Ready to milk! Calving season is nearly here! Time to get the dairy ready!
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- Опубліковано 28 кві 2021
- Calving season is nearly here on our seasonal organic dairy farm! After a few months of no activity in the dairy, it was time to get ready to milk! We made a few upgrades in our Surge side-opener (tandem) milking parlor, serviced our Surge vacuum pump, tested our Van-Vetter bulk milk cooling tank, and serviced our Nu-Pulse milking machines! We also tested our Northwestern Tool/Jaybee Vat Pasteurizer, and to top it off everything got a through cleaning!
In preparation of calving, we also started running our cows, and Daisy the heifer, through the parlor to help them adjust to the change in the routine. No, we didn't milk them of course, but just gave them a scoop of alfalfa pellets as a treat!
Clover Mountain Dairy is a seasonal Certified Organic small dairy farm located in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Northeast Washington State near the town of Chewelah. In addition to being Certified Organic, we practice regenerative farming practices to improve the soil and for carbon sequestration. We are 100% grass fed and utilize managed intensive grazing (MIG) where we rotate them through our permanent pastures. Our herd is completely A2/A2 and we practice calf-sharing, not separating the babies and letting the cows raise their own calves. The mommas do a wonderful job! We process our own milk here on the farm. We gently vat pasteurize the milk and bottle it as creamtop whole milk, chocolate milk, Caffe Latte, and Eggnog (seasonally). We also make a full-fat cream top yogurt. All our fluid milk is bottled in glass returnable milk bottles. Our glass milk bottles are reused multiple times! The ultimate recycling! We market our milk through our local farmer's market and on farm sales. We are both military veterans and first generation farmers.
Music: Apple iMovie Riverwalk
Parlor looks great ! Well done. Great memories. God bless.
Thank you! It sure is a wonderful place to work! Thanks for watching!
@@vnthomas16 My pleasure.
Your barn and dairy is just beautiful
Thank you!
Great job, you're so prepared!
Thank you!
I agree, May 1st or May Day as my grandma always called it :)
Noted! Stay tuned, and thanks for watching!
Let the calving begin.
We’re ready! Just waiting on the cows! Haha!
You guys should upload daily !!! I check everyday to see if you guys upload !!!! 😏
Haha! If we only had the time... 😉
So enjoyed watching this video. A clean parlor is a healthy parlor. I wish we lived up in your area as I would purchase your milk and other products. Love you guys, from Arizona
Thank you for your kind words! We appreciate your support!
Off to a good start. As always very thorough. Final inspection by Spud.
May 4th, for reasons.😎
Lots of votes for May the Fourth... Haha! Stay tuned!
If born on the 4th the name should be Princess Leia for a cow and Luke or Hans for a bull, 🤣🤣🤣.
May the 4th be with you.
👋👋👋 🇦🇺
Something about a sink at full flow without aerators just flows freedom like nothing else.
If I had aerators in the dairy, I’d never get done with chores! All the barn waterlines are either 3/4” or 1”.
Guys, every time I wash my hands I am reminded that I have not yet told you how beautiful your soaps are! So here goes:)). I ordered some of each scent just before Christmas, and they arrived here in Canada in no time. Love all of them! They are gentle on my skin and lather beautifully, last a long time, and smell awesome. Well done and thank you!
Thank you so much! We’re so happy you enjoy our soaps! We’re trying some new scents this year. We have a Fir soap and a Citrus soap we’re trying, as well as an unscented.
i love cavling season
We love babies! Spring always brings such renewal of life!
Your cows look lovely. The babies are so big! Very nice prep video.
Thank you!
Im going with May 4th. Nice job getting the milk parlor done. I love how the cows just come when you call like big dogs. :)
Popular date! Haha! Yes, the cows are well trained! It sure is convenient!
The best day of the year to be born is May 7th.
Worked out well for me.
Indeed!
Omg Spud and the "not cat door"! 😹 What a thorough video. Thank you so much for all the time you put into them. I am so excited about Daisy having her first calf. I am going to go for a long shot and say she will have her calf on Mother's Day May 9 which I know is later but that's going to be my bet.
You’re welcome! We love sharing our journey with friends. May 9 is good guess. Rose is due May 14th and was early last time! Spud says “Hi”!
On a completely unrelated item. I noticed that you had pex tubing ran directly to your water heater. As someone who has a weird interest in all Things plumbing I would like to know if you experience any problems with your pex tubing where it connects to the water heater, i.e., becoming dry and brittle or melting etc. I know code in most areas does not allow most plastic piping within 18 inches of the water heater. Though I deal mostly with natural gas water heaters which are much more hotter up top by the piping due to the exhaust vent hood and yours is an electric. Still I would like to know if you ever encounter problems from the heat with the tubing. I don’t think you will since a electric water heater doesn’t put out the heat up top as bad as a natural gas heater does.
Our water heater is not connected with PEX. It’s Stainless Steel flex pipe that just came colored red and blue, so it does kinda blend in! Haha! Thanks for watching!
May 4
A popular guess!
Well hey there, spry ones! LOL Your 8:05 "spry farmer" announcement came here while I was watching at 8:04 central time. Of course, by that time we had our milking done, breakfast eaten, and we had shipped mom and Hank off to work in town. Ha! Thanks for another great video. Wilson is very impressed with the dairy side of your barn. My guess on Daisy's first calving is May 10. Anniversary of the golden spike being driven to complete the transcontinental RR...When is your Buttercup due? Ours is due May 8. Keep up the good work!
I think your clock is a minute slow... Haha! Whilst the cows have gone a bit feral over this dry period, I think we may have too! Of course, the 10th would be a great day! Our Buttercup is due I think the third week of May.
Hi Folks, Do you have good luck getting your bottles back? Thanks for the update. 🇺🇸
We have excellent bottle return rates. 75% +... But, we don’t sell in stores, so we have a personal relationship with most of our customers. Friends who sell in stores report return rates from 25% all the way up to 60%-ish.
I'd love to know how you set up the washing system
I think we’ve gone into a little more detail in other videos, but it’s just the NuPulse jetter washer mounted above the sink. It’s designed to work with the NuPulse claw. We also have a branch of the vacuum line that comes into the milkhouse for washing. Thanks for watching!
Where did you buy your stalls I’d love to order some for my place
How many cows do you plan on milking eventually and are you going to bottle milk year round your parlor is nice better than bending up and down everyday
We’ll work to stay a seasonal dairy. Matching our grass growth to our lactations just makes things easier! I suppose we could milk at least 12 cows, but I think we’d probably be happiest around 6-8. Even though we’re a small dairy, we knew from the beginning we wanted a raised parlor. We’ve milked in flat parlors and it is hard on the knees and back. Thanks for watching!
My vote for delivery day, MAYDAY! 5/1/21
That’s soon! Stay tuned!
Are you doing milk with both stalls this time
Probably. We used both stalls occasionally last season. Just depends on the cow flow. With an extra cow this season, I can see both being used more. I’ll still probably only use one machine, just because once you factor in the additional washing and sanitizing, they’ll be no time saved. Still plan to put in a pipeline in the future though. Thanks for watching!
Love that parlor. Few things are more exciting than calf watch. Glad you are ready to go. Could you share the source of the new wall racks? I’ve been looking for something like that to hold brushes and a few small tools.
It’s just from Home Depot. It’s by the brooms and mops and such.
Thanks so much. I seldom shop the BB stores, but I’ll make this exception.
We originally saw them at a friend’s creamery, so we asked them where they got them. We made a special trip to HD just to get two!
Daisy - Late night May 3rd
Hopefully not too late! Haha!
Are you planning on restoring the manure spreader
Actually, yes! Maybe “restore” is too strong of word. I do plan to fix it up though. I do already have some new steel for it. I was thinking of replacing the floor, but with lumber prices these days, I don’t know! Haha! Right now I’m still using it too much to tear it down, but once the barn is cleaned out I’ll start working on it.
@@vnthomas16 so fixing it up is a better term
Was always amazed those hose holders had held together at the age they must have been. They don't like the clock! Too bad they couldn't have done Surge orange for you... Thanks for the vids. Good luck in calving!
I figure the old ones were from at least the 80’s. Technically, they were still functional, just not pretty! I figured it was ok to splurge and get new ones! Haha! The red actually complements the orange pretty good. Better than the old ones! Thanks for watching!
when do you think youl start using both stalls in the parlor? my cows bagged up way before they calved hope thats not the case for you guys
We occasionally used both stalls last season, it just depends on cow flow. I can imagine using it more this year however. I’ll still only use one machine. The cleaning and sanitizing of the second machine would cancel out any time saved in actual milking in the parlor. Still plan to put in a pipeline eventually though.
5 de Mayo calf!
Noted! Stay tuned!
We milk 60 cows with nu pulse claws.... they don't stand up to cows kicking them off and snap to the point that we have to keep 10 spares on hand... I know they're cheap but I'm not sure it's worth it
We haven’t broke one yet... Luckily our cows aren’t much in the habit of kicking! (We’ll see how Daisy is!) Even with the drawbacks, the time proven simplicity and just a single hose make them my favorite. Thanks for watching!
Daisy. May 9th
Noted! Thanks for watching!
What are the due dates of your other cows so I can guess on them? You should have a contest
Does this mean you'll be pulling in my drive with the KW with my fresh order ?????? lol
Don’t know how “fresh” it would be without a refer trailer! Haha!
What size pvc pipe is your vacuum line ?
Hi! It’s 2” schedule 40. Thanks for watching!
are you going to butcher the steers
Yes, eventually.
Can I visit your Farm ?
We sometimes do farm tours. Please feel free to contact us through our website.
April 1st?! You know, April Fools Day :)
oops! That's embarrassing! This lock down covid thing has got me more messed up than I realized. I change my day to May 1st.? :) Good day to ya! Best to you in the calving season ahead :)
We’ve got you down for next year’s calving season! Haha!
@@vnthomas16 Hopefully, by then, I'll be doing better at knowing what month it is! :)