The Moos Room™

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Joe: Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. OG three here. We have a very important business to do right away. We caught a mistake, or actually, a listener caught a mistake in our count total.
Emily: Dun, dun, dun.
Bradley: What? Really?
Joe: Yes. We found this out last week. We were missing a count in our dairy breeds. We found out that Kirsten, Bradley's grad student, voted for Brown Swiss, and then we also found out that Ashley Coles voted for Brown Swiss. We were missing a vote because then Dana Adams also voted for Brown Swiss. That brings their total to three, which we thought it was two. That's disappointing because that puts Holsteins at four, Jerseys and Brown Swiss tied at three.
Bradley: Whoa.
Joe: Dutch Belted at two, Normandy at one, Montb�liarde at one. Very important update. Very important news that Brown Swiss are somehow tied with the best breed Jersey.
Bradley: I'll just break the tie. Brown Swiss are in third.
Joe: Perfect. Tenure has spoken.
Bradley: [laughs]
Emily: Ah, I'm so sick of you two already. Let's just get this episode going.
Joe: Today we have a fan, listener, fan? Moos crew member. I don't know what to call that.
Emily: Oh, I like that.
Bradley: Moos crew.
Joe: Moos crew member.
Emily: Moos crew.
Joe: Who had a request for an episode. Kevin Dietzel, Lost Lake Farm in Iowa. Looks like a cool operation. Check out his online store. He's got cheese. He wanted to know about management. He said you guys always are talking about how important management is, and especially Emily is telling everyone that they can't forget about it. We have yet to tell anybody what it means to us.
Kevin pointed that out and wants to hear management episode. That's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about management, what it means to the three of us, and why it's so important. We tried to think of this ahead of time a little bit, and I don't know who wants to go first. Who wants to go first? We know Emily's going to run for a while.
Bradley: Emily can go first.
Emily: No, we just did nose goes and Brad apparently doesn't know what that means. Brad's going first.
Joe: Bradley.
Bradley: How many hours do we have here? I'm just going to take up Emily's time and yours.
Emily: You get two minutes, Bradley. Go.
Bradley: Management, what is management to me? It means being able to adapt to changes relatively quickly especially. Why do I say that? I come at it from a grazing perspective, which Kevin, in Iowa, is also a grazer. I come at it from a grazing perspective that we need to be able to change fast and be able to adapt in our dairy operation because there's so many things happening and so many other outside forces.
Weather, you have markets, you have cow issues, feed rations, pastures, you name it. For me, management is really trying to adapt to those and sometimes trying to foresee changes that are going to happen or try to see changes.
Now, we're not going to be able to predict those all the time, but being able to see that, "Oh, if I make a change today, will it affect tomorrow?" I think about pastures. If I graze today and graze too short or whatever, how does that affect 30 days from now? That's my one thing on management that I see is being able to adapt to many different situations quickly and trying to figure those out. I think that's the challenge of dairying is to be able to do that.
I also see management as cleanliness. Cleanliness is the key. Cleanliness, that's in many different aspects, from milking facility cleanliness. I always think it in terms of calves a lot because those are the projects I'm working on now. Calving pen cleanliness affects calf growth and calf health. Cleanliness of feeding bottles, nipples, feeders, all kinds of different stuff. It's not necessarily-- It can be a lot of just general cleanliness.
Feed piles, things like that that affects flies in the future, or whatever it might be. Cleanliness, that's my key that I like to focus on for management. It's one of the things that I think we forget about when we talk about management. I think it's probably one of the most important if not the most important thing when we talk about management is just cleanliness.
I know that's tough. It's not easy to keep everything clean and there's many other things happening on the farm. Cleanliness is a tough one. It's easier said--
Emily: Bradley, all the grant money in the world isn't going to keep your barn clean.
Bradley: That is correct. That is correct.
Joe: That's true. I think like Brad said, it's something we forget about. It's something that I always have context for whenever I visit a farm though. You got to know not just what's going on on the farm, what the weather's been doing, but what's going on in that producer's life. Everything else. There's all these sorts of things. It's a really easy thing to say, a lot harder to do when you got to do it every day. Emily, do you want to go or do you want me to go?
Emily: I want you to go.
Joe: Emily's going to wrap it. I have a full Post-it note. I know you guys can't see it, but that's all my little scribbles.
Emily: Believe us, folks, there's a lot on there.
Joe: Management to me, I started with three things that I really focus on, and then I kept adding to it and I couldn't stop. For me, the foundation is basic husbandry, nutrition, and communication. If you get those three things, you can get almost everything into those categories. Lately, I've been adding two other things to it. Employee training, which I think can be part of communication and low-stress handling. I think we're learning so much about that. That is more and more and more part of management to me. Those three things and then I have pride in your job, pride in your farm.
I like to think that I can see a lot of that even just driving into the farm. Just being able, like Brad said, general cleanliness of the farm itself, and being able to continually find pride in doing that and what you do every day. That all to me is management. Now, those are a lot of big things. Basic husbandry, nutrition, communication, employee training, low-stress handling, and then pride in your job. That's a lot of stuff to go over. We could talk probably an episode on each one of those if we want, but that's what management means to me.
Emily: Mic drop, Joe.
Joe: I'm out. I'm just done for the rest of the episode.
Emily: Oh man. I should have gone before you. Crap.
Bradley: I know. It's a lot to live up to with both of us here.
Emily: Should have known with the-- Oh, shut up Bradley. You were not a factor in this.
Bradley: Wow. I give you my--
Emily: [unintelligible 00:07:25] love here in The Moos Room.
Bradley: I guess not. [chuckles]
Emily: All right. Management for me, the first word that comes to mind is details. A good manager is somebody who knows the details and gives them the attention they need and makes the changes that need to be made. For me, I feel like knowing to do that and doing that well, that detail management is knowledge-based absolutely but also intuition a little bit. I know that sounds a little tinfoil hat maybe, but for me, like you were saying, Joe, you can tell those farmers that just know what they're doing and are confident what they're doing and have pride in it.
That gets built up over years and you build a relationship with cows, you learn how to read them better, all of that. Yes, I would say knowledge and intuition with being able to manage the details. Also, like you were saying, Joe, we actually had one that was the same. I said how you view your farm, how you value your farm, what the culture is at your farm.
I feel like that is also a huge part of management because if you are just not establishing a culture, you get up every day and you don't know why you're doing this, that is going to go a long way in how much effort you put into things, which ties back to details. That's what management is for me.
Joe: It's a good thing that we had an episode like this because we all had different ideas for the most part, but I think hopefully everyone can hear the general theme. Management is not putting a needle into something. It's not vaccines, it's not new technology, unfortunately. Sensors can be a part of management, but when we say management, it's much bigger than the technology or the other tools that you use. It has a lot to do with the basics. I think that's a lot of it.
When we talk about management, we're talking about the basics. I think it's really good that Emily pointed it out because for the most part, we talk a lot about physical things, but with Emily pointing that out with a culture on the farm and that trickling down to your employees and everything else. That's definitely on the mental side of things a lot more. We can't forget about that piece because that is a big, big part of it, especially in the last few years as things have been pretty rough for dairies and for beef farmers, especially with COVID.
Emily: My favorite example of that pride and having a good culture on your farm is Arethusa Farm, I believe it is, in the barn where the cows are, really big on the wall it's painted, every cow in this barn is a lady, treat her that way. That just sets the tone that if you tour there or if you're an employee there, you see that every single day and so you know what matters there. That's, for me a really good example of a well-established farm culture.
Bradley: Yes, I do, I like that, the culture, I think that sets apart a lot of different things. It's kind of the, you would think of maybe the mission statement or the value statement or whatever of the farm that defines that culture that this is who we are, what we are and this is how we have our dairy operation, and it all centers around that culture of what it is. I totally agree there, definitely.
How do you define the culture on your farm? How do you get to that point where you're thinking about what the culture should be on the farm?
Emily: I think it has to be a conscious decision and effort to work towards establishing a culture because if you don't, there will still be a culture, but it's a culture of chaos. When thinking about that, it's deciding, yes, we want to establish a culture here and then the how you do it part, like you were asking, Brad, I go back to my Arethusa example. Just by having that message big in the barn where everyone can see it, people know what number one priority is, instantly. That's really effective.
I think of other good examples of culture I have seen would be some large dairies will have bulletin boards up with pictures of all of the employees' families and then it will say something like, this is why we work safely, we want our co-workers to get home at night. That is a really big culture of safety there and a really shining example of it.
I've seen once too family dairies where they just have a wall in the office that's family pictures and favorite quotes or awards, whatever it might be. You know on that farm, family and what they do together and what they achieve together is what's really important. I feel like it's all over the board but the biggest step in establishing it is just deciding that that's what you're going to do. It's also important to keep in mind that you engage other people in these conversations, so other partners in the farm, employees, et cetera, because it's going to be their culture, too.
You don't want to try to force some utopian idea you have in your head, you need everybody's feedback on that. What I would ask you, Bradley, then on this topic of culture, you are managing a dairy, what would you say the culture is at that dairy or what do you want it to be?
Bradley: I want it, maybe that's what I would want it to be certainly more than because we all have our different perspectives and that's the beauty of it. Not every farm is the same and we all have a different idea on the things related to dairy. One thing that I think about every day in the culture is trying to get people, we have many different employees, University of Minnesota herd, it's taxpayer herd, all that stuff. It's not my herd, it's not anybody's herd, it's the University of Minnesota's herd. I really like the employees to treat that herd as if it's like their own.
How would you treat the cows? Would you leave that big mess there in your own barn or if you just leave early and leave the mess or leave things half done, would you do that at home? Sometimes, probably not. I think I try to instill that these can be your cows, you should treat them like they're your own, it's not just oh, well, they're Brad's cows or the U of M cows and whatever. I think how would you treat them yourself goes back to the whole Arethusa thing that you had talked about, really treating everything how you would want that to be treated. That's what I would expect is, have respect for the dairy animals, respect for the dairy because we have a lot of different people that come to our farm to visit, to see, from legislators to you name it, sitting Congress people, to sitting senators. We want the place to be like we would want them to treat it and want them to see it.
Emily: That you have pride in it, like Joe was saying before, that feeling of pride in what you're doing.
Bradley: I agree, definitely pride, so whoever shows up would sense that, yes, this is a great dairy and something that more people would want to come back and see what's actually happening. That's pride, definitely. You think about it, it's hard to teach that kind of stuff. Sometimes people in my mind you can't teach the pride or teach-- You can teach general management stuff, how to feed calves or how to feed cows, but sometimes, I don't know how you would teach pride.
Emily: It's that intuition that I was talking about.
Bradley: Everybody's different and everybody has a different viewpoint and that's okay.
Emily: Yours just happens to be the correct viewpoint.
Bradley: Oh, never. I'm usually the wrong--
Emily: You're not fooling us, Bradley.
Bradley: I'm never always right. Joe's laughing.
Joe: I am laughing a little bit, big opinions on this podcast and I'm notorious for being-- I may be wrong but I'm never in doubt. That is my motto for life usually.
Emily: [laughs] I love that.
Joe: I'm right on board with you, Bradley. I tried to compile a list while these guys were talking of what we decided management was.
Bradley: Not very sciency today, is it, it's-
Joe: Not at all.
Bradley: -a lot but that's okay. That's okay.
Emily: It's very subjective. It's like figure skating scoring.
Bradley: That's right.
Emily: We'll go with that.
Joe: Yes, that's exactly it. For those of you who don't know, Emily is a closet figure skater fan, maybe not a closet, she's pretty open about it. She loves it.
Emily: Yes, I love figure skating.
Bradley: She tweets a lot about figure skating when the Olympics are going and just the national figure skating stuff.
Emily: Oh, yes, if you like drama, you will like figure skating.
Joe: That's for sure. Sorry. Back to the list. Here's the list, not sciency list of what management is. Kevin, we're trying to get to an answer and I think this is the answer. The answer is management is basic husbandry, nutrition communication, which includes protocols, employee training, low-stress handling, making sure you check the details, predicting and trying to look ahead and make sure that you're ready to constantly evaluate what's going on and adapt to make sure you're handling the different changing conditions that happen in our industry. Then we came back to it over and over again, culture on your dairy and the pride you have in your job.
Not sciency at all today but that's what we're going with. I think that's the answer. Those things make or break your farm. There's not a grant money that'll fix it, there's not a drug or a vaccine or anything else that will fix those things. They need to be straight before you can succeed. This isn't dairy, this isn't beef, it's pretty much any animal operation that you're thinking about.
Bradley: Any farming operation, definitely. It can be for crop farming or if you're into horticulture vegetables, it's all the same, I think.
Emily: Absolutely. If you think that we missed anything, you can always email us.
Joe: Absolutely. We would love to hear from you guys and The Moos crew. Email us if you like that or don't like that as well. That's what we're going to say management is. I think we're going to wrap it there, short episode. We tried to answer a listener's question and I think we did it.
Emily: He will let us know if we didn't.
Joe: That's true, that's true. Kevin will let us know. If you have comments, questions, scathing rebuttals, send them to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Emily: That's T-H-E M-O-O-S R-O-O-M at U-M-N dot E-D-U.
Joe: Check out our website extension .umn.edu and our Facebook pages @UMNDairy and @UMNBeef. Thank you for listening, we'll catch you next week.
Emily: What's wrong with me? [laughs]
Joe: I don't know. It's a whole other episode, I think.
Emily: On the next episode.
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