Shortly after 4:00 am on Thursday, July 7, students and leaders met in front of Life Sciences South to travel to Goldman’s Dairy in Coolidge, Arizona, where an experiment is going on to compare the effectiveness of two dietary supplements (Megalac™ vs Megalac-R) on reproduction in cows. UBRPers attending included Daniel Wood (Dr. Jesse Martinez’s lab, Radiation Oncology), Rebecca Duncan (Dr. Mani Ramaswami’s lab, MCB), Heidi Hofer (Dr. Stuart Williams lab, Biomedical Engineering), and me. Ms. Margaret Wilch, a biology teacher at Tucson High Magnet School, Carol Bender, director of UBRP and BRAVO!, Dr. Roy Ax, professor of animal sciences, and Dean Fish, doctoral student in animal sciences, also came along. We met Nikki Frahm, Tucson High Magnet School student (Dr. Ax’s lab, Animal Sciences) involved in the dietary supplement project, and Bonnie Jones, a graduate student in animal sciences, at the farm. When we first arrived at our departure point the weather was cool but it got hot before we left.

We put on rubber boots when we arrived at Goldman’s before entering the cow pens. The cows were separated into different pens depending on their experimental group and all of the cows had numbered ear tags to identify them. Dr. Ax gave us an overview of the cow reproductive system and Dean Fish, cow ultra-sounder extraordinaire, demonstrated how to place the ultrasound wand in the cow’s rectum to monitor the cow’s ovarian structures prior to ovulation. All of the students put on gloves and had a chance to try out the ultrasound equipment on one very patient cow.
To keep the cows cool, a fan and mister system was provided under an awning in each pen. As the temperature rises, the cows find their way to the shelter to stand or lay down. Food for the cows is provided around the perimeter of the pen so that the cows are required to poke their heads through the fence to reach it. I think it is wise to keep the food outside the fence to keep it clean.

Two hours after reaching the farm we were shown to the milking parlor. Some of the cows are milked three times a day and others are milked four times a day. The more a cow is milked, the more milk she produces. Some of the cows produce as much as 80 to 100 pounds of milk a day! The operation is automated so that the milking machines attach to the cows’ udders and the milk is sent through a tube to a bulk tank where it is kept cool until it is picked up by the milk cooperative.

We then visited the calf pens. The calves reached me at knee height but each had its own pen with adequate room to move around and lay down comfortably. When the calves heard a sound, such as a whistle, they moved backwards until stopped by the fence that encloses them. Some of them kept far away from us and just stared with their big black eyes. Others were less frightened and came forward to suck on our outstretched fingers. I vividly remember how it felt when this special brown and white calf sucked on my thumb. I could feel her teeth but she did not bite or injure me. She also allowed me to touch the thick dried fur on her face and to run my fingers along her backbone and ribs. Above each of her ears was a bone where her horns had been removed.

The calves’ water was on the left of the cages in a pail and their food was on the right of the cage in another pail. All the pails were located outside the pens, and like the cows, the calves had to stick their heads out of the enclosure to eat and drink. Their food consisted mostly of grains.

Visiting the dairy was a very interesting activity. The things I learned firsthand will no doubt stay with me for a long time. I hope I will be given the opportunity to apply this knowledge in the future!

To learn more about the project in which Nikki Frahm is involved, please be sure to come to the Poster Session to be held Friday, August 5 from 9:00 – 11:00 am in Life Sciences South on the second floor.

Varma Rose Williams, Visiting UBRPer from Widener University, Chester, Pennsylvania in Dr. Chris Rensing’s lab, Soil, Water and Environmental Science