Workin' Wednesday

This coming Sunday is the 6th annual Agri-Palooza and last night was orientation.

Wyoming County has more cows (48,700 in 2015) than people and June is Dairy Month so the first weekend in June is the perfect opportunity to visit a local farm. Especially since everything but the food is free.

This year's chosen farm is McCormick Farms in Bliss, NY.  Check out the video of their farm on this facebook page.

McCormick's is unusual as this year's A-P will be held at 2 locations - they deal with potatoes (headed to Wise Potato Chips!) at one location and milking cows at another. Apparently the calves are raised at a third location but they've trucked some in for the tours.

There are kids activities, tours of the diary barns and milking parlor, an exhibit on the "life" of a potato, ag vendors, food, music, etc. It should be a fun day with decent weather (unlike the 93F last weekend!). I may not get to see too much of the activities as I'm working "parking" which is no where near the fun stuff so that means last nights orientation was twice as fun.

Each cow has a chip in her ear that logs how much she eats, walks, drinks, and how much milk she gives.
It's like a Fitbit for cows!!
The distance a cow walks is unique to each gal and can help determine when she is getting sick, in heat, etc.

The only picture I took was of the "merry-go-round" milking parlor. This was super cool as it's pretty new technology. The girls are trained to walk into a slot while the machine is still in motion. As she nears the end there is water dripping onto the machinery which not only cleans the machine (have you ever watched a cow chew her cud?) but since she doesn't want her head to get wet she backs off the machine.

It also has fail-safes to protect the cows. We watched one cow not back out in time or try to get on again, not sure, but the machine stopped before she got stuck, backed up a little and then she backed away. Apparently 1 new cow in the crowd can figure it out pretty fast but it took a good two weeks of misery for the whole herd to learn the process.

What are you doing for Dairy Month?