Deep freeze

As I write this column 240 million Americans are in the pathway of a huge deep freeze weather system. The news is all about sub-zero temperatures, ice and snow in southern states and big cities, and the weather causing power outages, and impaired highway and airplane travel.

Have you seen a single news clip about food producers taking care of their animals? Most farmers don’t want to spend time talking to a news crew, but our non-farming citizens need to know what it takes to keep the water running to all waterers on a farm, how animals are being taken care of well, how farmers keep working on weekends with long hours, and how they put their animals first every day. I have never heard of a dairy or beef farm shutting down when a cold spell arrives. Paul Harvey hit it right when he said, “And God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker.’ So, God made a farmer.”

Dairy and beef farmers have a moral obligation to care for their animals, and every one of them does it without seeking the lime light. We start our day by dressing in so many clothes, so many layers, that sometimes it’s difficult to bend over, or pick up a pencil on the floor with our astronaut-style gloves. I can testify to how clothing has gotten better over the last 50 years. Our Amish neighbors must have secret material in their coats and hats, which are so much thinner than ours, but still keep them warm. I’ve never seen a buggy with an electric heater in it either. Maybe they put a steel bucket of hot coals in them to help keep them warm. My father actually had me carry a bucket of coals to the woods one time so he could put it near his casted broken leg for warmth while deer hunting.

Murphy’s Law says that if something can go wrong, it will. In cold weather that fact is amplified. Take silo unloaders, for example. Before unloaders were invented smaller silos were common and the oldest son had the task of throwing out silage by hand. A pick and a fork were the tools, but when the frozen silage was really hard, we just used the center of the silo. When the outside became three feet thick, Dad took a power saw and cut slices all the way around the silo every 18 inches. When it finally warmed enough, those chunks were put in the barn, but I don’t think the cows ever ate them. Then unloaders came along and helped with the cold feed, but created other issues. Changing doors in a silo was a real treat. Getting a bunch of frost or frozen silage down your neck seemed to happen every time. Electrical systems would get moisture in the contactors and refuse to start. How many electricians will climb a silo today? Hallelujah for bunkers. Very little of our bunker feed is frozen and a payloader with a warm cab puts it in the mixer.

Barn cleaners that went outside of the barn were also not fun to start. If one paddle was frozen tight, we heard the bang that meant something broke when the switch was flipped. We didn’t have a warm place to put a tractor and spreader so hydraulics were always a challenge. Small propane heaters or torches weren’t in existence. So, we used alcohol in a pie tin, which burned without exploding, to heat connections.

As a large animal veterinarian in the late ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s it was great to have all my patients in warm barns. Very few animals had injuries from slipping because they were kept inside until conditions improved. I didn’t wear glasses so I could see as soon as I entered a warmer barn.

Channel our thoughts to dairying today. Sure, we still have many tiestall and stanchion barns around, but we have many more freestall barns now. Tunnel ventilated or cross ventilated barns have an advantage in cold weather because they rarely have an indoor temperature below freezing. We have a conventional freestall barn, though, in which the inside temperature stays just 10 degrees higher than the outside temperature.

It seems it takes two or three days of a cold spell to figure out all the problems. This year was no different. It was 20 below on Saturday morning and we were loading frozen manure from a dry cow pen into the spreader. At 4:30 a.m. one of the tractor’s hydraulic lines broke. All of the transmission oil pumped out and a sensor shut it off. But the tractor was in the middle of a cross lane so no cows could leave or enter the parlor. I hurriedly got 12 gallons of hydraulic oil and put it in the tractor. With oil-soaked gloves and a prayer, the tractor started. At first it wouldn’t go forward, but it did go in reverse and finally went forward about 50 feet. Then Peter replaced the hose while lying on the cold concrete alley.

Then, an overhead door decided to quit while open. The cables lifting the door came off and it jammed. With the chilled wind now blowing into the barn, the temperature dropped very fast. The door on the other end already wouldn’t work because moisture got in the controls. Five hours later, the guys got the door fixed.

One more calamity happened just as the last group was leaving the parlor. The lead cow in the group of 16 fell down in the return lane and struggled hard but couldn’t get up. Luckily, an employee and I were there when it happened. Another employee kept the cows from trampling the down cow while I was able to get her out into the alley. But, she still was slipping. I called for the big bucket skid loader to carry her to a bedded pack and started throwing sand around her in case she tried to rise again. Thankfully, she stood up right as the skid loader arrived. She didn’t have any noticeable injuries, so we put her back in her pen.

I heard a news commentator describe this cold spell like it is a hurricane. My friends in the Florida panhandle probably don’t like the cold, but I prefer it over his hurricane stories.