Morning calf feeding and chores

  1. Check calf count – if there are new calvings in slack or new calves on the calf report, the count may need updated on the board.  If there are discrepancies that cannot be resolved based on the information in slack or on the calf report, you may have to walk through the calves before updating the count.
  2. Go to the alley and do the following:
    • Give grain to bank barn calves
    • Check Prefresh 1 for fresh cows, note them in slack
    • Get milk replacer
  3. Return to the milk house and do the following:
    • Mix milk and put it in bottles
    • Fill water buckets
    • For very cold days, fill a bucket with hot water for thawing calf buckets
    • Load bottles and water buckets on the ventrac
  4. Drive to the calf hutches and do the following:
    • Distribute bottles to hutch calves
    • Feed bottles to calves in the bull pen
    • Return to hutches and help any calves that did not finish their bottles
  5. While at the hutches, do the following – the order of these is not important, but they should all be done in this block of work
    • Empty water buckets
    • Refill water buckets
    • Feed grain to hutch calves
    • Collect bottles from hutches
    • Feed grain to the calf barn calves
  6. Drive to prefresh 2 and check for fresh cows.  Note them in slack.
  7. Return to the milk house and wash bottles and buckets completely.
  8. Treat calves that need clavamox and naval dips
  9. Write calf feeding report in slack
  10. Take care of any fresh cows / new calves.  As much as possible do it in the exact order below:
    • Move the cow to the milking barn.  Note that if there is any concern about the milk truck timing, it is okay for the cow to wait in the cow lane until milk pickup is complete.
    • Move the calf to an empty hutch or the bull pen.
    • Feed colostrum as soon as it is available.  If colostrum will not be available soon, thaw out a bag of frozen colostrum.
    • Tag the calf and give the prescribed treatments (heifers only).  Note that this can be done before feeding colostrum if you are waiting on colostrum.
    • Record pertinent information in slack
  11. Go to milking barn – clean freestalls and scrape crossovers
  12. Return to the calf hutch area and do the following
    • Take hay to calf barn calves as needed
    • Bed pens and hutches as needed
    • Scrape manure from heifer and dry cow pens
    • When scraping manure, note any new fresh cows in slack for the afternoon workers.
  13. Return Ventrac to utility room, and do skid loader work as needed
    • Get a hay bale for the bank barn calves as needed
    • Move pellets, starter, and milk replacer pallets as needed.  This should be done once or twice a week, and the whole pallet should be moved in rather than moving a few bags at a time.
  14. Change tank chemical, tank wash connections, and milk filter (instructions here)