You know all of those projects you want to work on when spring comes? Well it is here and it is time to go. This year in particular is going to be extremely busy as we are going to be hosting the Wisconsin Holstein Association Summer Picnic on August 25th. So basically our whole Summer is going to be scheduled in reverse from that day. We can't wait for it to get here, but are not sure how we will get everything done either. When you invite a group of this size to your place there are so many variables including weather, how many are coming, what will be going on in general and of course what to serve. So we have a lot to think about.
The first thing we are doing is building new heifer housing. Currently we use a lot of places on our farm to raise our calves. Our goal is to streamline this process and have a nice place for those heifers to live where they can grow stress free and develop to their genetic potential. This requires a lot of planning and, of course, thinking about the future which is really hard because things change all the time. We want to have a place where are future herd stars can be on display and well cared for and easy viewed by guests on our farm. I have a vision now on what it should look like thanks to a trip my brother, Marty, and employee Craig Deans, took last week to Synergy Dairy in Pulaski, WI.
At Synergy, we were met by the owners Jay and Heather Jauquet and Heather's Dad Gary to show us their building. All I can say is they might be the cleanest, nicest group of calves I have seen in a long time. The animals are in bedding packs for a month or two and then they go to sand bedded freestalls and stay in the barn until about 4-5 months pregnant. The common theme perfectly conditioned heifers with an awesome amount of cage. They eat a diet with a lot of roughage it shows. Thanks for the insight to the team at Synergy! After leaving there my plan came into to view. I am working with Phil Ullmer from Fox Cities Builders to design and build our barn.
They other thing we have to work on is planning how to show our cows to the public while keeping our production schedule running. This will be discussed later.
Time to go work on growing some of our crops. Talk to ya soon!
