Cow Comfort, Milk Quality, and Snow...

How are cow comfort, milk quality and snow related?

Good question!

The snow has nothing at all to do with the other two, but I threw that in there because last night we had our first snow of the season!  It didn't amount to much, but it came all of a sudden and made the roads a little slick. This morning there's just a trace left, but the cold air is hanging around!  It "feels like" 5 degrees out there right now.  Brrr...thankfully there's not much wind...

Taken from inside the house where any sensible person would stay for as long as possible.  See the screen?

On to the other two...cow comfort and milk quality...

I would have have to do a lot of research...and no, I haven't done it...to find out just how closely the two are related, but we're wondering.  Here's our line of thinking...

First, the cow comfort part...

Back in May, we had a row of cow mattresses put in the barn.  At that time, we only did one row of stalls, because we weren't sure just how we (and the cows) would like them.  Were they worth the money?  Over the course of a few months, we were won over to the idea of replacing more mats with mattresses.  In November, we had two more rows of mats replaced.

Now for the milk quality part...

Each time the milk truck comes, the driver takes two samples of milk from our tank.  One of the samples is used to test the quality of the milk, which helps to determine the price we are paid for our milk.  We have always had good milk quality, but since the first row of mats went in, our somatic cell counts have been slowly dropping.  Since the second and third rows went in, our SSC have dropped dramatically, which translates to great milk quality!

Could the two be related?

We wonder!  Jim's always been very conscientious about cow cleanliness, but could the cows' comfort be playing a big role as well?

Either way, we're not complaining!

Cow Mattresses...

Yesterday we had some special accommodations put in for a few of the cows.

We have four rows of stalls in our cow stable, and each stall has a non-slip, rubber mat installed on top of the concrete.  The reasons for the mat are two-fold...non-slip...which helps to prevent tramped teats and other injuries...and cow comfort.

The rubber mats wear out eventually, and it was time to make some replacements. Jim opted to go with cow mattresses in the third row...he figured it was time to try something different.

I was busy in the morning while they were being installed, and I missed some good photo-ops.  I'll try to describe what happened in the absence of a lot of step by step pictures.

First...the old rubber mats were torn out.  The guys used a digging iron, and popped the mats loose from their concrete anchors.  They then scraped the concrete clean of any loose fodder or sawdust bedding that had gotten underneath the mats.

Next...the mattresses arrived, and the mostly Amish crew began the installation.   The first layer looked kind of like a big rubber raft, like you'd float on in a swimming pool.  I'm not sure how else to describe it.  The second layer looked like a really thick piece of carpet padding.  Both layers were wrapped and sealed inside of a non-slip, water proof, canvas type of material.  The way they are designed, they should stay in place better than the old mats, and loose bedding shouldn't get underneath.

Here's a picture of the guys putting on the finishing touches...

Here's an up close shot of the new mattresses.  They'll never be this clean again...

Cows are leery of new things...so we tried to make them look as "normal" as possible, by putting plenty of sawdust on top for extra bedding...

We knew it would be interesting, when the cows came back in the barn. Anything out of the ordinary is cause for alarm...or at least suspicion.  The pile of old mats and scraps from the installation were too much to resist...

Some of the cows walked right into the stalls with no hesitation, but #280 wasn't too sure.  She had to do a lot of sniffing before she would take that final step...

Things went better than I expected overall, and they were soon all in their stalls.  One cow, however, refused to behave, and opted for a stall in the fourth row.  This morning, she still refused to step on that yellow mat.  After they get dirty enough maybe she'll be willing to try!