Mike Gross

“I manage the Dairy. We milk 330 cows here and my job is to make sure they are comfortable and healthy. I trim most of the cow’s hooves myself. We treat all of the fresh cows every morning, after they fresh, we give them a calcium bolus, vitamin mineral bolus and roman bolus. The milkers start at 2:00 in the morning and then again at 1:45 in the afternoon. I go to the diary at 7:30 in the morning and make sure all is going well. We have 20 milking stations and it takes four plus hours to milk all the cows. I have three milkers, two to milk and one relief milker, so they can get some days off. I also have two helpers in the back; one feeds the calves and one for the heifers. We have a breeder who comes every morning to chalk the cows. When the cows are in heat, they ride each other and that rubs off the chalk, that way he knows which ones are in heat. He checks her first and then he will artificially inseminate her if she’s ready to breed. The dairy is a constant job; you can’t say…”let’s shut her down and take a day off”. Everyday 24/7. The milk truck comes out every other day and our milk goes to Spokane. They separate it there and the cream goes to Portland for ice cream. We’re very clean here always testing for bacteria and such. Most of the time at the colony the jobs are passed down to the next generation, so my son will probably take over the dairy.”

#agriculture #hutteriancolony #dairy