Picturing!!

Last week, we had photographer Ella Wright come to our farm to picture a couple of our cows and a heifer. The two days before picturing we kept busy with clipping and washing the cows. My older brother kept busy with uddering the cows. Part of this includes spending some time before picture day to see how many hours of milk each cow needs in each quarter to be nicely filled. They depeinding on how many hours they need and what time the cow will approximately be pictured at, he then had to make sure the quarters got milked on time.
Then when Friday came around, all the cows were washed in the morning and were fed so that they had a nice fill. We filled them by feeding them silage, hay, milk cow grain, and soaked beet pulp. Then once Ella showed up, we got the first cow ready and headed outside to get on with the harder part.
When picturing, you have one person on the halter, one person on the left side who takes care of the front left foot, someone on the right side who takes care of the front right foot, and someone behind who moves the back feet and holds the tail in place. Then you have the lucky person who gets to make noise to get the cow to put its ears forward. For us, the back legs seemed to be the most difficult to set up, but we got it done! We pictured a total of 4 cows and i senior calf. When the pictures come in I will definately post for some for you to see!!

Hoof Trimming

Today we had the hoof trimmer out on the farm. Keeping the cows' hooves trimmed is an important part of a cows health. Imagine not cutting your nails for quite a while. They would get very long and dirty and eventually they would just be getting in your way. It really wsouldn't be that great, so that is part of why we trim the cows hooves as well.
Hoof problems are unavoidable. Not taking proper care of your cows feet can lead to many different problems includung the loss of milk production or fertility. Getting the hoof trimmer out is only how you can try to fix hoof problems, but that will not make it preventable. Making sure your herd has proper nutrition can help reduce hoof problems. You wouldn't really think that the feed the cows eat would impact their hooves, but it does. Go out and check your animals feet. Make sure their hooves are being trimmed when they need to be, this will lead to a healthier, happier animal!!!

Achievement Day!

June 10-11, last week Firday through to Saturday, the Lacombe 4-H Dairy Club had its 2011 achievement day! It was an exciting two days with some great competition and great calves!
We all got there around noon to make a bedding pack and to get all the calves washed. We finished washing around 3:00. In the meantime, the peewees had already started clipping for their clipping competition! They all did a great job, especially considering how old they are!! Way to go PeeWees!!! At 4:00 our juniors and intermediates began clipping and finished around 6:00. This is when we seniors were able to begin. Unlike the junios and intermediates, we only got and hour and a half to clip. I clipped a senior yearling so I had to really rush to get her done on time. My calf(actually my little brothers calf) got a little jumpy when I tried to  clip her legs. It got so bad that my dad had to come stand by her. I managed getting a topline on her, but in the end, I didn't want to risk getting hurt, so I just left the bottom of her legs. Well, all in all the top seniors did an awesome job!! Well Done!!
Saturday morning the intermediates and seniors had to be up at 5:00 to begin setting tops. My older brother usually set our tops on show day, but since this is their last year, my sister got me to do a few as well! It was exciting to do that!! I had set many tops before for clipping competitions and such, but never on show day yet. Well, 9:30 rolled aroung and we were all in our whites! We did our little club parade and pledge and then took a few group photos!

After the pictures, we started off the show with the showmanship classes.

Peewee champion was Rueben VanderLinde. Junior champion was Rueben VanderLinde. Intermediate champion was David Verhoef. Senior champion was Metty van de Brake!

After the showmanship classes, the actual calf classes began! There were terrific classes out there including some pretty tough competition!

In the end though, judge Eric Klugkist had to choose his best ones!

Junior Grand was Jaclyn Hunter with her summer yearling! Reserve was Margriet Appel with her junior yearling! And lastly, honourable mention was Metty van de Brake with her senior calf!!

Great set of animals that all looked awesome out there!!

I am already looking forward to finishing off this 4-H year with the Provincial Dairy show in Olds this summer and the Western Canadian Classic which will also take place in Alerta this year! I will keep you updated with dates, times, and places when it in the nearer future!

Championship class line-up

Lastly, I would like to thank all who have supported me in having this blog. I will continue to keep you updated, but this is the date up to which I was to go! Thank-you so much for all you help and support! I couldn't have done this without your help!

THANK-YOU



Cleaver Kids

Cleaver Kids, also known as PeeWees, are children under the age of 9 who are able to be a part of the 4-H program. In our 4-H club, most of the members have a few younger siblings that would fit in the Cleaver Kid category. Most of these younguns end up being at most of the meetings anyhow, so this year, we decided to introduce this program to them. We currently have 5 Cleaver Kids. We have made it mandetory however, that you can only have a child as a Cleaver Kid if you also have an older sibling in 4-H. My mom is the leader of our Cleaver Kids so I always find it very intersting to listen to what the kids have all learnt after a meeting. After one meeting, on our way home, my mom was telling about how they had been going over the parts of the cow and how some of the kids had known what some of the parts were that she hadn't even thought of naming. It is impressive to hear how much these young ones already know. I think the Cleaver Kid Program is an awesome opportunity for younger kids to get involved in 4-H and all the exciting things that are brought with that! This is my 8th year in 4-H and every year I continue to learn more. Every year there are new things that are thrown at you to try out.
My younger sister is 8 and is also a Cleaver Kid. She had to pick out a March calf so my dad let her just go about it on her own. Later that day, she came home with the calf's name and eartag number and wanted to begin training right away. She had often showed as a PeeWee in some of the bigger shows, but had never gotten to train the calf on her own or gotten to walk it on her own. Well, this year it was time to change things. The first day we worked with her calf, I started by showing her how to put on the halter right. From htere we just tied her with her head up for a litle while so that she could get used to the halter. The next day, Kristy wanted to start training the calf 'for real' not just with its head tied up. So I took the calf outside a walked one circle with her, then I let Kristy take the calf on her own. Since then, no one has really helped her train her calf. We have given her pointers but haven't been aloud to take the calf from her. The other day, I was feeding calves milk during milking and I realized a calf was missing. It hadn't occured to me that it was Kristy's so I told my dad. He just laughed and told me to go check behind the barn. I went back there, and there she was.
The Cleaver Kid program is something that I think is a great idea. What is wrong with giving younger kids an opportunity to enjoy the experiences that we get to enjoy!
Here are a few pictures of Kristy training her calf and showing in Leduc.

 

 

Our Cleaver Kids have been allowed to judge and clip and from what I have heard, they are excited to be able to participate in our achievement day this weekend! I love having cleaver kids in our club!!

Dairy Congress

It's good to be home again after a busy week in Leduc last week.

Well, as I told you, my older brother and sister and the exchange students took the eight calves and two cows up to Leduc on Tuesday. They got to set up our stall, make the bedding, and wash the calves. On Wednesday, they didn't have to get up too early, so they started their day around 7:00am. They got the calves washed and by the time I got there around 2:00pm, they had even already begun settling tops for the junior show, which took place that night at 7. For the rest of the afternoon we all busied ourselves getting the rest of the toplines done and filling the calves. At 7:00 the show began and it was judged by Logan Chalack. The show went well and did not end too late. We ended up with only my sister's 2nd place senior calf in the championship class, but all-in-all, we are pretty happy with how the other calves placed.

Congratulations to Katelyn Crest of Skycrest Holsteins who had both the Grand and Reserve Champion and who also won the senior showmanship class!!

On Thursday I had a crazy day. It started with getting up to wash at 5:00am. We finished around 7, so then the three girls first got to go back for a quick shower, and then the two boys got to go after. By the time we were all back in the barn and had eaten breakfast, it was time to get ready for the judging school. Both of my older siblings judged but I led cows and calves in each class. This was finished around noon and so we had just a bit of time to grab a bite to eat before making our way back to the tent to watch the sale. Well, due to being dairy farmers, someone had to head back home to do the afternoon milking. So around 2:30, the two exchange students and I made our way home to milk. We didn't finish milking too late, but of course... when you have plans to leave again, something always has to come up. We ended up not leaving until about 9 because of a heifer who was calving. Well, we made it to the barn in Leduc a little after 10 but then couldn't go back to the trailer until almost 11 due to my brother still being busy with clipping. Well, it was somewhere around 11 that we got to sleep and then we got to start Friday off nice and early by waking up at 1:00 to wash. The show started at 10 so we needed enough time for the calves ti dry and to get toplines set. Well, the show started at 10 and we kept busy with making sure our animals were ready for each class.

Overall, we placed about half way with most of the claves. Of course there were a few at the bottom, but theres got to be someone at the bottom, right?!? Well...here are a few pictures so that you can sort of feel like you shared the experience with me!

Our Intermediate Calves

 

Our Senior Calves

Final line-up for the senior calves

Our Ex 91 - Thornspyc Goldwyn Tena

I am looking forward to letting you know about how our achievement day goes!! It is this coming Friday and Saturday, June 10&11 at the Rimbey Ag grounds. On the 10th, we hope to get settled into the barn and have our clipping competition, and then on the 11th we will have the show. It will start at 9:30 and you are absolutely more than welsome to come check it out! If you have any questions as to more details or directions, please do not hesitate to ask on either here or on my e-mail, at friends_roxs@hotmail.com .

Hope to see you there!!

First Results

As I promised, here are the results of the first show that the calves attended. It went much better than we had actually expected! We had only five calves there and the lowest placing we ended up with was fifth. My senior calf placed 5th and my intermediate calf placed 4th! Metty's senior calf placed 1st and then also became the junior reserve champion!! So that was exciting! Other than that, Metty's intermediate calf was 3rd and my older brother's summer calf was also 3rd. Overall it was very exciting especially since we had no idea how the calves might do! Well, the calves came home late Saturday night and got to rest on Sunday. On Monday we got started right away on clipping the rest of the calves that are at Leduc now and trained the calves for the last time before their next show! The animals and my older brother, sister and our exchange students left this afternoon to get our stall set up and get the calves into the bedding. I hope to head that way tomorrow afternoon to help prepare the calves for the junior show which is tomorrow night at 7:00! Feel free to drop by to check it out!
I look forward to informing you of this weeks show as well!

It's Showtime!!

It is once again that time of year when the Dairy 4-H clubs are getting ready to have their achievement day. The last week has been pretty crazy here. We have been working hard on getting the final touches done in training our calves and have begun clipping them the last two days. Our first show is tomorrow in Lethbridge. I won't be showing there myself due to not wanting to miss too much school in the next few weeks. My dad, sister and the exchange students took 5 calves down to this show. Next week, is the Leduc Dairy Congress in Leduc. My older brother and sister hope to take the calves up on Tuesday and then the Junior show is Wednesday night. I am hoping to make it to Leduc sometime after my first class on Wednesday. It gets a little difficult to be able to make it to all the shows when your still in school. But I just work it out however it can be most easily figured out! Well, Friday we will be kept nice and busy with the open show.
On Saturday we have a bit of time to rest again, but the the following week, we will be working on doing the absolute final touches with our calves of rour 4-H achievement day. We always show up in Rimbey around noon on Friday so that we can have our clipping competition that night. Everyone just camps out at and around the barn and then on Saturday we have the actual show! If you would like to come, feel free to drop by to check out how we do it!! I will let you know the actual times a little closer to the date!
Well, I guess I should probably get back to work. There are still a few calves here that need to be worked with! Let me know if you have any great training ideas or advice!!