Benefits of Testing Milk

Last night we attended the annual Dairy Herd Improvement Association's {DHIA} annual dinner and award presentation.  DHIA tests the milk from our entire milking herd on a monthly basis.

This is not a mandatory test, this is a management tool that some dairies choose to use. The testing tells us how many pounds of milk each cow produces, the percentage of butter fat and the percentage of protein in the milk and also provides information on somatic cell counts on each cow.

{This is not to be confused with the mandatory testing that occurs with each and every truck load of milk on a daily basis that tests for antibiotics}.

You can view how the milk is tested and read more about the benefits and why we test our milk on a previously written post, Milk Testing, Why We Do It, if you'd like.

Sixty-four dairy farms in the North Bay area of California participate in this milk testing program.  Within our North Bay area, out of the 64 herds, awards are given to the 'Top Ten Herds Milking'.

And you can't have an award ceremony without some good food.  Appetizers were delicious!  Bryce was all over the fruit platter.

And when he finished with the fruit, he went for the garnish - kale- surrounding the fruit.

And then he went back for seconds and thirds of kale.....no kidding.

Jimmy's Catering provided the food for the event and it was so good.

And after dinner, a little juke box dance party happened.

A late night for the kids, being a school night and all.  I guess once in a while it doesn't hurt.

I love to hear from you! To leave a comment, click on the “Post a Comment” link below. Have a peaceful day.


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Milk Testing & Why We Do It

We have our dairy cow's milk tested once a month through the Dairy Herd Improvement Association {DHIA}.  This is not a mandatory test, this is a management tool that some dairies choose to use.  The testing tells us how many pounds of milk each cow produces, the percentage of butter fat and the percentage of protein in the milk and also provides information on somatic cell counts on each cow. 

{This is not to be confused with the mandatory testing that occurs with each and every truck load of milk on a daily basis that tests for antibiotics}.

You may ask if this is not a mandatory test, why do we do it?

This is important to a dairy farmer because it allows us to see when a cow begins to decline in milk production and we can then move her to a different string of cows, where they are given a different feed ration. The drop in milk production is normal in the lactation cycle of a cow.   The testing will also help to identify cows that have dropped off significantly in milk production from one month to the next where we can then check to see if there might be something wrong that may have caused the drop off in milk production.

This information is really important to document on a national scale.  It provides information for bull studs.  For instance, if a particular bull has sired many daughters that produce a high volume of milk, a dairy farmer may then choose to purchase semen from that same bull to artificially inseminate one or many of the cows in his herd.

There are numerous reports that can be utilized by using the DHIA Plus program, I've only mentioned a few  of them.

Here is the rack of samples from each individual cow taken at our last testing this past Friday.

Alex, our 'tester' has been testing herds for the past 50 years.

After taking a sample, the milk weight is entered into the computer, which then goes to a data processing center located in Provo, Utah.  Our cows are milked twice in a 24 hour period and Alex tests at both milkings within that 24 hours, once a month.

Happy Tuesday!

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