Prompt 8- Practicing Your Knowledge

Practicing Your Knowledge

                          

When it comes to learning about a potentially unknown field, nothing is better for obtaining information than going out an working first-hand. 

Over the past summer, I spent 32 hours a week at the Rathmourne dairy farm in Port Hope, Michigan. My family has an agricultural background, but the dairy aspect is something I was a novice to. Rathmourne has about 3000 cows that need to be milked 3 times a day. That includes Christmas, 4th of July and even Daylight Saving Time. This makes for a lot of hard and fast work. 

I'm sure the average person's ideas of what a dairy farm look like are much different than what most large dairies look like. Many people might think of a farmer in his barn early in the morning milking just a few cows while sitting on a small stool. But the very opposite is how large farms operate. 

The picture above depicts a milking parlor very similar to the one I worked in. The blue tubes are connected to the 4 mechanical milkers that move the milk into a holding tank in a separate room. The elevated platform on the left on right are where the cows stand facing the walls. A worker starts by dipping each individual cow teet into iodine solution.

                                             

The purpose of the iodine is to disinfect the teet to prevent contamination of the milk. After each teet has been dipped, the same worker will take a fresh rag for each cow and wipe them clean. Lastly, that worker will hook up the milkers and leave them on for about two minutes per cow.
                                              
The picture above is called a holding pen. This is where the cows wait until the parlor is cleared and ready for them to enter and get milked.
                                           
This last picture is where the cows "live" in between sessions in the parlor. That center aisle is where a tractor drives through to unload feed for them.
The world of dairy farming was completely new to me until last summer where I go to spend a lot of time in the parlors and barns.