February 21, 2011 • 9:00 pm 3
On our dairy, we have a lot of little baby calves. My sisters love to play with them. They captured this little Jersey calf playing around. It’s pretty awesome! She jumps around, and lets out a little moo
Filed under: Dairy, Dairy Pets, Baby, Baby Cows, Brown, Calf, Cow, Jersey, Moo
February 11, 2011 • 5:00 pm 6
World Ag Expo 2011
**The World Ag Expo**
I attended the World Ag Expo this year in Tulare, California. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, the World Ag Expo is the largest agricultural exposition in the world. Every year, anyone selling anything to farmers and dairymen exhibit their product lines and anything new they have developed for the New Year. People come from all over the world to attend the event. I seen an interesting statistic that said over 100,000 people attend each day.
**Awesome Loader Tractor**
Our family attends every year. This is our chance to talk with vendors, and find new ideas that could help benefit our dairy operation. Its fun to see all the new technology that’s available been developed noting that technology has progressed pretty rapidly in the dairy industry.
My dad is not one to be left behind of technological changes or even new ideas. He makes it mandatory for us to discover a few new things, and figure out if they would be useful on our operation. So what was the most exciting new thing I found at the World Ag Expo this year?
The Robotic Milking System
One of the main challenges dairies around the world are facing today, is finding employees to milk the cows. Milking cows is a job that is very labor intensive. DeLaval has developed the first robotic milking system that can work in today’s modern milk barn. The system is completely automated using new technology to attach each milking unit to the cows. The system even cleans the cows prior to attaching the machine.
While many of my dairy friends think that robots will never replace humans in the milk barn, I know that robotic technology will get fast enough. This technology is very new so it will still require continuous improvement before it will be economical enough to replace people in the milk barn, but it’s pretty cool to see this new technology actually working.
**The Robots Milking Cows**
Filed under: Dairy, Tech, Robotic Milking, Technology, World Ag Expo
February 4, 2011 • 8:00 am 0
I spent some time this week taking some pictures with my Iphone of the dairy while working. Most of the pictures were taken right before sundown so they look pretty cool. These are real happy California cows au naturel just soaking in the rays of sunshine. Enjoy
**Amazing Picture**
**Hiding the sunset**
**These fine heifers were stalking me as I was taking pictures. They just love slobbering all over you**
**Enjoying their afternoon snack. Obviously they find it quite tasty**
**Wondering what is going on**
**They love the mid-day snack**
**Ace somehow got in the cow pictures**
**Rusty also somehow got in the cow pictures**
Filed under: Dairy, Pictures, au naturel, Happy California Cows, Real
February 1, 2011 • 8:00 am 0
**California Foothills**
Some people believe that California is the land of eternal sunshine. Unfortunately this isn’t always the case; the winter in California is unbelievably harsh. The temperature drops into the low 30s and sometimes even hits freezing point!
If you’ve been in the California valley during the winter, you know about the valley fog. During the winter months, it’s often cold and foggy. The fog is somewhat of a nuisance; it keeps the sun from drying things out, keeps the temperatures low, and makes driving very difficult. Weeks go by without the sun ever coming out; instead the drab cold fog just lingers around and hangs out.
**Driving is a Blast in the Fog!**
**The California Fog just Hanging Out in the Valley**
This past December it rained heavily here in California, and we got a lot of water noting it seemed like it rained every day. The snowpack in the mountains has also been great this year. Meteorologists have noted we are ahead of schedule for the amount of water, and snow we got this year. This is great news for farmers in the California valley. We depend on the snowpack in the mountains for water to irrigate crops in the summer. This past year many farmers didn’t get enough water for their crops, not only because there was less precipitation last year, but because of economic terrorism. Many farmers should be happy this year about the amount of rain and snow we’ve gotten this year.
The past January, we haven’t gotten much rain, but the fog has rolled in and has been hanging around. The fog is irritating so we were very happy to see some sunshine finally at the end of the month. I’ve taken a break from writing, but I think this sunshine motivated me to start writing again. I’m probably high on vitamin D right now. The sun is shining, and the almonds will soon be blossoming. Spring is right around the corner, and will be here before you know it. Personally, I can’t wait!
** View of our Farmland, Sunshine at Last!**
Filed under: Random, California, Cold, Fog, Rain, Snow, Spring, Sunshine, Tule Fog, Valley, Winter
Crazy Moos 