Farm Skills at University

I was revising milk production the other day in preparation for upcoming exams, and it got me back to thinking about last year when I went milking in the dairy parlour with my friend Steph. We had to do two farm skills for one of our modules, so we had chosen to do feeding lactating sows first and then we had chosen to do milking. 

For feeding the sows we just had to do a little bit of maths to work out how much the pig had been fed in the morning to then work out how much they were then due. This went really quickly, I think taking about 20 minutes. It all went fine and we actually enjoyed it chatting away to the pigs haha! You could tell they were hungry as they all dived their heads in straight away and were going crazy before hand... and dribbling! Lovely! We got to one pig just before the end and noticed she had loads of food left over and was very unactive so we decided not to feed her. We told the man, who had originally told us what to do, when we had finished and he told us that we did the right thing as she was basically very weak, and had about 4 of her piglets fostered onto other sows and she had also sat on one at birth and another had starved. She was only rearing 4 piglets in the end, and he told us that she would unfortunately be culled after weaning as she was not profitable for the farm. Sad, but understandable. 

This is not a picture from the shed where we fed them but through a window of the building where the pigs give birth. This was on the first day of my course induction, we were on a farm tour and were lucky enough to see the pigs giving birth. Not something you expect to see on your first proper day!

We had been looking forward to doing milking, until other people on our course told us how horrible it was, and how a cow had pooed all over their shoulder... nice! Luckily just before I went out the door to go to milking, one of my agriculture flatmates threw some overalls at me, telling me I might need them! Needless to say I was very grateful... and might have to invest in a pair myself if I am doing anymore farm skills. When we got there they gave us some aprons and sleeves and then we headed off to the cow sheds. We were walking through them trying to get them to go down the track to the milking parlour. I was a little scared as they are huge animals and I'd never been that close to them before... but it was fine and I was concentrating a lot on not slipping over in the shed and landing in a pile of crap. Although it would have been funny for everyone else I really did not fancy that. Luckily it did not happen! 

Once in the milking parlour the cows seemed to know exactly what to do really and were all really calm, apart from the occasional one that tried to kick us. 

 

This is the milking parlour, it basically rotates slowly all the way round. The cows come in from the door on the left, their udders are cleaned before they reach the black mat on the left hand side and then the clusters are applied. They then continue round on the roatary system and by the time they reach the other side they should be fully milked and the clusters will automatically release. Iodine is then applied and they leave through the door on the right and follow a track back to the sheds. 

This picture is taken from the viewing platform of the parlour, you get quite a good view of the milking from there.

Just imagine the guy in the picture has long blonde hair and the cows are maybe kicking a bit more and then you can just imagine it was me in the picture. Also at the end I had to apply some iodine and one of the cows really didn't like it and kicked, this caused the bottle of iodine to fly out of my hand and was going round on the rotary system with the cows... oops. One of the staff their managed to get it back though so it was fine.

 

Overall, Steph and I enjoyed the experience despite it being freezing cold, as it was in the evening late last year. We arrived at the parlour at 2.45pm and didn't finish until about 5pm I don't think so our arms ached by the end of it and we were quite hungry.

This is a picture of one of the cow shed the other day...  definitely going to rain by the looks of things!

This cow was quite intigued by my phone... and came very close to licking it! I did try to get her to do it again but on video but it didn't happen... never mind. Got this deligful video below though, which does make me laugh! 

I'm planning to try and do some more farm skills next year is I can as I did really enjoy them. One of the things on my list is lambing! I thought about doing it this year but didn't sign up and I so wish I had as it sounds absolutely brilliant! Hopefully next year... we will see!!