On April 28, the West Luther dairy club’s first meeting was held at the Roesink’s dairy farm.
We did a roll call. We then had elections for the positions of: president, vice president, secretary, and press reporter. Next we went on a tour of the barn; the Roesinks milk 100 cows twice a day.
On the tour we saw a robot scraper that cleans up manure. They have a free stall barn which means the cows are free to wander. We also saw two giant fans for ventilation. Cows are first bred with artificial insemination and if that doesn’t work farmers use a bull. We each got a weigh tape to monitor our calf’s growth, height and weight.
That tape can also be used to measure the approximate weight of an adult cow; the one we tried it on was just over 600kg.
We then judged a class of showing shoes and played a matching game. We finished our meeting with snacks. Everyone laughed, learned, and most importantly had fun. Our next meeting is June 30 at Clovermead Farms.
