As the United States continues to dominate the Olympic Games in Paris, we must also recognize the amazing “Olympians” back home in every dairy herd. From cows that produce the most milk to others that provide us with healthy, happy heifer calves, we have plenty of elite, Olympic-level girls on our dairies. This blog is dedicated to those amazing ladies that have provided us with what we’ve needed during good and bad times and to the girls we get a little chuckle out of when they don’t fully succeed in their quest for stardom. Here’s to the Olympic cows!
Now, we can make all sorts of “Olympic” categories for milk production. Of course, we could have categories for most milk, most protein, most fat, and best quality, but that’s so yesterday. We need new categories! These could involve and are not limited to “easiest to milk,” “least likely to kick the milker off,” “ugliest udder,” and “least likely to be annoying.” We could even have fun categories like “most likely to ‘moo’ while milking,” “most likely to hop into the parlor,” “most dramatic while being milked,” and “most likely to come in the wrong door.” These are just a few categories that I can come up for when it comes to milking and milk production. I’m sure most farmers can come up with their own Olympic categories based on their girls. Mine have some crazy parlor stories to tell, so these categories work well.
Not all Olympic Games take places in one area. At the Olympics, you have the track, pool, gymnastics arena, surfing in Tahiti, and so much more. So, at the dairy, we have the barn, the pasture, the water trough, and plenty of other places. In the pasture, we can have the “longest stretch,” “most likely to beat the rest out of the gate,” and “most likely to ‘play opossum’ on me and not move.”
At the water trough, I have plenty of “swimmers,” so we would have awards for “best splash” and “sneakiest swimmer.” I also have a cow that loves to stick her nose to the very bottom and stay there until I push her out, so “longest breath hold” is totally a category she’d win gold in. Of course, we have to add the pup into this Olympic category as she enjoys jumping in the trough as well. She would win gold for her ability to fit perfectly in the trough without any effort.
In the old freestall barn, our girls love doing “hurdles” with the old wooden stalls. Sometimes they even need a push to get through them. The other girls in the pack barn enjoy artistic gymnastics, head boxing, and 100-meter dashes. Needless to say, my girls have plenty of categories to medal in.
As we cheer on Team USA, we can laugh at the funny categories we can come up with for our girls here at home. Dairy farming — well, any agriculture pursuit — is challenging. This year has been hot and humid, with some areas flooding and others experiencing extreme drought. Taking a second to step back and make up these fun games helps us keep moving forward even in hard times. Stay safe out there folks, and go Team USA!
The author is a sixth-generation farmer and fifth-generation dairy producer in southwest Virginia, where she and her family own and operate a 145-head Holstein dairy. Courtney is involved in agriculture organizations throughout her community and is a graduate of Virginia Tech.