Winter obstacles

Winter obstacles... not the fun ones... the ones that come from below freezing temperatures... it's that time of year for Alta Vista Farms!!

The amount of work on a farm may decrease some compared to planting and harvest seasons but when things start to become affected by the challenging temperatures the work picks up again... dramatically; leaving me little to know time to blog... oooopppsss!!!

Hhmm where do I start with our challenges on the farm this past week... let's see everyday for the past five days the negative wind chills have caused the manure in the barn to freeze not allowing the automatic manure scrapper to work properly. We have an automatic manure scrapper in the barn that runs every hour, moving at a very very slow pace pushing the manure into slats at the end of the barn and into a holding tank. This manure scrapper has a sensor on it that if a cow accidently falls or doesn't feel like moving the scrapper will shut down and stop moving so it doesn't harm the animal.... so when the manure freezes it is solid enough that it triggers the scrapper to stop moving and it is unable to keep scrapping before all the manure in the barn freezes. This causes a huge mess and we have to get the tractor in to scrape out the manure and then use hand manure scrappers to get the frozen manure away from the scrapper so it can start working again.




Frozen manure causing the manure scrapper
not to work properly.



It's getting there. The tractor is hard at work pushing manure into the pit to clear up the alley.

We love this automatic manure scrapper (it's about 5 years old now... whooo weee what a great investment) it is just another cow comfort practice we take on the farm. The less manure they have to walk through the cleaner they stay and the healthier their hooves are. With cows weighing an average of 1,600 pounds it is very important for their hooves to stay strong and healthy to live a longer, healthier and productive life.

Just another pit stop....We fixed the windows in the heifer barn before this winter in hopes it would help stop the waters from freezing. It worked for all the waterers except one. Go figure... there would be atleast one that has to freeze every night. I had weaned two calves off of milk and they don't drink as much water yet as the older heifers and that's what causes the water to freeze. So everyday, I have to carry two buckets of warm water to the heifer barn and break ice! Yup, I used my hand to break the ice and then clear the ice out... whooo buddy!! I couldn't feel my hand.

With frozen hands I then had to move back the neck bar in the stalls. This neck bar stops the cows from going to far into their stall and peeing and pooping in their stalls. With the weather being so fridgged the manure freezes on the stalls and makes it very uncomfortable for the cows to step up into the stalls and lay down. So with moving this bar back it keeps the cows from moving up too far and expelling waste in the stall they now expel it into the alley.

Have you ever tried working with tools and metal when its below zero? I don't advise you to start now I honestly couldn't move my fingers anymore they were so cold. My boyfriend on the other hand didn't seem to mind it but all he kept saying was we were getting closer to getting some Hot Chocolate!! Thanks for the positive reinforcement hun!!

My boyfriend, Ethan, hammering away (without gloves!!).



Tightening up the nuts to tighten down the neck bar... 

Fun stuff happened in this ice storm this morning. The ice caused five, that's right five, different power failures in the parlor today. The lights would flicker and the milkers would fall off the cows because somewhere the ice was messing with the electric lines causing power failures. It took us an extra 45 minutes to get milking done and an extra 15 minutes to feed calves and cows. The high moisture corn silo broke this morning as well unable to get corn out to feed the cows. We had to shovel corn out of the silo until we were able to get the right amount for the TMR. TMR stands for Total Mixed Ration. Which is a recipe for the cows. Ours consists of vitamins and minerals, soybeans, corn silage, high moisture corn and haylage. Corn silage is when we chop up the whole corn stalk and put it into a silo and feed the cows throughout the year. Haylage is chopped up hay that is put in a silo (on our farm anyways) and it ferments and is fed to the cows as well.

With temperatures warming up but the ground still frozen the rain/ice storm caused a big thick sheet of ice across the driveway and grass. My grandfather told me to get my ice skates ready because I was going to need them. Oh he was right because I couldn't take two steps without sliding and slipping all over trying not to spill milk all over. I walked back into the milk house and my grandfather says glad to see your still vertical! HAHA never heard that one before :)

Obstacles like these keep us farmer's on our toes and keeps things interesting around the farm. Like I have said before it doesn't matter what kind of weather is outside we are always working for our girls to keep the healthy and comfortable. I personally enjoy these unexpected obstacles and challenges that arise because there is never a day that goes by that was exactly like the last.


~The Barn Window