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Need more info? See the movie! See their pictures
In here they catch and separate the cows.
Leading the cattle to a new pasture.
Heifers (young cow) at their pen at bijou dairy. They have about 1000 dairy cows.
Calves in their pen.
Sheds for the calves.
This man brought 2 calves to the hoof trimmer, he drove 1,5 hour to get here.
Eddie trimming the claws of the 2 calves.
Some cattle near the road.
Unloading cattle at the sales barn.
Feeding the cows with a truck at Bijou Dairy.
Watching Cara roping calves.
Some of the bisons.
Cara roping a calf.
One of the windmills they use to pump drinking water for the cattle.
This is a picture of a few cattle standing in a feed lot. Cattle that are raised for slaughter are grain fed, so they are kept in plots that do not contain grass and are fed in troughs.
Cows goes in the ‘robot’ for milking
Bringing the dairy cows from the pasture to the barn for milking.
I going to take you through the live of young stock. It starts with the birth. The feet of the calfs are coming out and are pointing in the right direction.
I am going to take you through the process of hoof trimming. Here you can see the empty hoof trimming stand.
Bringing our cows in so we can spray them for lice and flies and then branding our calves.
Mineral tubs we give the cows.
Getting cows from the pasture. Our quad makes this job much easier. As soon as the cows hear the noise of this quad they already move to the fence.
In most paces the land for cattle is large and spread out. As you can see here, there is alot of room for the cattle to move around
Cow goes in the robot for milking
The newly born calf has just arrived. Everything went good and the cow and the calf are both in good condition.
They already know where to go.
We are known for cows in the pasture. We have an ideal climate for grass, we let our cows graze in the pasture. In this way we don’t have to silage the grass and bring out the manure. But where the cow shits on the meadow, the grass is not eaten for a while.
This is a cow in the trimming stand.
All 26 of our cows in the lane where we can split the cows and the calves.
We have to haul water to our cows.
Many farmers and ranchers have ponds, as you can see here, that allow the cattle to drink freely and the rain fills it back up. If there is not a pond available, large water tanks are set out and occasionally people will use old tractor tires as water tanks, such as the ones you've seen in other pictures.
All of our cows split off from the calves are ready to be pushed through the other lane where we can spray them as they go through.
The brush for cleaning the weaning
After calving, we immediately give the first milk of the mother to the calf. The first milk is really important because it holds all the antibodies which will keep the calf healthy.
Going around these fences. On the other side is a ditch were cows don’t go through either.
Even the dairy cows are outside, they are brought to the milking parlour in the afternoon. And they stay inside for the night.
This cow was crippling. It became clear that it had to do with an Infectious disease. The best cure for this is using medication directly on the hoof and covered with bandage.
Cattle that are raised for dairy or for other purposes, including breeding cattle are grass fed. This is a large pasture during the spring that has been allowed to grow over the winter. The cattle are rotated through pastures so that they will always have grass.
Pushing the last of one group of our cows through the lane so my uncle can spray them.
We were allowed to see how Angus cows, longhorns, pigs and sheep changed in a split-second from animal to meat.
Cow during the milking proces.
The brush is cleaning the weaning
Directly after milking the first milk is being fed to the calf. The milk has to be at body temperature.
The cows go directly in the barn where we can put them in a waiting room for milking.
The cows can drink water here. The solar panel on top powers a pump. If there aren’t any cows drinking the water, the energy gets stored in a battery. This is convenient on cloudy days like these.
This is the claw before trimming. Before you trim the cow you must take good notice of the way the cow walks. Also the color difference is a good indicator of any infection.
All of our calves split off and in a holding pen waiting to be pushed through the lane to the branding table.
The brush is cleaning the weaning
Feeding the first milk to the calf.
Going to the barn...
The water is pumped from this ditch.
After all the procedures the cow is ready to be trimmed. For the trimming we use an electrical trimmer which is much faster to use than a knife.
More of our calves waiting.
Seperating milk of one cow.
the laser seeks the weaning
The calf is being put in a pen where he has less change to become sick of other cows wich may infect the calf. The bull calfs are being sold and raised for the veal and meat. The female cows are raised so they can become dairy cows.
After being milked they get feed some corn silage, which combines great with protein rich grass.
Trimming in progress.
When the cattle first arrive at the slaughter house they are placed in a line within panels in order to wait for slaughter. Each animal is slaughtered and sliced once at a time.
Two times 10 cows, side by side, in the milking parlour.
The robot placse the milk cup
Calf in a pen
A picture of milking. We milk the cows, 12 by 12, side by side.
Bringing the cows to the barn. In the distance you can see the barn.
This is the claw after trimming as you can see. We start off with the claw length. Then we equalize the hight of the both claws. And we make some space in the middle.
Taking care of a cow in the shoot.
One of our cows walking through the lane getting sprayed.
After using a captive bolt slaughter gun (used to knock out the cattle) the cattle are strung up by their feet and bled out in order to keep the meat quality high.
The robot places the milk cup
Calves waiting for milk.
Feeding cows pellets in the parlour, which gives us the possibility to feed every cow individually. Also the cows will go to the parlour faster because they enjoy eating them.
Once the calf is older it stays in a larger straw pen in which the calf has more space.
And there they go back to the field.
A picture of cows drinking.
Here are the levers for the hydraulics. These makes hoof trimming a much safer operation for farmer and cow.
Vaccinating the cow.
Here you can see the steer being hung to be bled out
This is the divice that collects the milk.
The milking starts
Give the calves milk.
Clean the udder
As you can see all the calfs are wearing collars. These collars allow the farmer to keep track of the milk intake of each calf.
I really like the view of all the cows walking in a row to the barn.
My cousin pushing a calf through the lane and into the branding tale.
Once the animal and muscle is free of blood, the animal is then skinned to begin getting portioned out.
Calves drinking the milk
Here can you see the milk supply line. One of them is filled with milk
Before the milk claw gets attached the first milk is manually removed in order to checks the cows health and ensure the milk quality.
This machine is making the milk for the calfs.
The last part of their daily walk.
Banding one of our December bull calves. When this process is complete the bull calf becomes a steer.
Here you can see the intestines and the stomach of the steer. These are taken out of the body cavity in order to obtain the meat.
The next step is to attach the milking claw in this picture I am putting vacuum on the claw.
Once the calf is 3 months old it is being moved to the youngstock barn with a concrete floor. The calf isn’t fed any milk no more.
Vaccinating one of our calves.
The butchers knives are extremely sharp and they move quickly as they cut the inedible extras off the carcass.
The milking is done. The cow is leaving the box
Attach the milking claw, now the milk gets flows trough the whole machine and the filter into the milk tank which I showed you earlier.
The barn
Putting a tag in the ear of one of our calves so we know who it belongs to.
In order to finish cleaning the carcass, the head is cut off and select pieces of meat (such as the cheeks and tongue) go to customers who are more into specialty foods.
Once the cow is done milking and is all healthy she is ready to go out of the parlour. But before that we put on some protective fluid on the udders.
They are really curious
All of our branding irons in the branding pot.
After the carcass is cleaned, excess blood and potential contents from the intestines are washed off.
a curious cow.
My uncle branding one of our calves with a hot branding iron.
They are putting a rubber band on banding tool. They will then use this tool to band the bull calfs.
This is the cleaned carcass which is known as ‘naked’ because the hide and organs are no longer attached.
This is the oldest group of young stock and these are ready to for A.I.
smoke coming from the branding iron.
We are seperating the calfs from the cows so that we can take them and brand them without the mother cows getting in the way.
Here you can see the freezer and cooler.The meat is left here to hang and cure for a certain amount of days depending on the size and breed of animal.
The first part of my grandpa's brand being placed on the side of the calf.
We have now moved the calfs into what we call the tub. We will shut the gate behind them and then put them into the shoot where we will brand them.
The half carcasses are split up even more and a band saw is used to cut the meat into even slices.
My cousin's cow waiting for her calf to be let out of the branding table.
Someone then gets into the tub and pushes the clafs into the shoot where the calfs moeve up and are caught and branded.
Here you can see other pieces of the cow, such as the chuck being cut into smaller chunks in order to be fed into the meat grinder, which produces ground hamburger
Cows on the farm of family ‘de deelen’. A whole new barn was raised. You can see the new developments, like this feed pusher for example.
Letting one of the claves out of the branding table after being branded.
Here is where the calf will be caught and then tipped sideways. After that they will be vacinated, branded, and banded if it is a bull calf.
This is the machine that mixes chunks of beef and fat into ground up beef which can be packaged and sold, depending on the fat content.
The calf out of the branding table and back with her mother.
The different cuts of meat, at our local locker, then go into individual coolers which contain what a person orders.
This is the ground beef that I will be using for the taco meat. This meat came from a cow that was raised on a farm in Deer Trail. The cow was butchered at the Deer Trail Locker. There were multiple different cuts that came from this cow and this is the cut that I used for tacos.
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