We don’t like to class ourselves as animals but when we pass the bar on Saturday night and occasionally see the boys in a brawl in the parking lot it reminds me of young bulls fighting in a pasture.
Humans are accepted as being the most intelligent animals at the top of the food chain. When I see little birds returning from the south each spring to the same barn loft or the same branch in the same tree they were hatched in, I think of some people getting lost visiting an old friend only a few miles from home and I wonder if we really are that smart.
For the last few years, I have had the opportunity to sit on an interim board for the proposed Villa James Shaw retirement home project, working with the other board members. We are trying to determine the size, configuration, needs and a hundred other necessary criteria for a new place to retire to.
Because I’m an old retired farmer I tend to simplify things as much as possible. The longer I work with the other directors trying to work out the needs of my neighbours who might want to live in this proposed home, the more I see the similarities between building a new dairy barn and a new retirement home.
The first thing that any successful businessman will look at before even thinking of building is location, location, location. Gas stations and Tim Horton’s are most successful if they are built on a busy corner with lots of car flow close by.
Because, even in Canada, we have more trouble with keeping cows cool on hot days than we have keeping them warm on cold days. Remember that ideal cow temperature is 42 degrees Fahrenheit or 5.5 degrees centigrade, so most new barns are built where there is plenty of cross ventilation.
A retirement home should be close to medical aid, (like a hospital, medical centre, doctors and a dentist). It should be close to churches, (and even a chapel in the building). It should be in a quiet residential area.
Building orientation is important for a dairy barn to make best use of the winter sunlight, cross ventilation to help keep the cows cool in summer and to provide a pleasant view of the countryside for the employees that milk the cows, (milking the cows is the only time that a dairy farmer collects money every day). Eve height must be high enough to allow adequate air flow to cool the cattle. Eve overhang must be calculated to allow maximum winter sunlight to enter the barn (when the sun is low in the sky) but also restrict the hot sunlight from shining into the barn in the summer, (when the sun is higher in the sky). The air that an animal breathes must be fresh and free from airborne bacteria that might affect their health.
When our old friend, Dr. Rogers, entered a barn the first thing he did was smell the air. That told him that the ventilation and air change was adequate to get rid of damp, foul smelling, bacteria carrying air.
If the air is not changed enough, damp moist air can harbor molds and bacteria that will increase sickness and eventually result in increased death rates in animals. Baby calves are very susceptible to respiratory disease. Air movement in barns is best conducted on hot muggy days using an air velocity meter, a smoke machine, or a bubble machine.
Time management of a milk cow’s life is very important. There are only 1,440 minutes in a day and the milk cows most productive time is spent being milked, (about 10 minutes every time she is milked); drinking water, (a cow drinks about half her daily water intake just after being milked); eating, (she likes to eat just after drinking water); lying down resting, (a cow produces up to three times as much milk per minute lying down because of increased blood flow through her udder, than when she is standing or walking); socializing and grooming is as important to a cow as it is to a human.
Cows that stand around not eating, drinking, being milked, socializing, or resting are wasting time. Most people in their mid 80s don’t like standing around, waiting for elevators, or walking long distances to have their meals. (They don’t move as fast as teenagers either).
Most retirement homes that I have visited provided six meals and snacks each day, (breakfast, morning coffee snack, dinner, afternoon tea or juice and snack, supper and bedtime snack). All residents were also reminded and invited to the various activity rooms for games, music shows, church, exercise and other activities on a daily basis. (People, like cows, like to socialize and activities are good for their health as well).
To maximize the production of a dairy cow, the farmer has to remove all stress. The air, water and food must be the very best for the cow. The bed and the floor must be comfortable.
Most cow beds now are either water beds or rubber filled mattresses. Barn floors used to be cement but now most are covered with three quarter inch rubber mats to reduce sore feet and joint problems. Mechanical cow brushes turn on, brush and groom cows that stand under them.
Most new dairy barns that are built today are planned for expansion by forward planning of all aspects of the dairy. Many new dairy barns are in the planning stages for five to ten years.
Farmers visit and analyze other modern, efficient barns before final plans are made and construction begins. An agricultural engineer once told me, “It’s a lot easier and less expensive making changes to paper plans than making changes after the cement is poured.”
Let’s hope that more time and effort is spent researching, designing and planning a retirement home that some of our community builders will spend the rest of their days in than we spend building a cow barn.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family
for generations.gladcrest@gmail.com
