A day in the life of Dylan
No two days are the same as a dairy farmer and I love the variation, it’s never boring!
I’m Dylan Roberts the farmer at Midoa.
My typical summer’s day goes something like this:
First thing in the morning, around 6am, I usually log onto the computer and check the robotic milking machines whilst having my breakfast and watching Peppa Pig or Paw Patrol at home with the kids. I really appreciate this time with my family, but also like the fact that I can see what my cows are up to in our robotic milking shed.
Once I arrive on the farm and walk along the calving boxes to see if any of the cows have calved overnight. It is always a great feeling to see a healthy newborn calf in the pen that has been suckling on its mother. It is vitally important that calves get the best start in life by drinking colostrum from their mother as it contains antibodies to protect them from disease before developing their own immunity. Freshly calved cows also need some TLC, we give them an energy and mineral drink, which they love. We calve all year round to keep a constant supply of milk throughout the year.
I then head over to give the robots a quick clean before moving the cows so we can scrape any muck from the passages and feeding area, this keeps them nice and clean. I walk through the milking cows to make sure they are all happy and healthy. I know them individually and some like to come and have a scratch. If there is a new heifer, I usually find her and walk her to the robots to milk as it can take a couple of days for them to understand the system of milking when they want.
Next on the to-do list is to check and feed the calves, this is usually done at the same time as turning Anwen the horse out of her pen beside the calves. She is 34 and has been with us since I was small. I then start mixing the feed for the cows, this is the majority of what they eat. It is ensiled grass from the previous summer. We make silage to feed the cows, the better the quality of silage that you make, the less concentrates that you require to add to the mix to bring the required energy the cows need to produce milk. The mix is made up of silage, molasses blend and some straw. This is placed into the mixer wagon and then fed out in the feed passage. The hungry cows eat about 4-5 tonnes of feed each day.
As the youngstock are out in the summer, a lot of time is taken up driving around the area in the Land Rover checking the calves in different fields. I give them some pelleted cake, this makes it easier to count them as they are in one place. It is also easier to see if an animal is off colour as they will not run up to be fed. We tend to group them by age and size. This year we must group them by breed as we have a group of brown swiss cattle who are old enough to be running with the brown swiss bull, we are trying to maintain the pedigree.
There is usually plenty of paperwork to do, like paying bills, registering passports for the cows and pedigrees for the cattle. There is also a good deal of tractor work to be done. I usually walk through the cows a couple of times a day to make sure there are no problems and that they are milking happily. We scrape the yards again before heading home and top up the bedding.
I’m on call 24/7 as the cows are able to milk whenever they want to, we do sometimes get calls in the middle of the night from the robots to notify us of any problems. It is frustrating to get these calls but I still prefer them to a 5am alarm to milk the cows the traditional way.
An early morning watching Peppa pig is more fun!!
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