So today is my last day at the dairy farm - I'm leaving in just a few hours - and I'm really quite sad to leave. I've only been here 3 days but I've had such a wonderful time. I have really enjoyed being out of the city, spending my time outside, working with the cows, and staying with such a wonderful family. This whole experience here has reminded me how much I enjoyed WWOOFing in the states and making me want to get back to it.
Mainly, I am really happy to be out of the hustle and bustle of the city. Although I do enjoy that, life out here is so much more relaxed. The kids in this family (Jordan & Ashton) are involved in lots of activities and it's not that their never rushing here and there, but overall life just seems so much more relaxed, so much less complicated.
Maybe I enjoy WWOOFing so much as well because I have mainly landed myself with extremely caring and welcoming families. It is so nice to be somewhere where you feel so at home and where everyone makes a solid effort to spend time together. It's not like this doesn't happen in the city, but here family time seems so much more real. There are fewer distractions both inside and outside the home. Meals are eaten together, and everyone seems to enjoy being together. This seems true for most of the families I've stayed with so far in my WWOOFing experiences. The boys aren't running off to play their gameboy or Wii, the girls aren't all obsessed with brand names clothes and makeup. It's just so nice to be somewhere away from all of those trivial distractions.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that so far I've been very lucky to end up in all the WWOOFing places I have, all the families are great, and maybe I should really start to reconsider my previous aversion to living in the country. Not that I wouldn't still want to live near a big city or decent sized town, but out here where you can see for miles and miles and life is more simple and relaxed I find that I am just much happier. I am more confident being me, I am more relaxed about what the future holds, I am not so worried about everything. I have just really enjoyed my time here with Nigel and Vicki and Jordan and Ashton and I need to start doing more of this in my life and less of that big city stuff.
Now, onto some more about the happenings at the farm these last few days and what I've learned about cows. This information may come out a bit discomboulated but I just want to get it down as best I can.
Yesterday we had 8 more calves, bringing the farm up to around 40 so far for this year. The calf that I saw being born the other day, 19, is doing great. She is feeding very well and seems quite healthy and happy and alert. I have told them they need to make sure and keep her alive as I will be coming back to visit again and I would like her to still be here.
As for the other calves, 2 of them were sold off today. So how it works is they will get about 240 calves this year. A handful maybe will die - they've had 3 so far, one was as still born, one was premature calf that didn't make it, and one drowned in the drain - and the majority of the remaining calves will be sold off, either to other farms or to the meat packing plant for veal that will be exported to the States. They will keep about 40 female calves on the farm, as replacements for the ones that will be lost from the herd this year for various reasons. The two that left today were both females. They will go to another farm here in New Zealand to grow a bit and then be shipped to China where they will be used on a dairy farm there. That is what happens to most of the female calves that are sold. The males calves tend to have one of three fates, either grow up to be a bull used to breed, grow up to be a bull used for meat (hamburger meat since they are dairy cows by genetics and will not have meat good enough for a steak), or don't grow up and be a nice veal steak and calf skin wallet.
As I said before, or I'm assuming I said, they have 240 female dairy cows on the farm. They do not have any males here. They will rent them from time to time during breeding season if needed. They breed their cows using artificial insemination but not all become pregnant this way so they will bring in a bull or two each year to impregnate the rest. The bulls are able to tell which cows are not pregnant much better than a human ever could. With the 240 cows, they will get about 240 calves as all the cows are breed every year. They don't start breeding them, however, until they are 1 year old so they won't give birth to their first calf until they are 2, as their gestations period is 9 months, same as a human.
The milk from the cows on this farm is sent to a processing plant where it is turned in to milk powder. Vicki, the wife, has never tried milk from her own farm. She prefers pasteurized, store bought milk, however she has tried fresh milk from a different farm.
During a cow's first pregnancy, the udders can become quite tights and to prevent infection their teats are filled with an artificial plug, looks something like caulk. Cows will produce a natural keratin plug that helps prevent infection but the young ones need assistance with this. When they go to be milked for the first time this plug needs to be cleared out before the cow can be milked. It is really gross and almost looks like a pimple being popped or something. It's white and a bit chunky. I would recommend not every seeing this process happen - it's just too disgusting. I was watching once and almost started gagging.
Because cows are herd animals, they cannot be left alone for too long. The other night we had to move a cow who was being kept separately with her calf in with some other cows because being kept alone even for just one night can make a cow crazy.
The cows are sold off the farm as adults for many reasons including failure to get pregnant and bad temperament. They are either sold to other farms who want to see if they can get the cow pregnant or are turned into hamburger. The going price for a cow at the meat packing plant can range anywhere from NZD$300 to NZD$700 depending on supply. This time of year, since most adult females are calving, the price is quite high because supply is very low.
If cows are let onto a frosty pasture and start grazing, they will get a cold stomach (the equivalent of a cold headache) and the grass they eat will die. This was a problem this morning because when we woke up today there was a proper frost on the ground. It was like a real winter morning. By this time, however, around lunch, it is very nice out - maybe high 50s.
Cow mothers are much like human mothers - some are very attached to their children, others are not. Some have great mothering instincts, others do not. When we separate the calves from their mothers, some of the mothers get very distressed and others do not seem to mind. Some cows who either have given birth and have already been separated from their calf or those who haven't yet given birth will try to mother other calves, some will feel very threatened by other calves and be quite mean to them.
Okay, that's all I have for now. I'm sure over the next few days I will have lots more facts to share with you as I have time to write and as I remember all that I've learned.
Best!
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