Today is milk check day. We get what is referred to as a "guess check" for the milk we produced from the 1st to the 15th. For whatever reason the magical payment day is the 26th of the month. The price we are paid this time is generally low for how the final payment will come out. We receive that one on the 17th....another magical date. At one point it used to be the15th and 31st. Every check has deductions for our portion of the pick up and trucking of our milk along with mandatory state, national and cwt promotions. CWT is the program that buys cows for slaughter in an effort to decrease milk output and therefore stabilize the prices that have been extremely volatile the last few years. I really can't say that it has stabilized anything but we get to "donate" anyway. I do believe this is the saddest check we have gotten in a long time. Thankfully we are done drying cows up and there are 11 cows due this month so our situation will change quickly as the month goes on. We took the opportunity to contract some of our milk from February thru September today. We are able to do this through our milk plant and its an opportunity for us to have some control of what our income will be. Already today, if I had waited, we could have contracted for .13 more. The main point is to have some control over what we get paid and protect us from a much lower price. Our milk price is based off the class III price. This is a link that explains how milk is priced. If anyone reading figures it out I hope they explain it to us : ) http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/ams.fetchTemplateData.do?template=TemplateD&navID=IndustryMarketingandPromotion&leftNav=IndustryMarketingandPromotion&page=MIBPriceDescription&description=Description
Bruce ran to town to pick up oil that was on sale and then came home and continued where he left off yesterday. He had to scrape down a silo both here and at Ed's again and also filled the feedbox. The unloader continues to give him problems but thankfully today Ed was there to take care of things on the ground and Bruce could stay in the silo. Climbing up and down 40 feet tends to be a little tiring. The silo unloader will get new augers in spring when its empty. In the meantime they will have to struggle with it until then. The heifers at Ed's got bedded after Bruce took the skid steer and dug the stacks out. The snow had drifted them under so it was time to make a path to them again. Tonight when he went to feed an elevator had a piece of metal come loose and wrap where it didn't belong. Another thing to deal with and extend the evening.....
On our creature side, the new twins mom got calcium again this morning. She still hasn't expelled all of the second placenta so we will need to watch her more closely for awhile. Her calves are good drinkers so thats all good. The older bull twin that is on penicillin is doing good. His "knees" (thats what people would call them) have opened up now and he continues to eat well and have plenty of energy to punch Bruce with his head when he comes in to give him his shot. With all the pregnancy checks caught up I created a current list of due dates, cows that need to leave and those that need to get bred. The cow with the injured teat already has mastitis in it. Thats something that is pretty much expected. After it heals she will be treated with antibiotics. In the meantime that quarter gets milked by hand to avoid further injury.
We haven't seen the sun for awhile but I am very much solar powered and already the longer days are noticeable! I like it : )
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