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What do you do with all that cow poop?

Many times we get asked the question “What do you do with all the poop from the cows?”.

The pictures below are a visual of how we turn what many think of as waste into a nutrient for our crops in our quest to be a sustainable and friendly to the environment dairy farm.

Cows poop it's just part of nature.

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Making the Cow Beds

Here is a look into what goes into providing the cows on our farm clean soft comfortable beds to lie in. The pictures are from start to finish and show how we take solid manure sterilize and dry it, with a process similar to composting, the finished product is essentially soil we then use for bedding. On our farm we use 95% of the solid manure from the cows as bedding as an effort to recycle all we can and leave a minimal environmental footprint.

With use the cows tend to mess up their beds, we keep trying to get them to make their beds but to no avail.

The first thing we do is put down Hydrated Lime to dry out any wet spots, yes cows do occasionally wet the bed.

Next we mix the Lime in with what we call the Freestall Groomer, we use this piece of equipment 3 times a week to re groom the beds.

Here is what the beds look like after being groomed.

The next piece of equipment adds more bedding to the stalls.

This is the finished product a clean soft bed for the cows to lie in.

We use a process similar to composting to dry and sterilize the bedding prior to it's use.

Related articles

• Composted manure is the gardener’s best friend (sfgate.com)
• Hints, Tips and Advice on Using Manure in Your Garden (brighthub.com)

From the Fields

Every few months I contribute to the From the Fields column in the Ag Alert a weekly paper published by the California Farm Bureau Federation

A firsthand report from California farmers

February 16, 2011

Ray Prock

Ray Prock

Stanislaus County dairy farmer

This December’s record rainfall was handled very well by the systems we have in place on the dairy to comply with environmental regulations. One of the most beneficial things we have done is to install a diversion system to the rain gutters on our barns, which allows us to keep this large amount of water separate from our lagoon system. In addition to the gutter diversion, we have constructed several tailwater storage ponds over the years that have afforded us more storage capabilities.

Cheese prices, which in turn have an influence on the milk price, are moving upward at a rapid pace; however, grain and alfalfa prices are also moving up for lack of inventory. The weather of late has been fabulous and the cow’s production is a testament to that; however, we could use some more precipitation to augment the rainfall of late 2010 and early 2011.

I would also like to remind everyone that as farmers and ranchers if we are not telling our own stories someone else will tell them for us, the way they want to tell them. I urge everyone to take every chance possible to tell their story and to “build bridges, connecting communities.”

via From the Fields.

Cow games – Follow the leader – Wordless Wednesday

Here you can see how much our cows love to walk on the rubber mats that we have for them.

Taking requests

Wordless Wednesday is a blog concept where a picture is posted and words are not the focus of the posting. We have decided to join in on the WW fun and started last week with “Can I get a hand for an itch?”.

Do you have a picture you would like to see?

For this week and weeks to come please send in you requests for various piuctures from around the dairy and we will do our best to post them. If you have a request just leave a comment to this post.

Can I get a hand for an itch?

My neck itches, can you offer a scratch?

Here is a post perfect for Wordless Wednesday because no words were used to get a helping hand.