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Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
Brad
And welcome to The Moos Room. It's a lovely November day here with Brad as I record this in my studio. The sun is shining. It's a wonderful day out. We're having kind of a heatwave here in the Midwest. Okay, well, it's not hot, but it's 5060 degrees out, which is pretty good for a full day. But we're going to dive into some cold temperatures here.
00;00;38;09 - 00;01;01;19
Brad
So I think winter is trying to come and we had some snow in Minnesota in the past week. So it's snowed and not snowed and hot weather. So we're kind of in that phase between fall and winter or summer and winter and some exciting things coming up for the winter time as well with our our dairy and some new things that we're looking at.
00;01;01;19 - 00;01;31;23
Brad
So we'll talk about those in a little bit. But today I wanted to give another kind of perspective on what I see on some farms, what types, observe some kind of cool things that I've seen on, on some farms that I've visited lately. I have a shout out to my former graduate student, Glenda Pereira at Maine, who enjoys listening to me talk about what I've seen on some farms and some new things, and interesting things that different farmers are doing.
00;01;31;23 - 00;01;55;19
Brad
Kind of a travel vlog so you can go listen to her. She has her own podcast as well, called The Maine Farm Cast, where they talk about lots of different things from cows, horses, food safety, all kinds of different things happening in Maine. But this past week, our dairy extension team, so there's 7 or 8 of us that do dairy extension work here in Minnesota.
00;01;55;19 - 00;02;16;00
Brad
We did a team trip, so team building exercise kind of had a meeting. And then saw some different industries, went to some farms and just kind of learned some things about what some farms are doing here in the Midwest. So for our team trip this year, we decided to go to South Dakota, just across the border here from where I'm at.
00;02;16;03 - 00;02;42;28
Brad
We all ventured over there for one night and a couple days to just kind of learn about what's happening. And one interesting thing that we saw first was Bell Brands cheese. So there's Bell Brands has been in Brookings, South Dakota. It's a cheese plant that makes all of these little snacking cheeses. So Baby bells, you can see them here in the US at different convenience stores where they make, you know, original.
00;02;42;28 - 00;03;12;13
Brad
They make good, mozzarella, white cheddar, Monterey Jack. So we got to see the plant go in the plant where they make all of these wonderful little baby bell snack cheeses. So they bring in milk from about 10,000 cows a day for making all of these cheese plants. So if you didn't know some baby bell, all these little snacking cheese, they still import a lot of them into the US from Europe, France, other places where they're manufacturing these.
00;03;12;13 - 00;03;40;18
Brad
So this plant is actually going to double in size within the next couple of years to produce more baby bells here in the US. You know, it's it's a different dynamic kind of a cheese. It's that small little wheel cheese that's dipped in wax that you see, you know, we saw everything from shipping and receiving to producing these little baby bells to the shipping process and packaging process.
00;03;40;18 - 00;04;05;03
Brad
So obviously there's a lot of mechanics that go into this, but it was kind of cool to see that just outside. You know, our back door here in Brookings, South Dakota is a plant that's making these baby bells. And they're made for all of the US market right here. So if you're eating a little baby bell snack, a little cheese snack, more than likely it came from the plant in Brookings, South Dakota.
00;04;05;06 - 00;04;30;17
Brad
They source all of the milk that's locally. So from farms right nearby in South Dakota. It was kind of interesting to learn about some of their philosophy. Obviously, they're not like, no, they don't contract directly with farmers, so they work with milk buyers. That gets milk from different farms, don't have a lot of parameters that they source from, you know, obviously low somatic cell count don't necessarily look at the bacteria counts, mostly looking for protein in the milk.
00;04;30;17 - 00;04;50;05
Brad
So they're producing cheese. So they want lots of protein. So high fat herds you know they have to deal with all the fat that comes off of that. So they really want high protein milk that's coming into their plant. So they're that's about what they're looking for for the milk that's coming into play. Plant high protein. Not much else going on with it kind of.
00;04;50;05 - 00;05;19;08
Brad
That evening we all went out for a team dinner, and some of us went to chase the Northern Lights later that night. When you get outside of Brookings, it was a spectacular light show that Northern Lights were so bright that night. It was wonderful to see all of that. We saw a lot of people in the United States saw the Northern Lights all over the place, but it was a wonderful light show that night, and it was kind of fun just being there with some team members and looking at the Northern Lights and doing something else besides cows that we we normally do.
00;05;19;09 - 00;05;48;15
Brad
So the next day was our farm tour day. We decided that we were going to go visit some farms here in South Dakota along the I-29 corridor where dairy industry is is booming. There's lots of new dairy expansion going on in the I-29. It's kind of a nice place to be, actually. One of the farmers told me that South Dakota will probably overtake the 10th spot in the United States within the next year as far as milk, produced in the United States.
00;05;48;15 - 00;06;13;05
Brad
So that's kind of a great feat where there wasn't much of a dairy industry in South Dakota. If we think about it 20 years ago, not much at all. Small farms dwindling infrastructure, and now there's a bunch of milk plants. You know, baby Belle, there's plant eggs in Lake Norden. Other places that are buying milk. There's milk plants in Minnesota that are taking milk from the I-29 corridor.
00;06;13;05 - 00;06;38;22
Brad
So it's kind of it's kind of the place to be right now. I would say, for dairy expansion in the Midwest. And and if South Dakota's going to take the 10th spot in dairy production, that's wonderful. It's wonderful. So the first farm that we we visited was kind of interesting farm. I had visited there in, I think 20, 22, maybe it was 2021 when they had just built a brand new barn.
00;06;38;22 - 00;06;59;13
Brad
They had a field day on their farm, a breakfast on the farm, I could say where they had, I believe, 17 robots or 18 robots, a brand new facility milking about 1700 cows with new level robots and they're actually taking them all out. They're ripping out all of the robots. Some of the robots were gone when we were there.
00;06;59;16 - 00;07;19;08
Brad
They were in the process of taking down gates and other things in the robot facility as well. So we wanted to go there and kind of figure out what's happening. Why would a farm that had 1700 cows and is ripping out the robots and putting in a new parlor? Well, I asked the farmer specifically. I'm like, what? What's the reason why you're taking the robots?
00;07;19;08 - 00;07;50;14
Brad
Or what was the challenge? And for him, a lot of it was maintenance software updates. Software was a big problem. He had stressed out. We're trying to update software, and sometimes it would take 12 hours or longer to update these robots. So you have a lot of downtime with your cows based on software. So just maintenance. I think they had one person doing maintenance all the time on these robots, and I think it for them it was costing a little bit more.
00;07;50;15 - 00;08;11;21
Brad
They have a few other dairies on their site, smaller, one on another 1500 cow dairy, and I think there's another 5000 cow dairy close by. But in this robot dairy, he told us it was costing an extra dollar per hundredweight just to produce milk. Out of that robot facility. So we're probably losing some money by milking cows in, in this robot.
00;08;11;21 - 00;08;35;23
Brad
And so that was the decision that was made to take the robots out and put in a new parlor. They're hoping to obviously, they were hoping to have the parlor done by this winter, but it looks like it's going to be next spring before they have the parlor. So they're housing some heifers in there. They're hosing some last milking cows that they still have some robot, some a few robots are milking the cows.
00;08;35;23 - 00;08;55;04
Brad
Yet before they take them out and sell them to farms, he said they've sold them. They're all sold. All of the robots are sold. All used robots. One farm took one robot, and I think another farm took four robots. So they're all going to go and get repurposed. So it's kind of interesting to learn about, you know, you just have a new facility three years old roughly, and you're taking the robots out.
00;08;55;06 - 00;09;18;15
Brad
We hear that from time to time as well. It is interesting. Obviously, every farmer has their reasons for doing it, but I think here it was mostly profitability as why as they're taking them out. So we also went to one of their other parlors. And there was an interesting thing that I learned there. You know, we talked about milking speed in the past, in previous podcasts, talking about milking speed and trying to speed up milking and making things more efficient.
00;09;18;15 - 00;09;40;00
Brad
Well, here in one of their parlors, everything is set for 300 seconds. So five minutes from the time that you put the milkers on to five minutes, that milker just comes off and he's like, well, if the cow is not done milking, she's done now. So interesting that trying to make more parlor efficiency, you've set your milking time to be five minutes and that's it.
00;09;40;03 - 00;09;59;24
Brad
And the Milkers are instructed when the milker comes off. That's it. That's done. So a cow could have 20 pounds left in in her udder. The milker comes off. It doesn't go back on. So trying to make parlors more efficiently. So 300 seconds from on time to take off. Time done to cow milks. Milk longer than five minutes.
00;09;59;27 - 00;10;18;27
Brad
Well, she's done milking now, so I think that was interesting. As we move towards more efficiency and we'll talk about that in the third farm that we visited about milking speed and trying to speed up milking with, times as well, a couple of other things. This farm is probably about 60% beef, just like most of the farms here in the Midwest.
00;10;18;27 - 00;10;46;24
Brad
$1,400 for, Angus bull calves or Angus beef on dairy crosses leaving their facility. So doing quite well, with with beef on dairy. And all heifers are raised in Kansas. So at week of age or so, they all go to Kansas and are raised in and amongst, I think 150,000 other heifers there in in a big lot in Kansas.
00;10;46;24 - 00;11;08;01
Brad
And then they come back a few months before they're there to calves. So raising heifers in Kansas from South Dakota, not necessarily what's going to happen in the third farm that we visited. So we went to another farm, Holsteins in in South Dakota near near Watertown. Kind of a few interesting things there. Use timers in the parlor.
00;11;08;01 - 00;11;28;28
Brad
So we went into some milking for our first and they're, they have kind of timers set up in the parlor. And maybe I haven't seen this before, and maybe I have. But one of the new things that I've seen with two of the dairies that we visited this week were timers in the parlor. So a big screen with a clock that counts down the number of second.
00;11;28;28 - 00;11;52;28
Brad
So it really helps in cow prep and getting milkers on efficiently and trying to speed up the milking process raw. So it's very fascinating. And one of the things that I have to do more investigation to look at this, to see if I can, you know, can I put these things in our parlor to help speed up some of this milking and making the parlor more efficiently?
00;11;53;00 - 00;12;11;04
Brad
So that was one of the things. And we'll talk about one of the other things in the third farm. But timers in the parlor are a fascinating thing that maybe all of us should look at when we're talking about milking prep. And can we speed up milking and making sure people are following protocols and procedures in this farm?
00;12;11;04 - 00;12;36;29
Brad
They still use a brush from future cow. Excellent low somatic cell count. You know, 150,000 or less. Teats are really clean, doing a lot of good milk preparation in their parlor. You know, I asked about the future cow brush and see, you know, I installed that once and ripped it out a few months later, you know, spent a lot of money and then just ended up ripping up it kind of like the robot thing because it just didn't work.
00;12;37;06 - 00;12;59;07
Brad
I who knows if the Milkers were actually doing it right? We train them, but I don't think our milkers really liked the the brush system. As well. It got the teats clean, no doubt about it. But man, our our somatic cell count went from 250,000 to 500,000 by using the brush system. So I don't know, I still have the brush.
00;12;59;09 - 00;13;22;01
Brad
I always threatened to bring it back, to see if we could use it again. But this farm was doing it correctly and using it right. And they were changing brushes every day. Every day. They're they're changing brush as well. When you're milking 3000 cows, you you go through brushes quite quickly on these on these systems here they're using a neat damp system.
00;13;22;04 - 00;13;40;15
Brad
So they put it in their calves. It's an ear tag system. They're using precision technologies for breeding and health and using all that they're doing all the genomic testing. So they're working with Genex and doing all of the genomic testing, trying to improve their herd. That's one of the things that I always ask, what do you do with this data?
00;13;40;19 - 00;14;02;00
Brad
How are you using this? Because sometimes I, you know, I question it even for myself. You spend 30 or $40 for a genomic test. Is it really helping improve your genetics? What are you doing with it? How are you using it. And here they're using it obviously to to breed for the beef. Which ones they're deciding to, to breed to beef on this farm.
00;14;02;00 - 00;14;26;06
Brad
They're using an interesting breed I guess a cookie cattle. So it's, a cushy Wagyu. It basically means, red Wagyu. So it's basically Japanese red. It's one of the four Wagyu breeds. So they're using that here and raising all the animals. Obviously those animals are all coming out black because it's a Holstein herd for the most part.
00;14;26;09 - 00;14;46;23
Brad
And they're breeding everything to this. They're raising them actually. So they're keeping everything, raising all of those animals on site, all of their beef on dairy crosses themselves, and then they're going to Texas. So the market for these animals is in Texas. They're getting paid very well, getting a very good premium for these cattle that they're using.
00;14;46;23 - 00;15;14;26
Brad
And they've this herd has decided that's what they're using for beef and dairy breed. It's there's nothing else. It's no no Angus, no Simmental, no anything else. Only this a cushy breed. So very, interesting. So they raised all of their animals within calf barns, all bottle fed. So they have little kind of holders in their calf barns, a group fed system where they feed their calves, put the bottles in and they the calves can go over there.
00;15;14;28 - 00;15;34;17
Brad
We disinfected as we walked into the calf barn. Very I love that want to do that here. Obviously that's always the thing I think we need to have, you know, every calf barn that you walked into there had a little brush and disinfectant pail there where people could just disinfect their boots off or their shoes, whatever they might have had.
00;15;34;17 - 00;15;53;05
Brad
I think we need to do more of that on, on our facilities, you know, spreading disease from one place to the other. And calves are more prone to spreading disease and and that so I think, you know, one thing I learned, we need to put sort of boot disinfectants on our facility as well to be able to help spread disease to calves.
00;15;53;07 - 00;16;18;05
Brad
Their ventilation system was kind of a new one. It's Pskov, it's a Danish ventilation system, a Danish company where that was mostly these systems were mostly used for hog barns, in Denmark obviously in the colder months. So it's kind of a ventilation system, that was used basically. They've just started maybe doing some of these here in the US.
00;16;18;07 - 00;16;42;09
Brad
So it's really built for calf barns in kind of mild and temperate climates like we have here in the Midwest. So it basically utilized this negative pressure to bring air into the barn through inlets and removes the air via exhaust fans. And these exhaust fans are typically in the roof. There's roof inlets, and we'll supply a lot of fresh air.
00;16;42;09 - 00;17;13;12
Brad
We went into these barns and it was, you know, a couple hundred or more calves in there, and they didn't really spell any ammonia or everything. Obviously, they clean out the bedding quite often. They're cleaning out the bedding, I think once a week or once every two weeks to make sure that the calves have clean bedding. But this Pskov system, skivvy, really has helped maintain proper air velocity and air exchanges within their calf facility.
00;17;13;12 - 00;17;39;09
Brad
So kind of a new technology that maybe we haven't seen as much here in the US, because obviously as a Denmark company, but, right here in South Dakota, where they're utilizing this farm, calves look good. Didn't see any coughing. So maybe it's new ventilation system, something to to think about and maybe, if explore some of those things as we move into the future.
00;17;39;09 - 00;18;06;23
Brad
In the last farm we went to was Jersey farm, about 6000 jerseys, where they actually raised all their animals here, and kind of proving that you can raise jerseys in the North. We don't have to ship them to the south. They're doing very well. They're raising those heifer calves here in the northern climates doing really well. We didn't go over to the heifer facility, but death loss is really low.
00;18;06;25 - 00;18;30;07
Brad
Obviously we always go to the barn, looking at the milking parlor. So they had twin double 30 fives in their parlor. So two double 35 side by side, a huge holding area. Obviously cows could go in whatever holding area they wanted to see, but it was quite fascinating. So I Jersey guy myself and seeing all of these jerseys was it was like I was in heaven.
00;18;30;07 - 00;19;01;04
Brad
But they're they also had timers in the parlor, four people. They had four people in each pit. Milking cows had timers there to try and, you know, speed up and make the milking more efficient. And the farmer was talking about, oh, well, maybe I might be sorting cows into separate pens based on milking speed. So you have pens that are a little bit longer, cows that are longer in milking time, they'll get sorted out and milked separately from the rest of the herd.
00;19;01;06 - 00;19;24;12
Brad
Because I think one thing that I've learned with a lot of the farms that we have visited, milking speed is important. Obviously labor is not getting any cheaper and we need to speed up the milking and make it more efficient on these farms. And so a lot of these farmers are really thinking about milking speed and how we can push more cows through parlors a lot faster.
00;19;24;14 - 00;19;48;28
Brad
Timer's one of the things again, this farm had and maybe sorting some cows, they do lots of IVF and embryo work. Obviously they're developing bulls for select sires program for their jersey program. So lots of different bulls of, you know, the victory prefix. You might have seen some of those bulls come out as well, but doing lots of so their their bull calves are very valuable.
00;19;49;00 - 00;20;09;25
Brad
And so trying to raise calves here on this facility is very important to them and how they do it. We also we, we walked around with their veterinarian who was there and learned about things. They put Sense Hub. So it's the Merck precision technology on all calves at birth. So we walked in the pen calves are born today.
00;20;09;27 - 00;20;35;27
Brad
They got sent up in their ears. And from what they told me is that those tags need to be in the ear at birth to make sure that you're getting adequate data to find health problems or health challenges with calves. And they're actually using this data. I'm like, you know, I, I've seen this stuff before. You know, I, I put cow manager in some of our calves ears and trying to figure this out and, you know, does it work?
00;20;35;29 - 00;21;01;00
Brad
And they said yes, it works. We're using it to pick out the calves that are sick and they can find it. They pop up on Sense Hub. It prints out a list, and they're able to go over there and figure that out. So I think, you know, that's one thing I think we'll be hearing about more in the future here is using technology and in baby calves to try and figure out and find those calves that are having some health challenges.
00;21;01;02 - 00;21;22;01
Brad
And, you know, the technology is only expanding. So look for more of that. I think, into the future. And on this farm, they're building a new dry cow and Springer barn. So, so a brand new facility. Hardly any animals in it. I think they just put a few animals in it this week. But brand new facility looks really nice.
00;21;22;01 - 00;21;44;05
Brad
Will have wonderful place for having those dry cows and springers and being able to have cows, in a clean environment. Was talking to them as well. One thing, and it got me thinking as well, was to look at fresh cow mastitis. So in the past they had had problems with mastitis in their fresh heifers. So how did they solve that?
00;21;44;05 - 00;22;05;28
Brad
And maybe other farms are doing this as well, but they're putting spectrum in lock out in heifers before they can have kind of treating them like a dry cow. So at 60 days before, a spring year, heifers to care of they treat her with spectrum AST and lockout and it's reduced fresh cow mastitis astronomically because they have recycled solids for bedding.
00;22;05;28 - 00;22;25;24
Brad
So they were having a problem with fresh cow mastitis in their solids bedding. And they've really reduced it now by using spectrum in lockout. Now you there's lots of different products that you can use. But I think interesting learning about treating those cows. And that's one thing. I came back here and said we got to do it. You know, we have fresh cow mastitis.
00;22;25;24 - 00;22;47;29
Brad
We have heifers, that are probably exposed more to the environment. And we're going to do that when we have some heifers going to Kevin March in January, we're going to dry treat those heifers, give them some teat sealants and see if we can reduce our fresh heifer mastitis. We we certainly have an issue at our dairy. Been struggling with that one for a while.
00;22;48;00 - 00;23;05;03
Brad
But maybe going to try this and see see what happens, see what happens. Kind of the last thing is there. You know, farmers are always innovative trying to figure out how can we make more bunk space. You know, in this barn, there was kind of like gates and walls at the end of the pens and, you know, it's just taking up a lot of space.
00;23;05;03 - 00;23;24;13
Brad
Well, they ripped out the walls and the gates and put up kind of a little bar and made feed bunk space for about 30 more cows to eat. So they just kind of round the corner on these pens and more room for cows to eat. So that's part of the issue that maybe they were a little overstocked on this farm, no doubt about it.
00;23;24;13 - 00;23;54;08
Brad
But kind of farmers are always innovative, looking for ways to expand, looking to make things more efficient in their farms. So what's kind of the take home message? What did Brad learn in all of this? I think more farms, probably timers in the parlor are going to help. I think we need to look at those trying to speed up the milking process for all of these farms, as well as looking for ways to reduce health problems, whether that's in calves, by using technology or just using technology.
00;23;54;10 - 00;24;17;14
Brad
We saw a lot of technology on these farms. These farms are very profitable and doing quite well. So I think in the future we're going to see more of that. Lots of technology and Cavs technologies in the parlor to make things more efficient and make these farms more profitable. So with that, I hope you learned a little bit about what's happening on some farms here in South Dakota.
00;24;17;16 - 00;24;40;28
Brad
Kind of innovators in the dairy world and quite successful and profitable. And with that, I think we'll end there for today. If you have any comments, questions, giving rebuttals, feel free to let me know. At the Moos room. That's tag moss r o m at UMaine Edu or find me on the web at University of Minnesota Livestock Extension or and Rock dairy with that.
00;24;41;01 - 00;24;46;00
Brad
Hope you have a good week. Bye.