A day in the life…of Italy’s Posal Farms
Monday, February 18th, 2013Welcome to a new weekly feature of AllBreeds Blog – A Day in the Life. We are spotlighting different members of the dairy community all across the world. What’s their daily routine like? What bulls are they using? What challenges are they facing? What exciting things are coming up?
We’ll be taking a month-long look at Posal Farms in Lavello, Italy. Our guest correspondent is Raffaele Di Ciommo and here’s a look at a day in his life this week!
“Hi I’m Raffaele Di Ciommo and welcome to Posal Farms. I breed cows and milk from 4-7. I also do the feeding. What I have learned traveling to dairy farms around the world is that our job is the same everywhere and it always starts the same way: Birth. Birth is the magical event that recreates and starts things everyday, possibly several times per day, depending on how many cows you are milking, and for this reason we are trying to constantly improve newborn calf care.”
Clean and dry!
Heat lamps light up the night
“Basically what this whole past week’s job was about is to give new borne calves the best start possible, from each calf having its own
infrared lamp; dry, clean, soft bedding; hot milk and fresh food and
water. Everything is focused on calves because this is where
everything starts. And even before they are born, we are constantly trying to improve our matings as well.
“Here in the South of Italy usually weather brings severe conditions
mostly during the hot summer season, but, again, we have the same job as everyone else – in this winter season we have to struggle against cold, wind and rain.”
Look for more reports from Raff in the coming weeks, and see their ad in the December 2012 issue of HolsteinWorld. You can also find Posal Farms on Facebook.
