Work Experience: Dairy Farm

The two calves.

I found out that when twins of both sexes are born, the female calf's reproductive organs don't form properly. Therefore farmers don't want twins of both sexes. If the twins are two girls, the reproductive organs form normally in both.

Farmers call the female twin a "Free Martin". I was told that the farmers don't know why this happens and I haven't been able to find any information on this either. If anyone knows why the reproductive organs don't form properly please let me know. 

We were worming and  vaccinating 150 calves for black leg, in the barn, where there was a Free Martin. I was given the opportunity to examine the calf and see for myself the difference between a Free Martin and a properly formed female calf. 

This photo was taken about 10 minutes after the calves were born. 

Work Experience: Dairy Farm and Vet Practice

I've now finished exams and I don't know what to do with myself.

Half way through the exam period I experienced an existential crisis of sorts. I've been finding chemistry this year and hadn't fully expected the jump from GCSE to A-Level. This thought had me considering whether I will be able to get the grades to do veterinary. Therefore I sat down with my mum and discussed the options available to me if I don't do as well as I hope this year. We talked about looking into veterinary nursing, zoology and veterinary biology courses. As much as I wold like to become a vet, it is always sensible to have backup plans.

This summer I will be doing my Gold DofE residential in Blackpool Zoo. This will give me the opportunity to look into different jobs centered around animal care other than veterinary. I will be able to have hands on experience with the animals and ask as many questions as I possibly can. I hope to be writing a proper blog post about this, along with uploading pictures and information about the research that I will have to do while I'm there.

I went to the farm on Saturday after having not been for around 7 weeks. The highlight of my day had to be when we got stuck in the mud after moving 30 cows into a new field. Despite us not wanting to admit that we were stuck, we knew that we'd have to get the tractor to tow us out. We had cows surrounding the Land Rover so we ended up having to feed them in the wrong field, so that the tractor could get near us.

The Land Rover stuck in the mud

I also went to the vets on Friday since starting my exams. There was a cat admitted that had possibly drunk anti-freeze. There have been cases of quite a few cats being killed by anti-freeze. It looks similar to water and some people decide to put this down for cats to drink. I honestly don't understand why anyone would ever decide to do this. The anti-freeze causes the kidneys to fail. Symptoms are difficult to pick up on until it's too late. The cat was given fluids but the levels of protein were around 3 times the regular level which indicates that the kidneys were failing. 

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

Saturday was a busy and diverse day on the farm. 

We castrated and dehorned around 10 calves, as well as milking. However, the highlight was definitely seeing a calf being born. Instead of writing about the experience I thought I would upload the video that I took.


 https://www.dropbox.com/s/s0rhapk8r38fsg3/2014-03-08%2013.11.38.mov

To watch the whole video you may have to download it. Also up until 1:30 minutes the video is me and my friend talking and trying to find out what we could do to help.

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

One of the diary herd being nosey

I'm so sorry I haven't written a blog post in over a week, school has been hectic and I haven't been feeling very well. 

Last week, when I went to the farm, I had the chance to see some dehorning of the calves. Dehorning is done for safety and economic reasons. Horned animals can take up more space so require bigger barns or/and fields, they can cause injuries to other cattle and the farmers, special equipment is often required to look after horned cattle and often cattle can entangle their horns on fences and vegetation.

To some people dehorning is considered to be a form of cruelty, however I believe that it would be more cruel to allow the cattle to harm themselves and each other. 

Me and the calves

The calf is first placed into the crush. This, in itself, looks more dramatic than it is. The horn areas are then shaved and anesthetic is then injected into the calf's head. Following this a heater is pushed into the calf's head and the horn is removed. The heat is used to stop the growth of the horn, this is called cauterisation. Dehorning is done when the calf is around three to four weeks old as the horns haven't had chance to attach to the skull. 

Michael dehorning a calf

The area where the horn had been removed was then sprayed with antibacterial "blue" spray. This would prevent infection of the wound. 

Michael also decided to check the teats of the calves and remove any of the extra teats. The best positioned four teats were left and any extra were cut off. I was expecting this procedure to be quite bloody however, I was surprised to see that there was none. We sprayed the areas that had had the teats removed with "blue" spray to prevent infection. It was relatively difficult to hold the calves down, while checking their teats, as they wriggled and kicked out at us if we got too close. Therefore we had to be aware of here they're hooves were in relation to our heads.

Calves are very needy

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

Me on Saturday, before going to the farm

On the farm, in the winter, it can be quite difficult to keep warm. Therefore I’ve found myself wearing a ridiculous number of layers. I thought it would be interesting for you to see what I wear, so that you have an idea of what to expect when doing dairy farm experience in the winter.

My coffee

On Saturday I wore a pair of leggings, a pair of walking trousers and a pair of waterproof trousers. I also wore two old t-shirts, two hoodies, an oversized fleece and a waterproof coat. Wearing three pairs of thick socks helped to keep my feet toasty and a woolly hat kept my head warm. Normally at 9 o’clock in the morning a mug of hot coffee, with milk straight from the cow, helps to keep my hands warm.

My main advice is to wear old clothes, that you don’t mind getting covered in cow poo, iodine and cattle feed. In the first few weeks of going to the farm I made the mistake of wearing a relatively new hoodie and I’m still finding feed and straw in the pockets. Also I have come to the point where I don’t bother with how I look (considering that we all get covered) on a Saturday, but only about how warm and dry I’ll be. 

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

Today I've decided to write a different post compared to the other’s that I've written. Recently quite a few people (mainly Lucy Phillips – Hi!) have asked me what “dipping” is and why we do it, therefore I've decided to write this post.

The parlour

Premilking dip

After bringing in the cows and feeding them, we dip the teats with conditioning dip. The pre-milking dip is used to clean the udders. This helps to reduce the amount of bacteria that’s spread by the clusters and the amount of bacteria that finds its way into the milk supply. This can reduce the spread of mastitis among the dairy herd. Dipping the teats also promotes the letdown of milk which helps to speed up the milking process.

Postmilking dip

When the cows have finished milking, we dip the teats with postmilking dip. We use an iodine based dip which helps to destroy the mastitis organisms that are on the teat. Postmilking dips prevent the development of new infections by about 50% and are useful in overall milking hygiene.

Clusters

On the farm we have a system of identifying cows with mastitis, other infectious diseases and those that are in calf. Red (mastitis) and blue (infectious disease) tape indicate that we need to wash the clusters before putting them onto another cow and green tape (cows/heifers in calf) shows us that they may decide to kick. When wiping away the premilking dip, we don’t use the same tissue to clean the cows after those with blue and red tape. 

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

20ml oxytocin

Yesterday was an incredibly chaotic day, so sorry for this post being uploaded late.

Again I started my Saturday with milking cows. Some people have asked me what I do when a cow tries to kick me when I’m dipping their udders. I presume everybody’s answers to this will be different but I dip just as the cow puts her hoof down, so that she has very little time to react. I've also been told to approach them from between the cow’s back two legs, so that she can’t get a very good aim and catch your arms between her leg and her body (which hurts, trust me!).

One of the cows, with mastitis, was just about to finish her course of antibiotics. So Michael asked me to draw up 20ml of “oxytocin”. This is the drug that is injected into a cow with mastitis, I don’t know whether this is what every dairy farmer uses, but this is what the dairy farm that I go to uses. I thought that this would be a really easy job to do but the antibiotic was like golden syrup. It took a lot of strength to draw up the 20ml and I even had red fingers to show of my struggles.

The inner part of the horn

Michael told me that that morning a calf had died. Including the emotional aspects of losing a calf, I found out that it also means a loss of £200-£300 for the farm.

The outer part of the horn.

After using the power washer to clean the equipment, we got to work on trimming cow’s feet. The first cow, 666, has always been a bit crazy, so getting her into the crush was reasonably difficult. Half way through trimming the first hoof, she started shaking her head about to try and get out of the crush. She didn’t manage to get out, but she did manage to rip off the outer part of her horn. I didn’t know that the horn had a soft inner part so when I saw the blood I was quite worried. Michael told me that it was okay and the outer part of the horn would be on the floor somewhere, but to make sure that no infections set in, we used blue spray on the wound.

The other cow’s feet were all in good condition. But we did shave the tail and the freeze number of one of the cows. The freeze number needed shaving, because in the parlour we couldn’t see her number to put into the computer system so that she could be feed. 

Work Experience: Dairy Farm

I started my morning, on the farm, at 7:45. I began milking straight away. Getting into the routine of conditioning dip, clusters, iodine dip has become second nature to me. After milking around 90 cows we brought some more in from the barn. The cows and heifers from the barn have either recently calved or are lame. One heifer had calved earlier in the morning, so we milked her for the colostrum.Colostrum is high in energy, proteins, vitamins and minerals, that's needed to reduce the health problems of the calf. The colostrum was taken straight from the jar and emptied into a bucket, which was used to feed the calf. 

My job, after having milked, was to use the hot pressure washer to wash the jars and clusters. This is not as easy as it sounds, because you have to make sure that the suckers don't come loose from the clusters (or they won't be cleaned properly) and because the pressure washer is quite heavy. 

I then went with Michael to see the cows that were bulling and to ring the vet who would be artificially inseminating them. Michael pointed out to me that the cows that were bulling, were sweating and steaming much more than the other cows that were with them.

The cow that was very stubborn and wouldn't move

Following this we went to the barn to bring in four dry cows and three cows that have been having problems with their hooves. The first cow took 10 minutes to get into the crush, because she was being incredibly stubborn and not moving. Using a knife, a rasp and blue iodine spray we tended to her feet. Michael explained that the outside of the hoof, where the pedal bone is, is what the cow walks on. Therefore the middle of the hoof must be trimmed to prevent sole ulcers (caused by bruising) on the softer, overgrown areas of the horn and promote weight bearing on the outer parts of the horn. 

The tools we use for hoof trimming

On the third cow's back left hoof, Michael showed me an inter-digital growth. Not all cows have one and this was the first that I'd seen. A inter-digital growth looks a bit like a middle toe between the cloven horn. I was told that it is best to keep the inter-digital growth, rather than cutting it away. However, the hoof must be trimmed regularly to prevent the pinching of the inter-digital growth, which would then cause swelling and discomfort for the cow. 

The hoof having had the block fitted

The last cow that we tended to had cracked horn on her back two hooves and her front left. This may have been to do with stress, but she has had lots of problems with her hooves in the past. So Michael was unsure way this had happened. We only had chance to set a block on her back left hoof before she began to become too upset. The crack had made some of the horn loose, so we had to use clippers to cut away the horn which looked a little bit like a slipper. However, removing the "slipper" made the hoof bleed. I had to hold some paper against the bleeding to staunch the flow. This was difficult because the cow kept moving and we were using a heater to dry out the hoof, so that we could apply the block, so my fingers kept getting too hot. (You attach the block by roughening the surface of the hoof, drying it out, applying resin to the hoof, and to a wooden block, and placing the wooden block onto the hoof and letting the resin dry.) 

Finally, because I'm learning to drive at the moment, I drove down the farmyard. Laura has promised to give me extra lessons whenever we have any spare time. Hopefully I will become a bit more useful when I can drive, because I'll be able to do the feed round by myself and do a few jobs on my own, which will allow Laura and Michael to do more during the days that I am on the farm.