Heat Day 6...ummm, not really

I wasn't feeling well this morning to I was extra glad Joe came and milked with Bruce.  Joe took care of most of the calves but I did feed the newest one.  I was a bit concerned last night because she wouldn't drink.  It's not totally abnormal for that to happen during the transition between milk and milk replacer but with this heat the game becomes different.  She had lots of energy last night so I hoped all she had was a stomach upset.  This morning and again tonight she ate very aggressively with no signs of trouble so I suspect that was the case.  By early afternoon it was pretty obvious that it wasn't going to be as miserable today as it had been so Bruce was kicking himself that he didn't let the cows out.  The combination of a 20% humidity drop and clouds made it a basic summer day.  Bruce spent the afternoon cleaning calf pens in the barn.  That is a job that desperately needed doing but until today there was always cropping or enough heat stress in their lives already that cleaning pens waited. Along with pen cleaning and bedding was reorganizing everyone.  Now I have 2 pens empty and waiting for the outside calves to come in.  I am excited since 3 of them have been weaned for quite awhile.  I have been carrying everything they need out to the hutches and the bigger they get, the more I carry.  All but 1 can come in and I can start the weaning process once they are comfortable with their new surroundings. Soon, with the addition of the ones that are due, I will only have 3 calves to feed!!!

Darran came today and picked up our milk, and as predicted, we are down 500# over 4 milkings.  That isn't exactly the case because there are also 2 fresh cows in the tank that weren't included in the before heat measurement so it could easily be 800# or more.  Darran reports that his route is down 25,000# with this heat. Perhaps the good news is, if this is a problem for a large part of the dairy industry the price might stay high beyond our contracted milk.  The flip side of that is time will tell how many of  the cows will come back up on  production.  Chances are we won't have as much milk to sell by then.