Valley.
BEDDING
We bed our cows two times a week with sand. The sand provides our cows with maximum comfort. With technology that has been recently added to our farm, we are separating the sand from the manure and reusing it.
Calves
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We have a team devoted to the care and raising of our calves.
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On average, four calves are born a day on our farm.
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They are fed them 3 times a day with pasteurized whole milk from the dairy.
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The goal is for each calf to gain 2+ pounds each day and then they are weaned at 7 weeks.
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Once weaned, they are grouped into pens of 10 calves and they will stay with this group for 3 months.
