Hell, no, we won’t go!

/ dairymilkmaid / 2 Comments

The cows have been known to take industrial action before but yesterday, they took it to a whole new level. This is what started it all:

Cows make their presence felt

"Get a mooove on and let us have our crop, NOW!"

With the onset of summer, we’ve had to give each paddock a longer rest between grazings, which means less grass for the cows. We make up for it with extra grain, hay, silage and crop. This means our arrival signals food and they watch us like hawks. My big mistake was to shift the tape in the crop paddock in full view of the herd.

They were a fairly disgruntled bunch – it was their third day in the paddock and even though they’d just stuffed themselves with five rolls of silage and vetch hay, they wanted out.

We dutifully finished setting up their dessert settings and returned to the “main dining room” to escort them to the crop. Sounds ideal? Well, not quite. The gate out of their paddock was in the opposite direction of the crop, so they effectively had to walk 75 metres and do a U-turn.

At first, they simply refused to move, pretending they didn’t understand what we meant by our standard “C’mon girls” call. So we upped the tempo a little by Unleashing the Zoe and tooting the horn but they just milled around us.

In desperation, I asked Zoe to hop aboard the Bobcat for safety and started a concerted campaign of whizzing backwards and forwards accompanied by furious tooting. It was like trying to push back the tide. I moved one end of the herd, the other half swelled back towards the crop.

Knowing that Wayne was in the adjacent garden building Zoe’s cubby, I figured he’d come to assist soon. He didn’t. “WTF is he doing?”

It took 15 minutes of encouragement to get them the 75 metres to the gate and about three minutes for them all to make it to the crop from there. “Oh, that’s what the humans meant!”

So where was Wayne? In the house, sharing chocolate biscuits and coffee with the neighbours while we unwittingly entertained them in the paddock. Apparently it was very funny.

Why some farmers bite

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This might be the Australian Year of the Farmer but, sadly, it hasn’t stopped some rather nasty exchanges on Facebook between farmers and some others claiming to champion the causes of animal welfare and the environment.

Deeply personal vitriol: “You are a disgusting farmers wife!” gets mixed with more gentle: “i agree Lucy, although i dont eat meat i appreciate ethical and moral farming practice re: meat, but live export will be abolished”.

If you were in a room with someone screaming obscenities at you, it would be hard to concentrate on having a sensible conversation with the person discussing live exports and online it’s the same with one big difference – we tend to try to defend ourselves and end up in a virtual shouting match that we wouldn’t entertain face-to-face.

I get it – of course I feel the outrage that comes with being labelled unfairly by strangers.

But the vitriolic types deserve the same treatment in cyberspace as they would anywhere else, in my opinion. Once, I would have leapt in to defend myself. These days, I just let them go and have a proper conversation with the quieter people who actually want to talk to me.

My brand new shiny thing is being licked all over!

/ dairymilkmaid / 6 Comments

Oooh. Look what I’ve bought.

BIG calf feeder

It's a monster!

I have been coveting one of these 1000kg capacity grain feeders for a couple of years now. Normally, we have to lug a tonne of calf pellets into troughs by hand every week. That’s a lot of 20kg bags and a lot of aching muscles.

The stars came into alignment this month though, when our store had a special on the 1000kg capacity monster and the stockfeed company announced they would supply us with calf feed in one-tonne bulk bags that we can handle with the tractor’s front end loader.

Calf food in a bulk bag

A week's dinner for our calves includes pasta

The feed is a mixture of grains that have a combined 18% protein content to help the calves grow big and strong and even includes pasta. The calves have wasted no time getting into their new dinners served up in my shiny new toy. Oh man, oh man, oh man!

Find out why these cows are soooo excited

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Do you know why these cows are so excited? Surprisingly, it’s not my cinematography skills (apologies) but the prospect of a wonderful meal of luscious green rape.

We planted the rape crop on November 19 to provide some quick, high energy, high protein food for the cows during summer. It was done at low cost and with the intention of grazing it off as soon as the caterpillars launched an attack because I don’t have the stomach for chemical warfare on farm.

With clouds of white butterflies hovering over the crop, I decided today was the day. We sectioned off a small part of the crop with a temporary electric fence and let the cows in for a belated Christmas feast. Really, it was more of an appetizer because you have to make sure cows don’t gorge themselves on brassicas to prevent the dreadful kale anemia.

Cows grazing forage rape

Delicioso!

Accursed trough crashes through again but the kids triumph

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A wisecrack of a boss once told me that photocopiers can sense human stress levels and know exactly when to break down. So it is with troughs.

Alex was beginning to squirm with annoyance in the carrier on my chest and it was past Zoe’s dinner time as we headed home after setting up paddocks in the late evening sun. Then, a minor catastrophe.

A laneway trough with water gushing over the edge couldn’t be left until the morning and this was no simple task of adjusting the float, which is usually the case with this infamous trough. It was properly busted.

Trouble at the trough

This trough is always causing trouble Pic credit: Zoe

A little brass pin that holds the float arm in the valve had failed. Now the big question: can you fix a water trough with a baby in a front carrier without unintentionally baptising the poor little fellow? Sorry Alex. No, you can’t.

The only thing for it was to take him off, put him down in the paddock and see whether Zoe’s charms could keep him entertained while a much more slimline me could do a bushies’ repair.

Zoe entertains Alex Spanish style

Zoe entertains Alex Spanish style

A couple of minutes later, here was the rather rustic repair:

Bushy's trough repair

Bushy's trough repair - not proud of it but it works!

And the end result? Alex squealing with delight at Zoe’s matador antics and dinner delayed by just 10 minutes! Now, if only I could work out what that trough has against me…

And the fattest is…

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Well, I think it’s time bakers started labelling different bread varieties “full fat”, “reduced fat” and “skinny” because this pumpkin five-grain bread pictured in my last post weighed in at 5.6% fat and the full cream milk is just 3.3%. The multigrain loaf in our freezer is 2.8%.

If bakers have any sense, they won’t though. I mean, who would want to try marketing a product in terms of something as hideous as fat and create the impression that it’s the food’s defining attribute? Apparently, only we dairy people do. I don’t understand why all whole milk isn’t labelled as 96% fat-free. As a remarkable source of vitamins, calcium and protein, that’s pretty impressive.

We’ve also hashed up the image of dairy with our terminology: why “permeate” for milk’s vitamins and minerals or “anhydrous milk fat” for ghee?

Why Australians become vegans and why it matters to this farmer

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According to 2010 Newspoll research sponsored by Voiceless, only 1% of Australians call themselves vegans, with vegetarians accounting for another 5%, but the reasons why people consider veganism reveal some very interesting things about our attitudes towards food.

Overall, 56% of Australians say there are one or more things that would encourage them to become vegan. These are:
• evidence that many farming practices cause stress and pain for millions of animals every year (36%)
• evidence they can be healthy on a vegan diet (35%)
• evidence that being vegan is better for the environment (31%)
• more vegan menu items in cafes or restaurants (25%)
• being vegan costing less than their current lifestyle (23%)
• family or friends that are vegan (20%)
• more vegans in general (17%)

The research also found that “47% of Australians think making cows pregnant every year and taking their calves from them to obtain milk is unacceptable”.

Veganism is the canary of the disconnect between farmers and other Australians. Those who choose to avoid eating the food we produce on the grounds of morality are telling us we are falling short. Some will have made their minds up but most Australians are quite receptive to the true story.

The good news is I don’t think there is a large gap between mainstream dairying practices and what most Australians perceive as “ethical” farming. I do think we can bridge it if we find a way to work with others who share our passion for animals. We must also learn to talk about it with confidence and pride.

Charlie Arnot of the US Center for Food Integrity wrote an excellent post on just this topic today, which includes this comment:

For far too long, many in this discussion have resorted to attacking those who don’t share their beliefs – an “us vs. them” mentality that limits the opportunity for meaningful discussion about complex food issues. This polarizing debate is unfortunate and unproductive. What would be far more beneficial is an informed discussion of food system issues that will allow us to meet the growing global demand for food, while decreasing our impact on the environment and assuring responsible farming.

Just as a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods is a sound strategy for good nutrition, a balanced discussion of the complex issues related to food is a sound strategy for making good decisions on food policy.

I learned a great deal from agricultural leaders in Australia and I look forward to learning more. The open exchange of ideas makes everyone better. I pledge to use that same approach to other issues in the coming year. The next time someone raises a concern about today’s food system I’m going to welcome the question, encourage a discussion and learn more about the issue. I’m going to reject the appeal of culinary colonialism and work to assure we all have the opportunity to make informed choices about our food.

Hear, hear, Charlie!

Parched pastures and potassium

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Red clover

Gorgeous feed like this can be more water use efficient with potassium

Despite the last few days of searing heat, we still have some nice pasture on hand. It won’t last forever but I am hoping that we can make the spring pastures stretch longer into summer with some judicious fertiliser choices.

I’ve bitten the bullet this year and invested in soil testing for each and every paddock on the farm. It’s shown that our fertiliser regime is working but we still have a way to go in some cases. The main issues we must address are potassium and pH.

Potassium (K) allows plants to use water more efficiently, making them more resilient to both waterlogging and drought. Some of our paddocks only have half the potassium levels they should, especially the rises that dry off first, so I’m hoping that regular applications of potash will allow us to make much better use of those paddocks.

Unfortunately, potassium is readily leached from the soil, so even my extra doses (70kg of MOP behind the cows throughout autumn/winter/spring) simply maintained rather than make a significant improvement in K levels last year.

For a neat technical explanation of the role of potassium in agriculture, see this: Potassium in Agriculture.

Milk from the farm to the table

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Ever wanted to know what happens to milk between the farm and your glass? This lightly edited story from the Gippsland Murray Goulburn newsletter explains it all really well.

Separation and standardisation
Separation of animal milk, be it goat, sheep or cow is a naturally occurring phenomenon, which has been observed and tinkered with by man for many centuries. Indeed, as recently as the mid-1900s, milk was separated on farm and consigned as cream in cans to the dairy processor, with the whey by-product being fed to the farm’s pigs (MMM note: We had cream cans until the early 1960s when power finally arrived here and a refrigerated vat took their place).

These days, separation of cream from skim milk is done via multi-level centrifugal force separators in a process refined in 1879…Cream, which is lighter than milk, is driven by centrifugal force (MMM note: the same “spinning” force that pushes water out of clothes during the spin cycle of your washing machine) to the surface of the milk and flows off to a holding vessel. Standardisation of milk involves the adjustment of the fat content by addition of cream or skim milk as appropriate.

Pasteurisation
Along with correct cooling, pasteurisation is one of the most important processes in the treatment of milk. If carried out correctly, this process will supply milk with a longer shelf life. Simply, the process of pasteurisation is to heat milk to 70-75 degrees C but for only five to seven seconds, upon which most bacteria will be killed.

Ultra High Temperature (UHT)
Like pasteurisation, UHT treatment is heat treating milk for a given time at a given temperature…UHT takes the temperature to 135-140 degrees C but only for five to seven seconds. Importantly, the UHT process for milk is a continuous, aseptic (fully enclosed and sterile) treatment and packaging process. Shelf life of six months or more can be obtained if the milk is of the highest quality.

Homogenisation
Homogenisation is a process invented in 1899 to stabilise fat emulsion against gravity separation. Essentially, milk is forced through a small passage at great velocity, causing the fat globules to fracture into much smaller ones. The newly-created fat globules will stay free and more stable and be less likely to separate out. This process will also enhance whiteness, flavour and mouth-feel of the milk. The downside of homogenised milk is its restriction in other processes such as cheese making. Also, the product is more susceptible to light damage.

There’s a bit more to the article, including a discussion of ghee, milk powder, casein and yoghurt – topics for other days!