Sweet Caroline!

The first thing I did this morning when I got to the fair was milk my cow, Caroline - she made 35 pounds!  (She gets milked twice per day and makes a total of about 65 - 70 pounds).  When I got back to the barn, I fed her some of her TMR (which stands for total mixed ration and includes corn silage, hay and other feed stuffs).  After she was finished eating, I took her and her four month old calf, Carolina outside where I gave them their daily baths.  All day after they were clean, I kept a watchful eye on them to make sure they didn't get dirty and continued to feed them.

Last night, I showed both of them.  Caroline received 4th place in her class and Carolina was 8th place.  I purchased Caroline three years ago at the Ohio Spring Dairy Expo sale.  She was my first 4H project and I bought her with my own money.  When I was really little, I started saving money that I got as gifts from my family and after nine years of saving, I finally had enough to buy Caroline!  Caroline is very friendly and really likes to be petted!

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Author Brennan Topp is tweleve years old and goes to Northwestern Middle School where he plays football and wrestles. Brennan also loves to dairy judge, he even won 1st place junior in last year's Ohio Dairy Judging contest and was on the first place junior team.  On the farm, Brennan feeds the 2 - 4 month old calves and is in charge of giving the little calves in hutches grain and water every night.

The Milkshake Booth

Today our club worked the 4-H milkshake booth.  Above is a picture of my sister, cousin and me before we worked.  In all we had 15 members of our club work in the booth.  We had an assembly line of people scooping ice cream, adding milk and flavor and then blending the delicious milkshakes.  The ingredients used in the milkshakes come from Smith Dairy, which is a local milk plant.  This was quite entertaining as my three brothers, sister, cousin, mom and I were all working at the same time.   My cousin had surgery on her foot and has a boot and crutches so we let her sit up front and take orders.  We worked for a total of six hours as fundraiser for our club. 

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Author Tessa Topp is a junior at Northwestern High School where she is active in volleyball, baskeball and softball.  She is a member of the Northwestern High School FFA chapter where she holds the office of Sentinel and particpates in dairy judging.  She is excited to test her judging skills this fall as her state winning FFA dairy judging team will be particpating in the American FFA association's national dairy judging contest!

Beauty Pageant For Cows

Showing cows is like a beauty pageant, so basically when we show them, we're all trying to win the prettiest cow award! We do many different things to get our cows ready to show, however one of the most important is learning what the prettiest cow should look like.

The prettiest cow award goes to the cow who looks the best or shows the best dairy traits. Judges look for a cow that will produce lots of milk and the udder is 40% of what the judge looks for in a cow. As farmers, we want our cows to have udders that are high above the ground.  Also we want the teats square underneath the udder so that the cow can be easily milked. While the udder is the biggest thing that a judge is reviewing when analyzing a cow, it is just one traits the judge is taking into consideration.

Another trait that a judge looks for is dairy strength. Farmers want cows to have strong bones so that they have the ability to carry their immense body weight, the weight of a calf and their milk.  Sometimes, people think that our cows look "skinny", but when you think about it - a milking cow is no different than a nursing woman, she is burning her fat reserves to produce milk.  You may not know, but cows that are too heavy are very prone to illnesses and lameness.  As farmers we are very dedicated to making sure our cows get the nutrition they need to have a healthy body condition and still produce milk, we even hire nutritionists who are consultants that test the nutritional value of our feeds and help us create healthy diets for our cows.

Third, judges will look for sound feet and legs. As humans we want good legs so we can walk, run, do activities etc. For a cow we want her to have good feet and legs so she can do things like walk to eat feed, graze in our pastures and get to the milking parlor!
Finally the judges look for a cow with a good frame. Frame is important because a large frame allows a cow to eat a lot of feed (about 90 pounds in one day) and drink a lot of water (about a bathtub full) and also so that she has enough room to grow a strong, healthy calf.

Lastly, we want our cows to exempfly great dairy character. Dairy character is sharpness of body, and clean cut animals that aren't carrying a lot of extra weight.

There are a alot of things that go into the prettiest cow award and some of them are similar to some of the qualifications to win a beauty pageant. In the picture of above you see future judges for cow beauty pageants practing their skills.  In fact, if you want to see a real live dairy cow beauty pagent come to the fair on Tuesday to watch the junior dairy shows!

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Author Allison Mangun is a sophomore at Norwayne High School. At school she is the reporter for her FFA chapter. She also plays for the Norwayne High School Soccer team. Outside of school Allison is actively involved in her church youth group, is the President of Blue Riboon 4-H Dairy Club and is also on the  Wayne County Junior Fair Board.

This should be a holiday!

This SHOULD be a holiday!!! Today is the start of The Wayne County Fair. This is my favorite time of year. Not only do I not have to go to school, but I get to do the things I LOVE most; showing cows and spending time with my friends.

In the picture above you see me (Allison Janes) on the left and my friend (Alli Mangun) on the right washing my cow Mia. I started my day off by getting up at 4:30 this morning so we could come in and do chores. We got to the fairgrounds at about 5:30 this morning. We milked our 5 cows and washed all 15 animals by about 8:30 this morning.

Not only do we have to wash all the animals we have to bed them down with straw and shavings. Think of the straw and shavings as a BIG, GIANT bed for cows. After we have all the washing done we have to feed. When it comes time to feeding it gets a little crazy. We have to get the feed tubs out at lightning fast speeds, so that none of the animals get into a little fight over them.

Every morning a family in the club makes breakfast. Today was Alli Manguns and my turn. My mom always makes breakfast sandwiches. They are AWESOME and everyone loves them. This is my most abosolute favorite time of the year. Everyone should sometime this week come and visit the Wayne County Fair (September 11-16). 
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Author Allison Janes is a Junior at Triway High School. She was the Wayne County Dairy Princess last year. She is also involved with the Triway High School marching and symphonic band,and she plays basketball. She is in French club and is a member of the Purple Pack or Pep Club. She is currently on Junior Fair Board and is serving on the dairy committee as well as being Vice President of the Blue Ribbon 4H Dairy Club.

Welcome to the "Blue Ribbon Dairy 4H Club" Diary!

Thank you for visiting our diary!  The Blue Ribbon 4H Dairy club has been around for about 10 years and is made up of a group of young people who love dairy cattle!  This site will host a special "live-from-the-barn" event during Ohio's 161st Wayne County Fair which runs from September 11, 2010 through September 16, 2010.   During the fair, our club's members will be posting live from our dairy barn to update readers on topics like why we show our cattle, why we enjoy doing it, who our favorite cows are and what being a dairy farmer means to each of us.  We will also post results of our shows for you to follow along during our journey. We welcome comments and questions to our blog and will do our best to respond in a timely manner... however, please note that we won't be posting during our regular chore times!

Also, a special thank you to Jessica D Photography for designing the banner for our blog!