Spring Cleaning at Soaring Eagle Dairy...

There are a bunch of things we do at the farm to transition from the cold months to warm months of Wisconsin.  During the cold months, we have a heater in the water tanks to keep water from freezing - these get turned off.  Additionally, we have a fan and water sprinkler system in all the barns that keeps the cows cool in summer.  These must all be gone through to make sure they are working properly. 

We also spend a day digging the sand out of the beds the cows lay in.  While each cow's bed gets groomed three times per day, removing any cow pies, deep down in the pile is a great place from bacteria to hang out.  As a result each spring before the weather gets warm (which would cause those bacteria to really get going), we dig the sand out.  The attached video shows the "plow" our shop guys built for on the back of the oldest tractor we have that cleans out 95% of the beds on the farm.  (Yup, that's a plow blade from an old mole board plow which is used to work up ground in the fall after harvest.) 

My brother-in-law Jeremy is operating the tractor and plow

The 5% of the sand that the plow doesn't get we get the old fashion way...shovel and "girl power".  It's interesting to note that because sand in an inorganic substance, the sand we take out just gets piled for several months.  Because there in no inoranic material to feed the bacteria, they eventually die off and we can test for bacteria and reuse a few months later.