Congratulations of having the cleanest cows that I have ever seen in the parlor. Most others have mud or manure up to their hocks but yours don't. I might add that I am a former dairyman myself.
I know it's a lot of hard work. But you and your family and staff do keep a very clean environment for the cow's health. It shows you take pride in your work. Very calm and docile herd. Thank you for the videos .
I think composting the old bedding till spring will add nutrients to it for spreading come spring. A plus. You have a very clean operation which shows in your cows appearance and behavior. I know the bedding will eventually go to the fields but the cows likey the sawdusty. Cheers 🇨🇦
After working on a dairy farm for some time, i can say that your farm is very efficient and well kept, helps working conditions and general clenliness for the animals
It was good to see you milking in your video. A lot of farmers never milk their own cows, it's all hired help. Thank you for helping to feed the world.
Your cows and young stock are amazingly clean. That is a testimony of your excellent herd management, and dedication to producing the highest quality milk. I sincerely appreciate your honesty and willingness to share the details of daily challenges. I am sorry to hear the robot alley cleaners did not work out for you. But you never learn anything until you put it into action in your operation. Your use of dry sawdust and hand scraping are the reasons your milking herd is the cleanest I have seen on U Tube. Just be patient. With the constant new improvements in technology I bet something will come along to solve the problem of keeping the free stall alleys clean. My sincere thanks to you and yours for all of your hard work and dedication to produce the highest quality milk for all of us! Have a great day & God bless!
This channel is so relaxing to watch. Hard working individual's and family ran. I know how it is to work from dusk to dawn and to maintain everything to keep everything running smoothly. Big high five to you and your daddy and megan too. 🖐👍👍👍👍👍.
We’re out west and have open lots. In the summer we run drag harrows to fluff and dry the manure for bedding. In the winter we go in a till up the manure with a disc to get it to heat up and compost. It works great. What we’ve heard is the bacteria that causes mastitis and coli don’t like the environment in compost.
We call the muck heap a miden, what you need is to play the Wurzels champion dung spreader! Happy days loving the content, the care you give the herd is outstanding you should be very proud
I now understand the saying I heard when I was Younger "A good farmers work is never done" There is always something to do. Sometimes you need to force yourself to just take a day off.
Moisture is the enemy of cow health. Maybe an upgrade to a full alley scraper would work, but it's your $, not my ideas. Y'all keep them clean and dry, adding the lime shows that you know what to do. Great video, and it's nice the new feeding system is working for you. 👍👍
Hi Brian&Dad. Hope your Thanksgiving was thankful..LOL. we are thankful for your families. I watch Tay-Maine, Geirock-Wis, Van Peet-ND. it's intrstng yall do same=milk. Now how you do it is same but a little diffrnt..LOL. Van Peet uses sand to separate manure so there no woodchips to buy. Just an idea to share. When it come to finance advisor..ask if they sleep in soft or hard bed..I bet soft..so do the cows..the financial hierarchy counts..LOL
When composting, a lot of Nitrogen goes from fluid to gas. To prevent that happening you should definetely cover your pile. With that you save a lot of nitrogen or ammonium in your pile, so more nutrients can reach the plant. Greetings from Germany
You are going to make some awesome compost in that bunker silo. Would be really interested to hear if it’s different quality in the spring when you haul it out vs the way you used to store winter manure
Hi Eric your farm is of high technology In India we have not that much technology. If I spare some time I’ll visit your farm for understanding your infrastructure and setups as you manage all your implements so nicely
I think that’s a great idea to recycle the bedding! Might have to put it under cover though so it doesn’t get rained on? I don’t know. Definitely try it though. It makes sense that it would work.
I hear what you're saying about the robot scrapers. I think that it's better to allow the sawdust manure set and aerate to decay throughout the winter. Have a good night!
Yet another amazing UA-cam. Could you not sell the bed pack material as fertiliser to local gardeners? Just a random idea. Your farm, as mentioned by lots of others, is one the cleanest I have ever seen,
The standout impression is that they (the cows) seem, somehow, to understand that they're almost "machines" and act accordingly. Do they ever go "rogue?" (The question should be; "Don't they EVER go rogue?!" ) Always enjoy your videos. Appreciate all you do to provide milk for us!
You could always use one of those scrapers to clean off from behind the stalls when you bring up groups to pull manure away from them and promote a cleaner bed for the udder to lay on
Highly recommend to use the manure as bedding I work on a farm where we have a slurry separator indeed squeezes all the moisture out and builds up layers tho different beds wich are deeper and need to be raked level each milking
You have also a option for a watersprayersystem on the robotscrapers from Lely and that works amazing so far i know also in dryer months i know some farmers who use also Lely scraper robots and they have choosen for the option with waterspraying system.
You ever consider doing an interview with Megan? Seems we have seen her for years, would love to hear more about her work. Also another interview with your dad like you did a couple of years ago.
I am an old lady from the heart of Detroit. I've recently started to hyperfixate on farming, dairy more specifically. I've inky found your channel in the last few months (i think the 3rd so was just being finished) how many head do you have? How often do you you milk? Also, you have some of the cleanest and calmest dairy cows ive ever come across on the internet! Keep up your amazing work!
😊❤ you are already recycling the sawdust on to your land. Twice recycled and then to land .... if you can get the bug /pathogens down then thats ok. If it is pine sawdust (you have never told us ) then it will have antiseptic properties and naturally kill bugs. The hydrated lime will also help it compost and have the benefit of helping with your soil ph. I think your financial advisor is not looking at the over all picture regarding the bedding end use as a soil conditioner/fertilizer and what it would cost to replace that benefit.
Are you planning to test the Lely Discovery C2? It should be more accurate on cleaning the floors than the models you have. And it sprays the floor with water to keep it moist and prevent the manure from drying out. The manure in the bunker silo looks great. This will add some nice nutrients to your crops.
Sawdust is very acidic, especially pine, hemlock , spruce. Do you find that it changes the Ph of the soil? Lime sweetens the soil. Do you have to spread lime more often because of the sawdust waste?
If you really wanted to use manure for bedding i would suggest buding a digester it speratez the liquid manure out of the solid manure and the solid manure that you get from it is great for bedsing my family farm does this and its really good but i have another idea for you since you use sawdust you could use your mixer wagon to mix the sawdust amd lime togther my farm jse to do that before we started useing seperated solids
If I was in your position Eric, I would be looking into Valmetal's Xpress separator and pasteurizer system for bedding needs. They seem to be more scalable for dairies your size. I know there are farms that successfully manage using green bedding without a pasteurizer but I don't think I could myself.
The problem with that composted sawdust/manure is that is still an excellent media for bacterial growth. Just add any moisture/manure and the bugs are back in business.
Have you considered sand for bedding? Ff&f is a really big operation and they use sand. I can tell you of the long term effects of spreading sand on your fields will eventually help with compaction.
Sand is good for the cows, absolutely sucks for every other aspect of a dairy farm. Also unless used in a deep bedding stall you don't get much of the benefits of sand but all the negatives of it.
Thank you for the vid and taking us along...question...I hand milked 4-6 cows twice a day on our cattle ranch in Wyoming in the 60s..others traded off..but I was the chore boy for quite few years until a younger sibling could do it. Anyway, why 3 times a day? Production? Is it good genetics?...thank you.👨🌾🚜👨🌾😍
We have manure press which l like you said it separates the solids and liquids, but then the solids also get ran through a dryer killing the bacteria and drying it, to were it’s reused for our cow bedding,
Its interesting that the discoverys don't like the dry material. Is it not able to push the material into the slats correctly or just gumming up the robot wheel?
I wouldn't use that bed pack on the freestalls. It might work or you might have a nasty outbreak of mastitis. You might be able to reuse it on the bed pack again though, especially once the fans are running.
Congratulations of having the cleanest cows that I have ever seen in the parlor. Most others have mud or manure up to their hocks but yours don't. I might add that I am a former dairyman myself.
They take wonderful care of animals
You haven't been in many parlors have you only filthy cows iv seen are stanchion barns
You should see Belgian and Dutch dairy farms they take care of their cows more then anyone else in the world
Very true but if they are muddy it means they are outside. In the winter all cattle are cleaner. They do take great care with their cattle though.
They do have clean cows
I know it's a lot of hard work. But you and your family and staff do keep a very clean environment for the cow's health. It shows you take pride in your work. Very calm and docile herd. Thank you for the videos .
I think composting the old bedding till spring will add nutrients to it for spreading come spring. A plus. You have a very clean operation which shows in your cows appearance and behavior. I know the bedding will eventually go to the fields but the cows likey the sawdusty. Cheers 🇨🇦
I would love to see you talk about the difference in your farm now compared to when you started your channel.
Yess
I third this
After working on a dairy farm for some time, i can say that your farm is very efficient and well kept, helps working conditions and general clenliness for the animals
It was good to see you milking in your video. A lot of farmers never milk their own cows, it's all hired help. Thank you for helping to feed the world.
Props for trying the scrapers, when they worked Im sure you enjoyed them very much!
Your cows and young stock are amazingly clean. That is a testimony of your excellent herd management, and dedication to producing the highest quality milk. I sincerely appreciate your honesty and willingness to share the details of daily challenges. I am sorry to hear the robot alley cleaners did not work out for you. But you never learn anything until you put it into action in your operation. Your use of dry sawdust and hand scraping are the reasons your milking herd is the cleanest I have seen on U Tube. Just be patient. With the constant new improvements in technology I bet something will come along to solve the problem of keeping the free stall alleys clean. My sincere thanks to you and yours for all of your hard work and dedication to produce the highest quality milk for all of us!
Have a great day & God bless!
Thank you Eric on the update on the scrapers. I’d wished they were stronger and didn’t need so much assistance. God bless you and your family. ❤
This is by far one of your best videos yet. Keep up the fantastic work!
This channel is so relaxing to watch. Hard working individual's and family ran. I know how it is to work from dusk to dawn and to maintain everything to keep everything running smoothly. Big high five to you and your daddy and megan too. 🖐👍👍👍👍👍.
Thanks for another informative video. Love your explanations and enjoy seeing the cows up close. Hope your winter isn't too severe.
Have you ever asked Megan if she would do a “Day in the Life” video of what she does during a day at the dairy?
This sounds like a great idea
You’re cows always looks so nice and clean!!
Excellent job!!
The more you can spend time with cows and young stock the better! This is coming from an Irish old tye stall farmer!!
We’re out west and have open lots. In the summer we run drag harrows to fluff and dry the manure for bedding. In the winter we go in a till up the manure with a disc to get it to heat up and compost. It works great. What we’ve heard is the bacteria that causes mastitis and coli don’t like the environment in compost.
We call the muck heap a miden, what you need is to play the Wurzels champion dung spreader! Happy days loving the content, the care you give the herd is outstanding you should be very proud
Hi Eric looks like things are going nicely.
Excellent video
Much respect for the dairyman, 24/7
Happy Thanks Giving.
You definitely have one of the cleanest parlors I've ever seen
Another great video of a day on a dairy farm.
Doing a great job
I now understand the saying I heard when I was Younger "A good farmers work is never done"
There is always something to do. Sometimes you need to force yourself to just take a day off.
Moisture is the enemy of cow health. Maybe an upgrade to a full alley scraper would work, but it's your $, not my ideas. Y'all keep them clean and dry, adding the lime shows that you know what to do. Great video, and it's nice the new feeding system is working for you. 👍👍
Thanks as always for the great content. Such an inside view to a life most of us will never experience!
Robot scrapers on the way out robot feeders on the way in…the cycle continues 😂 Good work & stay safe 💪
Hi Brian&Dad. Hope your Thanksgiving was thankful..LOL. we are thankful for your families. I watch Tay-Maine, Geirock-Wis, Van Peet-ND. it's intrstng yall do same=milk. Now how you do it is same but a little diffrnt..LOL. Van Peet uses sand to separate manure so there no woodchips to buy. Just an idea to share. When it come to finance advisor..ask if they sleep in soft or hard bed..I bet soft..so do the cows..the financial hierarchy counts..LOL
RE: The sawdust pack compost. If you are going to put lime in that, it might be quite sterile and suitable for stall bedding.
Eric I love seeing you working and milking the cows. I wish you and your wife and family the best of holidays.
When composting, a lot of Nitrogen goes from fluid to gas. To prevent that happening you should definetely cover your pile. With that you save a lot of nitrogen or ammonium in your pile, so more nutrients can reach the plant. Greetings from Germany
You are going to make some awesome compost in that bunker silo. Would be really interested to hear if it’s different quality in the spring when you haul it out vs the way you used to store winter manure
Good looking set-up
you should get the JOZ guys out for a demo. JOZ builds a floorscrapers that are heavier. Should do a better job with this sawdust
You got it, I got rid of my discovery for the JOZ and couldn't be happier
Interesting
Hi Eric your farm is of high technology
In India we have not that much technology. If I spare some time I’ll visit your farm for understanding your infrastructure and setups as you manage all your implements so nicely
I think that’s a great idea to recycle the bedding! Might have to put it under cover though so it doesn’t get rained on? I don’t know. Definitely try it though. It makes sense that it would work.
I hear what you're saying about the robot scrapers. I think that it's better to allow the sawdust manure set and aerate to decay throughout the winter. Have a good night!
Yeah but you don’t want the cow to walk the manure up in the stall wich then they lay in with their utter
We run a sheep farm and when we let the muck sit for a while it makes alot better fertiliser and makes grass grow amazingly fast
I hadn't seen a milking video in so long, I enjoyed it! 😅
Love the video much love and respect thanks for sharing ❤❤❤
amazing video. Thank you guys
Yet another amazing UA-cam. Could you not sell the bed pack material as fertiliser to local gardeners? Just a random idea. Your farm, as mentioned by lots of others, is one the cleanest I have ever seen,
Clean place to live is important for you and them ,you and your family and customers .good clean cow's
Eric, I really enjoy your vids and comments. Your dad must be proud.. Happy Holidays, stay safe!!
I like clean and comfortable animals.
Don't care what it is.
Hogs , cows chickens
what ever it is. TAKE CARE !!
Good morning all great job Thanks for the video Eric 🙏
The standout impression is that they (the cows) seem, somehow, to understand that they're almost "machines" and act accordingly. Do they ever go "rogue?" (The question should be; "Don't they EVER go rogue?!" ) Always enjoy your videos. Appreciate all you do to provide milk for us!
You can raise the beef steers in corn silo bunk
No, it is 3:20 AM right now well I am watching this. Lol Thanks for sharing and have a nice safe day!!!
clean cows are happy cows
Milwaukee has a broom attachment for their string trimmer. I brush the wet shavings off then pull the dry shavings to the back of the stall.
Es una alegría ver los videos con audio en español..
Están demasiado robotizados, creo que seguiré con el idioma nativo.
Beautiful animals.
You could always use one of those scrapers to clean off from behind the stalls when you bring up groups to pull manure away from them and promote a cleaner bed for the udder to lay on
Always amazes me how dairy cows go exactly where you want
They’re trained well, very docile
@Abgl9 cool
Not always...
Highly recommend to use the manure as bedding I work on a farm where we have a slurry separator indeed squeezes all the moisture out and builds up layers tho different beds wich are deeper and need to be raked level each milking
Great video brother from the imperial county ca 🚜🚜🇺🇲
I like your idea trying to use your bed pack manure again, you'll have to get a canopy for those feed bunks to keep that stuff dry then ya?
You have also a option for a watersprayersystem on the robotscrapers from Lely and that works amazing so far i know also in dryer months i know some farmers who use also Lely scraper robots and they have choosen for the option with waterspraying system.
You ever consider doing an interview with Megan? Seems we have seen her for years, would love to hear more about her work. Also another interview with your dad like you did a couple of years ago.
Maybe when he hits one million subscribers.
I am an old lady from the heart of Detroit. I've recently started to hyperfixate on farming, dairy more specifically. I've inky found your channel in the last few months (i think the 3rd so was just being finished) how many head do you have? How often do you you milk? Also, you have some of the cleanest and calmest dairy cows ive ever come across on the internet! Keep up your amazing work!
If the scrapers like a more wet environment, I wonder if you can program them to scrape the snow off the automatic feeder lanes.
Hey Eric , thanks for another interesting video, enjoy seeing the farm activity. Hope you and your family had a Blessed Thanksgiving.🇺🇸🙏
😊❤ you are already recycling the sawdust on to your land. Twice recycled and then to land .... if you can get the bug /pathogens down then thats ok. If it is pine sawdust (you have never told us ) then it will have antiseptic properties and naturally kill bugs. The hydrated lime will also help it compost and have the benefit of helping with your soil ph. I think your financial advisor is not looking at the over all picture regarding the bedding end use as a soil conditioner/fertilizer and what it would cost to replace that benefit.
Are you planning to test the Lely Discovery C2?
It should be more accurate on cleaning the floors than the models you have. And it sprays the floor with water to keep it moist and prevent the manure from drying out.
The manure in the bunker silo looks great. This will add some nice nutrients to your crops.
Having a burger and a cold glass of milk!! Perfect timing! Haha!
but as always love seeing your videos and watching the farm grow and update
I'm a big fan of lime myself, both hydrated and pulverized. Don't know the mechanics behind it but it's tough on about any kind of parasites also.
Have you ever thought about using a conver system from the pins to the old silage pit where you are storing the dry manure
Put lime on top of the spreader let cook for a while and wood work great I think 😊
Sawdust is very acidic, especially pine, hemlock , spruce. Do you find that it changes the Ph of the soil? Lime sweetens the soil. Do you have to spread lime more often because of the sawdust waste?
wood also needs/uses nitrogen to break down. I know in a garden you have to supplement N if you use wood chips as mulch.
Another great video!
14:53 sorry girl 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The cows look very healthy eric than when u started❤
If you really wanted to use manure for bedding i would suggest buding a digester it speratez the liquid manure out of the solid manure and the solid manure that you get from it is great for bedsing my family farm does this and its really good but i have another idea for you since you use sawdust you could use your mixer wagon to mix the sawdust amd lime togther my farm jse to do that before we started useing seperated solids
Add some lime to your sawdust manure pile, it would reduce the acidity before you spread on the fields.
If I was in your position Eric, I would be looking into Valmetal's Xpress separator and pasteurizer system for bedding needs. They seem to be more scalable for dairies your size. I know there are farms that successfully manage using green bedding without a pasteurizer but I don't think I could myself.
Awesome video Eric 🚜🚜🚜
Hi good evening 10th generation from Indiana
Love your videos. God bless and be safe as it starts cooling down. BURRRRR. ❤❤❤❤
The problem with that composted sawdust/manure is that is still an excellent media for bacterial growth. Just add any moisture/manure and the bugs are back in business.
A farm I work at they don’t use free stalls but till the manure to a compost and add sawdust to the top and it works pretty good for them
Beckman brothers dairy and more if you want to see it
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family
Have you considered sand for bedding? Ff&f is a really big operation and they use sand. I can tell you of the long term effects of spreading sand on your fields will eventually help with compaction.
Sand is a good bedding but we would have no way of getting it out of our pit under the barn.
That's right you don't want sand in your underground pit
Sand is good for the cows, absolutely sucks for every other aspect of a dairy farm. Also unless used in a deep bedding stall you don't get much of the benefits of sand but all the negatives of it.
I didn't read the title correctly at first and I was like the feeders are down already?
I hope you had a very good Thanksgiving Eric
❤ from Norway
On the bedding could you not use the sawdust and the old manure sodas 50/50 mix
Would that not make a good fertilizer for gardens and such?
❤❤VIDEO ❤❤ appreciate you sharing your day with me ❤❤
Thank you for the vid and taking us along...question...I hand milked 4-6 cows twice a day on our cattle ranch in Wyoming in the 60s..others traded off..but I was the chore boy for quite few years until a younger sibling could do it. Anyway, why 3 times a day? Production? Is it good genetics?...thank you.👨🌾🚜👨🌾😍
Do you have to clean the milking devices to prevent contamination or is off of one cow and on to the next
They sanitize the nips for sure but you wouldn’t want cleaning products in inside the machine I think
Videos y traducción perfecto 😊
We have manure press which l like you said it separates the solids and liquids, but then the solids also get ran through a dryer killing the bacteria and drying it, to were it’s reused for our cow bedding,
Its interesting that the discoverys don't like the dry material. Is it not able to push the material into the slats correctly or just gumming up the robot wheel?
@10thgenerationdairyman Happy Belated Thanksgiving Eric to you and your family
You sound tired Eric, maybe you should get some rest. Merry Christmas to you and your family.
I wouldn't use that bed pack on the freestalls. It might work or you might have a nasty outbreak of mastitis. You might be able to reuse it on the bed pack again though, especially once the fans are running.