Producers

Before he left on Friday, Robert Henderson gave us some suggestions for things we might want to do around town. Saturday morning we headed into downtown Grants Pass for the Growers Market.

It was foggy and chilly but we enjoyed looking at what was available. We got a loaf of bread and Dwayne got a donut. This was the last Saturday that they will have the market outside; next Saturday it will be held in a building at the Josephine County Fairgrounds (out near where we are staying and where Henderson's is located).

Robert had mentioned Rogue Creamery as a cheese maker in Central Point, Oregon, but earlier in the week we had talked with another lady who mentioned a dairy outside of town that did robotic milking and I realized when I looked up Rogue Creamery that the dairy for the cheese maker was the one she had told me about. I saw that they had a tour at 11am on Saturdays, so after the Growers Market, we headed to the dairy.  http://www.roguecreamery.com/store/content/399/Dairy-Farm/

We found out that today was last Saturday that they will be doing the tour this season (it will be getting muddy and yucky) so we were happy to have gone out there today! They also have self-guided tours, I don't know whether they allow you to walk around on the self-guided tours all year long or not.

Not only did we get to see the cows, we also were accompanied on much of the tour by one of the dairy-hands' kitties.

 Our tour was led by the herd manager, who has recently come on board here from New York State (I just tried to look him up on the website and I guess it has not yet been updated with his picture and name, and I don't remember his name). He and his family enjoy being in a more temperate climate. He had not previously worked on an organic farm but seems to enjoy it (albeit needing to alter some of the techniques he has used in the past - he mentioned needing to get approval to use a de-horning ointment that he had used in the past).

This was the maternity ward (for some reason I only got pictures of their heads through into the eating area and not of the area itself!). About 3 weeks before they are to calve, the cows are brought into this area to be more closely watched and to change what they are fed. The little girl in the pink top was quite the energetic youngster....

...She also liked kitty cats....

...very, Very....

....VERY much!

The kitty was SO sweet and gentle - he continued to come back for more hugs from the little girl, as well as rubbing pretty much every one of the other guests looking for petting.

I remember a picture (or maybe it was in a video?) of me when we lived at the house on route 608 and I'm holding our huge orange tabby cat (Sunshine) just like this little girl is holding this cat - it seems to me that in the picture with me, the cat's hind legs are almost on the ground because he was so big and I was so small.

Next we saw the young calves. They stay in these separate calf huts until they are weaned (I think he said at about 3 months of age). I can't remember the name of the breed of this one - and I think it may have been a type of cross with Holstein. This one was about a month old, but had been born a month early so was still very small.

Another of the calves - this was the herd manager's son's favorite so he got to name it - the son's name is Jake, and he named the calf Jake too!

This is the milk bucket nipple feeder that they use for feeding the calves. They put the bucket feeders on the fences and then come along and put the milk in for each calf all down the line - instead of using bottles. He said that using the buckets is quicker and that the buckets are also easier to clean than bottles.

These are weanlings. It isn't clear from the picture, but there were Jersey crosses (they were mostly very very dark brown, almost black, and looked more like Angus than Jerseys) and Brown Swiss too.

We got to see the robotic milkers. It was fascinating to watch - this one is named "Charlie"...

... and this one is named "Matilda" (yes, the robots are named).

The robotic milking was fascinating to me, primarily because of the data that it collects (remember that I was called "Data Princess" at IBM) and how that data is used in their production. Each cow has an RFID in her ear that signals to the gating mechanism in the building who she is. The gates will only allow her into the milking area if her RFID indicates that it is time for her to come in, generally based on her production level though it can also be set to an amount of time since her last milking too. He mentioned that one of their cows that is a very heavy producer can come in about every 4 hours if she wants; others come in only twice a day or so. The sensors compare information about this cow from one milking to the next - temperature, blood content, other factors that I don't remember - and if there are any characteristics that would cause the milk to be rejected (also including milking early in the lactation that contains colostrum), the herd manager gets a message on his phone, and the milk is diverted so it does not go into the container with the rest of the milk. The machine then goes into a complete cleaning cycle so none of the hoses or containers have residue of that rejected milk when it starts milking the next cow. With the text, he knows if there is a cow that needs his attention. He said that he thinks that he becomes aware of an issue with a cow earlier with the robotic milker than with the previous systems he had used -- for example, the temperature may signify onset of mastitis before it would be detected by the human who would have attached the milker claw in a non-robotic environment (I think this is what he said... it's what I heard!). The data collection keeps information about each cow so her statistics are compared to her own prior statistics (instead of just to a "cow average"). The grain - I think both composition and amount, definitely amount - that the cow gets is supplied based on her production and how frequently she comes in. The grain delivery mechanism stops providing feed when the robot has detected that 3 of her quarters have been stripped, so her food pan should be empty by the time the gate opens for her to leave.

Isn't that fascinating from a data point of view????

Finally we saw the large open-span barn where the cows can come in to get some hay. I think due to the organic standards they need to get some minimum percentage of their intake from pasture, so they don't actually provide them with a lot of hay to eat here, or not at this time of year.

 He also told us that the bedding in the barn is made from recycling the manure. I can't remember all that he told us about it, but the barn is constantly washed out and the waste materials are transferred to a facility (on the farm) that separates the solids and liquid. The liquid goes into a "lagoon" that is used to irrigate and fertilize the pasture (during the fall/winter when the cows are not grazing on it so heavily - during the spring and summer the pasture is irrigated from the Rogue River that runs behind the farm). The solids are composted (I think that's the right term - I think he said it had to reach a particular temperature and be turned over and come up to that temperature again) and ultimately returned to the barn to be the bedding that the cows can stand or lay on. By doing this, he feels that he is not bringing in harmful bacteria or using up wood resources or incurring the expense of obtaining wood chips or other bedding.

Way over there against the far wall is a cow-massager/scratcher. It turns on when it is moved and spins kind of like a bristle brush at a car wash... the cow under it was there the whole time we were in this area of the barn - she must have had a very itchy spot that needed attention!

I think it was something like this one: https://www.delaval.com/en-us/our-solutions/cow-comfort/cow-brushes/

All in all a very interesting day, getting to see growers or producers of some of the foods that we enjoy!