Monday, September 9, 2013
Welcome Culinary Students of 2013! Our first fieldtrip to Skyline dairy in Grunthall was a good way to start the course by getting out to see where our food comes from. I really was impressed with the robotic arm that did the milking' and to think that it's on for 24 hours a day! I really like the fact that all the feed is grown and mixed here in Manitoba and that all of our dairy products here are produced here....
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Today was our first day in Culinary and our teachers decided to take us on a field trip to a dairy farm. It was a dreary day.When we got there it was raining and you could smell the fresh and old piles of cow manure. We got a tour from one of the head workers who also lived on the farm.We got a tour of the nursery and saw a cow that was born just 2 days ago. We saw where they held the cows and how they milked them using robotic arms and devices.We got to learn different things about cows and the milking industry. Nice to know where our milk comes from.
ReplyDeleteHi! today in Culinary arts we went on a field trip to Skyline dairy in Grunthal. I was really impressed with the robotic arm, it milks the cows 3 times in 24 hours. But the robotic arm has a laser that tell the machine where to attache to the cow to milk it. The robotic arm milks the cows every 6 hours and every single one of the cows at Skyline dairy has its own schedule to be milked. The fact that i find amazing is that the feed that the cows all eat are all grown here and the feed itself is also mixed here in our very home province Manitoba. All of our dairy products like cottage cheese,buttermilk,cheese,butter and yogurt etc are all produced right here in Manitoba. Skyline dairy has about two hundred cows,now lets say that if sixty cows were stressed out that would not only be bad and noisy but the cows would also not produce so much milk and also would not be as good of milk, the cows have to be calm and relaxed so that we can drink way better and healthier milk for our bodies. At Skyline dairy they said that on average that most cows live about five to six years but some of the cows can live more than that. The experience i learned was that these people at these farms work really hard so that we all can drink the milk we do these days and that if something goes wrong these busy and tired and hard working farms have to get up no matter what time it is in the night they still have to go fix what is wrong in the barn. I think we should all be thanking our dear farms for all the hard work they go through to keep us healthy and strong.
ReplyDeleteon our first day of culinary arts we took a trip to skyline dairy farms and we took a tour of the farm through the nursery where we got to see all the calf's including one that was born 2 days before, we also got to see how the cows got milked by the robotic arms and learned that up to 200 cows get milked daily and that for them to the proper milk they have to be in a calm/quite area and can not be stressed out. other than the weather and all the manure I would say that it was a good experience to lean where our milk comes from
ReplyDeleteHello! Today we visited Skyline Dairy. I'm not going to put this is sugar coating...it really smelled bad. Let's just say that we all wanted to go home and take a long hot shower after the farm. They had around 200 and there were baby calves and cows. We got to see a robotic arm milk the cows and it was super weird and interesting at the same time. I defiantly wouldn't want to be a cow. They all lined up and waited to be milked which I thought was really cool. I had the best experience ever when I got to step in a cow pie. That was delicious. The cows that got milked don't use antibiotics because if they do there milk wouldn't be aloud in stores. The milk that they produced was put into a 12,000 litre tank...now that's a lot of milk! You would need millions of oreo cookies to finish all that off. The milk that the cows produce are going to be used as cheeses, butter and just milk. That is all produced in our home province of Manitoba. The cows at Skyline Dairy are milked 3 times every 24 hours. The cows go there at there own time. If the cows are stressed then the milk isn't the same. Cows are a lot like humans in that way. If we get stressed we don't do as well as we would normally. At the end of the day, yes we couldn't get the smell out of our noses and it was all over our clothes, but at least we got to see where milk that we use every day comes from. ~Heather Penner
ReplyDeleteYes,... today's field trip was a dreary,... smelly,... and an uncomfortable experience for our first day at culinary class. We all fully expected to be working in the kitchen, not mucking through a stinky barn! But I have to say,... I'm glad we did. Who would have thought that a "robotic arm" would be milking cows? I felt like I was in a different world! It was amazing how the cow would at will,.. walk into the stall. A transponder on the collar of each cow would tell the arm the height, angle, and size of the cow. The arm would gently search for the utter and not upset the cow. If it kicked it off it would just gently try again. It cleaned and disinfected the cow first then it took around just 3 minutes to milk it. It was attached to a computer that recorded the levels of milk it produced. For each cow, the milking happens 3 times a day, and one cow can produce 34-36L in 24hrs. If a cow is sick or produces poor levels in the milk then the computer will re-direct the milk into a different holding tank where it is discarded later. Only the highest quality passes inspection. What also was very impressive was that this robotic machine will shut down 3 times a day to sanitize itself. This machine produces 15% more milking than the traditional way. Wow! It's also nice to find out that all the milk in MB is produced by 330 dairy farms throughout the province. 38% is processed into milk and the remainder is made into cheese, cottage cheese, yogurt, and butter. So I would have to say,...I definitely learned to appreciate more how and where all our dairy comes from!
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