After mass we met at a cafe and grill in the United Grocery store. The women set at one table and the men were at another table. The breakfast was delicious even though my omelet was filled with jalapenos. I just ate around those spicy little chillies. We were invited by a couple who live in the area and Walt had spoken to Don during the week. Don had been a truck driver and he and his wife Alby had visited some friends in New Knoxville and had gone to the Auglaize County Fair. Alby had been an Home Extension Agent in her work years so she was quite interested in the fair and how it was run.
After breakfast we went back home and did a few housekeeping chores and Walt took Bart for a walk. Our goal for the day was to drive north of Amarillo to check out the farm country. This area had been ranches but now the ranches were be changed to farming country. About 394,000 of the 960,000 acres are in the federal government's Conservation Reserve Program, intended to prevent erosion by taking acres out of farming use. The farmers in the county produce sorghum silage, hay, red top cane, cotton, wheat, sunflowers and some corn. Cotton production was started about 3 years ago with a mill being built about 2 years ago.
Water for those crops is pulled from the Ogallala Aquifer, an underground pool of rainwater that reaches more tan 250 feet below the surface. Crop production has turned from grains to ensilage because of water depletion from the Ogallala and producers have shifted from irrigating with tubes in furrows to using center pivot sprinklers to conserve both water and operation expenses. Water wells are fueled by either electricity or natural gas, built may soon be fueled by wind power. It is either drought or flooding when it comes to the rain fall. The temperature ranges from a few days below freezing in to near or above 100 degrees for several days in the peak of summer. Humidity is low most of the year, except for a few days in June, which is also the rainiest month of the year.
Cattle and wheat are the main source of agricultural income in the area, providing work for cowboys and custom combiners. Wheat hay is an excellent food source for cattle, so the number of harvested acres of grain wheat varies each year.
Calves that weigh around 300-450 pounds are purchased in the fall after wheat is planted and allowed to graze the wheat. From wheat, cattle go into growing yards or to ranches to utilize native grass until the fall, when they normally move into farmyards. Many of those cattle are purchased and resold later at area livestock auction barns.
Randall county is home to five confined animal feeding operations that are state licensed and have a capacity of approximately 140,000 head and an annual total turnover of 500,000. These industries generate approximately $400 million-$500 million annually in gross revenue. We saw 3 of these feedlots. These feedlots give the area a very dirty and smelly environment.
The ranch is quite a place to see with neat homes, schools and every activity that a child may wish to participate in as a learning experience.
A young woman gave us a very interesting tour. She talked about the structure of the program and how the house parents were responsible for the daily living activities. She was married and her and her husband lived in one of the homes. The kids get a lot of one on one instruction in the schools with about 6 to 8 students in a class. This allows the student to catch up with the curriculum which they may have missed in their previous school. They are taught respect, goal setting, responsibility and all of the tools they need for a good self-reliant person.
As we left the Boys Ranch we went north on 385 towards Dalhart. We passed miles of pasture land with some hilly spots. North of Canning there was a feedlot with large piles of large bales of hay. They definitely had a smell around the feed lots. Further down the road we saw some irrigation for corn and hay fields. We saw fields were they had chopped corn, flat grassland and also harvested corn. There was a busy railroad track along the road for many miles.
The water situtation is very serious in the panhandle--the aquaifer is one of the largest water supply but it is down a foot in the last 10 years because of the drought in this area. Meredith Lake on the Canadian River is very low. The lake is 38 feet deep when it can be a deep a 105 feet. We passed over the Canadian River a few times and there was only a trickle of water in the river bed.
After we passed north of Hartley, Tx. we saw many grain fields and many oil and gas pumps. As we traveled you could see 8 or 10 oil pumps in one glance. There were some farmers working the ground in fields that went as far as the eye could see. We did pass another feed lot and we couod smell the manure before we saw the feed lot.
A few miles south of Dalhart we turned east on 281 towards Etter, Cactus and Sunray. On the way we passed a large dairy farm which looked very new with huge buildings for the cows. At Etter, which is at 287, we stopped at a little cafe. There were many pickups in the parking lot so this is our gauge for good food. It was a restaurant managed by a young man and the original owner was from Mexico. You could see that she was Mexican because she had a lot of Mexican food on the menu. The cafe was filled with local men who were either from the farms or the businesses in the area. When we left the restaurant Walt asked about the dairy which we had passed a few miles west of the town. The young man at the cashier said he could have introduced us to the manager because he came to the cafe for lunch each day. We were to late to meet him but he gave Walt his name and telephone number if we wanted to tour the facility. Then when we came out of the cafe I noticed that one of our front tires was very low. We went next door and put air in the tire, but it was down 20 lbs. So we went back to the main highway and stopped at a little garage which was owned by two young Spanish men. They spoke Spanish to each other but spoke to Walt in very good English. We had a small hole in the tire so we had it patched. Walt had called the dairy, so when the tire was repaired we went west to the dairy.
Faria Brothers Dairy from South America::: The dairy has 7700 cows in their completed area and are working on another 7000 cow addition. The cows are in a free stall barn and have very little contact with humans so they have minimal stress. The barn has many fans and misters when it gets too hot. This barn has 10 pens with 770 cows in each pen. The cows which are a cross breed of Guernsey and Holstein are fed 100% corn silage. The silage is from local farmers and from the farm the Farnia Brothers own.
The free stalls and pens are flushed every 3 hours with running water. This mixture of manure and water is flushed behind the barns and is left to dry on a membrane which keeps the manure on top to dry and the water goes back to the holding tank and is used again in future flushings. When the manure has dried for 4 weeks it is put in the free stalls as bedding
The cows are artifically bred. They have anklets on one rear ankle and they measure how many steps they make in a day. The computer counts the steps and when they have more steps per day the computer signals them out because this is a way to tell if the cow is in heat. When they leave the milking carosal the computer makes certain the gates are opened to a special holding area for breeding. The other cows from the carosal are sent back to their pen.
When a cow is bred she is dryed out and taken to a facility 10 miles from the barn until she has her calf. The calves go to another facility in New Mexico were they are raised to springer heifers and then they go into the herd. If a cow is sick the go to a cow hospital 4 miles from the barns.
When the cows are ready to be milked their pen gate opens automatically and they walk down an isle to the milking carasol. The carasol turns automatically and 3 people have specialized tasks as the carasoul turns. The first person sprayed the legs, and the utter; the second person washed and wiped the utterand the tits with a soft cloth. The soft cloths were used for only one cow and then were washed and dried before the cloths were used again. The second person put the milkers on the cow. When the carasol has reached its beginning point the cows have been milked and the milkers have automatically been removed. They can milk 1200 cows per hour with this system, and they milk the cows three times a day. When the cows exit the milking area they walk on rubber mats in the aisle ways and holding pens.
There was absolutely no odor. Walt said he did not notice any manure smell through the entire tour.
Note: The owners did know about the bankruptcy of the Ohio Dairy in northwest Ohio. It was also very evident that they were working very hard on public relations with the local people in this part of Texas.
Walt will be able to talk about this experience for many years in the future..
After we left the dairy we drove directly home because we were going to dinner with our new friends from the church. The dinner was in a little German town called Umbarger, TX, about 10 miles south west of our present home. The speciality was catfish and chicken. It was a delightful evening. More later.
Front aspect of Faria Brothers Dairy
View of the holding tank which holds the water to flush the manure from the barns.
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