Hands on Dairy Lab

One of my favorite things about being an Animal Science major is the Hands On Learning!  Of course we do our fair share of book studying too, but some things simply cannot be learned by reading a book.  Take for example, delivering a calf. 

In my Dairy Production class, each student is
required to sign up for two Calf Watches. 
This means, from 8:00 pm at night til 4:30 in the morning, two students will be solely in charge of keeping watch on the farm.

For me, this is no big deal.  Growing up, one of my absolute favorite jobs around the farm was to spend the night with dad doing calf watch.  We'd venture out to the barn at all hours of the night checking on first calf heifers, staying up all night with a weak newborn, and simply enjoying God's miracle of life.  I love baby calves!

However, to some kids, being in charge of assisting a 1200 pound cow give birth sounds like quite the daunting task.  So, this afternoon our class ventured out to the University's Dairy Farm to get a real life lesson on how this was going to go down.  Dr. Poock, one of the staff veterinarians was there to greet us and teach us everything we needed to know.  First things first of course.  Dairy farms often have a high level of biosecurity, ensuring healthy cows and a safe and nutritious milk supply.  We all came in our rubber boots and disinfected them before we stepped foot in any barns.  Now that we were clean and ready to go, our fist stop was the maternity barn.

The maternity barn is a quiet and welcoming place.  One side is lined with individual pens, fully equipped with water, hay, and comfy straw bedding.  Each cow has her private suite so to speak.  On the far end of the barn is a chute and ally to aid in calving should a difficulty arise.  And my personal favorite space in the barn is the newborn area.  Small pens, brimming with straw await the newborn calves.  Each pen has a dry-erase board attached to write the date and time of birth, the mother's ear tag number, whether it is a heifer (a girl) or a bull (a boy), and any special comments about the calf.  Dr. Poock had now covered the necessary steps and guidelines to calf watch and familiarized us with all facilities and equipment.  Needless to say, we are all pretty excited for when our night arrives!

After we all felt confident in the maternity barn, we moved on to the dry stall barns and out to the pastures of expecting cows.  We made our round through all of the cows just as we will when we are on calf watch.  Every two hours that is.  So needless to say, our night will be quite busy keeping on eye on all the soon to be mommas!  

We are now well-educated dairy production students!  Calf watch for this girl starts September 25.  I will be sure to report back on the excitements of this all night endeavor.  Details await :)