Vetericyn products have arrived!!!

Yea!  I got a delivery!  I received my winnings from the Proud To Dairy photo contest!  I got four bottles of pink eye spray, one teat spray, and one umbilical/navel spray.  I immediately used the pink eye spray.  (Not on me, on one of my girls!)  With these hot, dry, windy, fly-infested conditions, we are trying to keep the animals from getting pink eye.  This sprays GREAT.  It really soaks the eye.  It's much easier to use than the dry puffer that I've always used in the past.  It gives a good big squirt every time.  It really soaks in.  It also looks like it doesn't irritate their eyes like the puffer does.  I'm hoping the medicine works great, too.

From Progressive Dairyman 07-21-12

For those of you who don't know, pink-eye is a condition that happens when the bacteria from feces (otherwise known as poop) gets in the eye.  Animals have flies around them because flies like to land on poop and lay their eggs.  When they land, bacteria sticks to their legs.  When those flies buzz around animals and land around the eyes, some of that bacteria gets in the eyes.  Then they can get pink eye.

You need to control flies.  Pesticides can be sprayed or poured on.  We don't use back rubbers that the cattle can walk under because we don't want their topline hair rubbed thin.  If you don't have any neighbor cattle, you can use a product that the animals can eat combined with a loose mineral (a feed-through like Clari-fly).



I have had some really good success by offering my girls a yellow sulphur mineral block along with their regular brown mineral block.  Before that, I was starting to feel like Clem in the cartoon.

Thanks again to the people at Proud To Dairy, Progressive Dairyman, and Innovacyn for having the contest and sending me these great products for my girls!  Thanks Alan Leavitt, Walt Cooley, Emily Caldwell, and Tabitha Cromer!  I will think of you all every time I use or talk about these products!
My parents say thanks too, because you are saving them some MONEY!

Any day now...

My Ayrshire Posey is officially due in two days.  Praise the Lord she didn't deliver early while we were gone to the Sooner State Dairy Show.
I sure wish I could have taken her to show.  I think she's great, but I wouldn't want to make her uncomfortable in her condition.
We are praying really hard that everything goes beautifully and that Posey and baby are both perfect and healthy and strong.
I sure hope we don't get a sexed semen surprise bull calf!  I wonder what the coloring will be.  I wonder what the markings will be.  The suspense is awful!

Sooner State Dairy Show 2012

I've been bustin' butt every day either trying to get ready for the Sooner State Dairy Show or working AT Sooner State.

The breeder said that Carmelita was already trained to lead.  That she will walk with you on a rope halter, but when I got her home, she really didn't want to do that.  So for me, I had to almost start her from the beginning.  I had to outsmart her to catch her up, then get her haltered, and then it took two of us to make her walk.  She just planted her feet and sulled up like a little donkey.  Since she's a Jersey, she's fairly small, but still, that's hard work!


Stop and Stare is itty-bitty, but she can sull up and plant those feet with the best of them.  She even did the "Jersey flop" on me once while I had her haltered.   Stop and Stare flopped down and she got so comfortable, we thought she would NEVER get up!  But she did, and we finished up our training session.


Juicy is back home from the breeder.  She doesn't need as much work as the other two, but I worked her out anyway.


We scrubbed the girls down on our own at the farm.  Then we did something we've never done...we clipped all of my animals without anyone supervising us.  I liked it.  I didn't feel rushed.


That was on a Monday.  Tuesday afternoon, we loaded up all supplies, took them to Stillwater and unloaded and set up as much as we possibly could.  We got home around 11 P.M.


Wednesday morning we met to load up animals.  Got to Stillwater in time to have a hamburger at Braum's.  Then we unloaded and washed animals, and our advisor roughed in toplines for the animals we had chosen to use for showmanship that next evening.  I chose Juicy.  

Thursday night there were fifteen in my 11-12 year old class.  I'm not making excuses.  I know where I messed up, but  it was an honest mistake and definitely a learning experience.


I was second in line.  The boy in front of me was having a hard time handling his heifer.  (He said he knew she would be trouble that morning.)  She kept freezing up.  So I kept giving her a goose to help him get started again.  So at one point, he stopped and was wrestling with her, so I stopped and waited for him to go.  Sadly, that's where the judge told him to stop.  I should have been setting up, which is what he was trying to do.  Finally I started setting my animal up when I saw that other people were behind me.  What a stupid mistake.  Anyway.  Then she dropped the bottom five and then ten to come up with the top five showmen.  Even though I hesitated (which she labeled as "lacking confidence") I still made it in the TOP FIVE, barely, but I made it, and ten other people didn't, so I am still proud of my performance.  I learned a lesson.


I am also proud of my friend April!  This was her first Sooner State, and she got FOURTH in showmanship in our age group!  Her Holstein is a little crazy like my Faith used to be, so she REALLY deserved in the top five!  Yea, April!


Friday we did dairy judging.  I had the high score in our 4-H group, but I didn't place.  


Saturday we showed. I spent a lot of time goosing the Jersey in front of me to help the girl get it going around the ring.  Carmelita got 7th out of 9.  The judge was really complimentary about her and said there were LOTS of things she liked about her, but she was currently "carrying too much condition"  which is a nice way to say that she's too fat right now.   :)  That's okay.  I haven't had her long enough to get all the weight off her that I want to.  Just give it time.  She wasn't last!

Stopnstare got 1st in Jr. and 1st in Open as a Spring Calf.  (If you wonder where she got the name Stopnstare, maybe it would make more sense if you knew that her mama's name is SEXY!) 





Juicy ended up getting 1st as a Jr. Yearling. 

After the show Saturday, we tore down everything we could and moved it to the front of the aisle.  We went to eat lunch then...at 5:30 or so.  When we finished, my mom pulled the trailer that we loaded with supplies.  Our advisor pulled the gooseneck with the cattle.  We dropped the trailer at the farm then went to unload hay at the Ag Barn.  Then we took my friend home and finally headed to the house.  Woo!  What a week.

Oklahoma Dairy Princess 2012

Congratulations to my friends!

Second from left:  Liza Van der Laan - 1st Runner Up
Center right:  Leanne Van der Laan - 2012 Oklahoma Dairy Princess
Far right:  Shannon Van der Laan - 2nd Runner Up

They all looked so beautiful, and they really know their stuff.  I am SO proud to know them!  I can't wait until I'm old enough to stand up there with them!

What is GODBLESS DAIRY ENTERPRISES?

GODBLESS DAIRY ENTERPRISES is what I call my 4-H dairy project.

I have requested GODBLESS as my prefix for each of the breeds I raise.  I chose GODBLESS because God has blessed me with so much and continues to bless me.

I call it "Dairy Enterprises" because I don't have a farm.  I don't even own a trailer.  It's not a company.  It's a dairy project.  So I used a thesaurus to find a word that fit what I am or what I have.  I found out that "Enterprise" is a synonym of "project".  It was perfect!

Our little family (2011)

I guess you would call me the proprietor or the dairy boss.  I am the sole owner of my animals.  The first one was a gift.  The rest I have paid for myself.  I take care of them every day.  I do my own fitting (except for the topline.)  I do almost all of my own paperwork and check writing.  I am the only person who shows my animals in Jr. and Open Shows.

My mom is like my hired hand, except she doesn't get paid.  If I need an extra pair of hands to do something, she helps.  I can hook up a trailer, but I can't drive, so she pulls the trailer.  If I'm doing halter training on more than one animal, we each take one and play stock show and then switch in the middle. My dad is like my corporate sponsor.  He makes sure there's money in the bank for supplies, and he takes care of stuff in the city.   He has loaded/hauled things like cattle panels and a hay ring (one time, he even picked up a hoop skirt for my princess formal) and brought them to me from long distances.  He also makes sure I have a different convertible to ride in for every parade I'm in.  Mom works with me daily and goes with me to the shows.  Dad owns and operates a body shop in Norman, which is a long way from home, so he's usually at work when I'm out and about with my animals.  He helps me with things like broken trailer lights and replacing ruined tires.  He comes to every show that he can.   MawMaw and GrandDad come to most of the local and the county shows.  GrandDad helped me build a calf hutch and let me use his tools to make a mineral feeder.   He painted and put a new floor in the squeeze chute.  MawMaw takes pictures for me and is one of my biggest cheerleaders.  They are also like my sponsors.  They match all cash prizes that I win with my animals.  


That's pretty well all of the "personnel" at GODBLESS DAIRY ENTERPRISES.  Of course I have some fantastic outside experts and service providers that I can count on for information and advice, like my breeder and my 4-H leader and other dairy families that do this for a living every day.  I am truly blessed to have all these people that I can count on.  
  

Yes, Mom, I learned my lesson.

So I picked out and purchased my new Jerseys, but I couldn't take them home that night.  On our way out to go shopping, we drove out to the farm to hook up the trailer.  We got hooked up and were pulling out when we realized that we didn't have any trailer lights.  So we backed it up and unhooked it and left it there for the night.  What a waste of time and gas.  So we went ahead and went shopping, but made other trailer arrangements for the Jerseys.

We STILL needed to use the trailer to haul the Brown Swiss nurse cow and three others to the breeder.
So the following Monday, Mom tried to get me up and out the door, but I'm not a morning person and I was not cooperative.  She told me to grab a water on the way out, but I said no, I was fine.  We rolled out of our neighborhood about an hour later than she had planned, but we still had plenty of time.


We went to pick up the trailer again and load up...but the trailer wasn't there.  It had been borrowed the night before.  He used it at night and got back to town late and didn't want to wake the homeowner when he brought the trailer back.  Luckily, since he used it at night, we knew that the trailer wiring had been fixed!  So we had to go out in the country to pick it up from his house because he was at work and wasn't able to bring it to us.  This was going to take time.

We found the property just fine.  But today I could not get the trailer hitch lined up to save my life!!!  Usually, I'm an AWESOME trailer hitcher.  Eventually it looked like I had it, but because I'm not as big as everyone else, I have to shove the jack handle really hard to get it going around.  Because I was shoving so hard, and because someone ripped the foot off the bottom of the jack, and because no one ever puts blocks behind the tires, the trailer rolled off the block, rammed the jack into the dirt and kept rolling.  Finally it dug in so deep that it stopped.  Thank the Good Lord that my mom had just bought a floor jack and put in the truck.  It was still in the box in the bed of the truck.

We put a spare receiver hitch behind one of the tires to block it.  Put the floor jack under the tongue of the trailer, jacked it up, put the block back under the trailer jack, and started over.  FINALLY we got to leave.  That took a LOT of time we hadn't counted on.  So we sent the breeder a text.

We got back to the farm and improvised a loading chute with the trailer gate and an extra cattle panel wired to the other corner of the trailer.  We haltered and loaded the nurse cow.  We haltered Fara and tied her up.  I caught the Milking Shorthorn and got her to the trailer but she WOULD.NOT.LOAD!!!  After about ten tries, Mom had me tie her up.  I got Fara half into the trailer and she decided to lay down.  So we boosted her up and put her to the side while we took another try with the Shorthorn.  Mom took her out away from the trailer and circled her back.  She stepped right up that time!  We got the two big ones in the front and closed the divider gate.  Now it was time to load the little bull.  Had to follow him around the pen two or three times to try to keep him from doubling back.  Then he just jumped right up in the trailer with Fara.  We got the gate closed and reached through to turn Fara loose from her halter.  We didn't want her to get hurt by the bull so we let her loose to move around on her own.  That took even MORE time than we had thought it would.  We texted the breeder to let him know we were on our way.  (I'm glad my mom shared her ice water with me.)

FINALLY we were on the road.  We had a window of 11-1 to be at the breeder's.  We were twenty minutes late.

The GOOD NEWS about this day is that we had given the breeder a heads-up on our situation and little did we know he was busy with the hoof trimmer.  When we walked through the door, they had just sat down to have a sandwich.  Sadly, if we had been there sooner, we could have told him that the nurse cow needed her hooves done.

I cleaned and washed out the trailer.  Mom was EXTREMELY impressed that I didn't complain and that I did a PERFECT job without having to re-do anything or be told what to do. :)  Woo Hoo!!!

I got to bring Juicy home from the breeder.  She got to be penmates with Carmelita.  I worked both of them and Stop and Stare with show halters.  Gotta get them ready for Sooner State!


Anyway, I learned several things.  Yes, my mom actually made me discuss them out loud with her in the truck on the way home.  :(

#1 Just do what your mom tells you.
Always start a job early.  Give yourself extra time.
How to recover a dropped trailer
Always block trailer tires.
Call ahead.
Confirm plans you made the week before (like borrowing the trailer)
Bring emergency tools/supplies.
Carry ice water.

This did not start out as a happy day, but it got better as we went.  That's another lesson in itself.  Just because things start out bad, doesn't mean they have to stay that way.     :)

I LOVE YOU, MOM! :)

Shopping...showgirl style!

May, June, July is usually the time when I would make last-minute decisions about changes in my show line-up.  This year is the same.

I got a call from my breeder that he was ready to thin out some of his heifers.  He had several breed options for me.  He said he knew I was like him and "appreciated diversification" in my herd.  So my mom took me to do some "shopping" at his farm.  We looked at lots of heifers, and we even looked at some cows that I could potentially get a calf out of this next go around.

We thought we were going there to buy one new addition to my herd...but I found THREE!!!  After a lot of conversation and a lot of thinking, I ended up with two of the three.  We thought I had better save some of my money back to use for entry fees.

I ended up with two Jerseys.  Never in a million years did we think we were going to haul home two Jerseys.  We were thinking Guernsey or Milking Shorthorn for my next purchase, but I bought Jerseys!

Carmelita is a yearling.  Stop and Stare is just a few months old.

HELLO, INTERNATIONAL DAIRYMEN!!!

WOW!
Who would have known that this little old 4-H dairy project blog would reach so far? 
According to the Blogger stats, my audience includes:
U.S.A. (of course)
RUSSIA
NETHERLANDS
ARGENTINA
CANADA
GERMANY ***home of my Larchey ancestors!!!
FRANCE
UNITED KINGDOM
INDIA
BRAZIL
ECUADOR
MALAYSIA
NEPAL
SOUTH KOREA
UKRAINE 
LATVIA
PHILIPPINES
SWEDEN
TURKEY 
AUSTRALIA
IRELAND ***Cork County:  home of my O'Scannell ancestors (and my McTeggart Irish Dance teacher)
NEW ZEALAND
COLOMBIA
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
POLAND
KUWAIT
BANGLADESH
VENEZUELA
VIETNAM
GEORGIA
LEBANON
ALGERIA
MOZAMBIQUE
PAKISTAN
MOLDOVA
SINGAPORE
MYANMAR (BURMA)
PANAMA
MEXICO
GABON
BAHRAIN
HONDURAS
ITALY
NIGERIA
SRI LANKA
BOSNIA/HERZEGOVIA
MALTA
FINLAND
CZECH REPUBLIC
MONTENEGRO
JAPAN
and
JAMAICA.

This made me start thinking about dairies in these countries.  So my mom and I started looking up information on the internet about them.  Cool stuff!

"So milk her, maybe..."

I just finished watching an A.MA.ZING video!!!
Lil' Fred did a parody of "Call Me Maybe"  called "Farm It Maybe"!
It's totally devoted to the dairy farming life!!!  I LOVE IT!!! Everyone needs to see it, so I am going to embed it here!

If you can't see it in your browser, try a different one.

Bessie Bingo

So you wanna win $100?  A lot of people do.
That's why they play BESSIE BINGO!

Every year at the 4th of July celebration at the park, my 4-H friends and I sell Bessie Bingo squares to raise money for our chapter.

Here's how it works:
We have 100 squares that we sell on a map.  And we have 100 squares spray painted on the ground in an empty pen.  Once all the squares are sold (for $2 each or $10 for 6), a dairy heifer ("Bessie") is released into the pen.  Whichever square she *PLOPS* on, we check the map and see whose name is on that map square, and they win $100!

We sold three full maps of squares, so we gave away three prizes of a hundred dollars each, and 4-H made about $300 profit!

If you're ever in Crescent for the 4th of July, come play BESSIE BINGO with us! 

Ultrasound Appointment

I went to Cross Country Genetics and got an ultrasound for Ayan, my Brown Swiss nurse cow.  We needed to find out if she is preggers or not.  If she's not, we have to see if she is cystic and treat her for it.  If she's all clear, then we have to watch her for heat and A.I. her again.  If she is preggo, I do my happy dance and I get a calf in nine months!

Ultrasound results:
No cysts.
No fetus.
No happy dance :( 

Happy July, NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH!

 

It's here!  It's FINALLY HERE!!!

NATIONAL ICE CREAM MONTH!!!
It's the one time when we have an excuse to eat ice cream every day!!!
My favorite flavor is chocolate chip cookie dough.

A Little Work...A Little Clowning Around

IMAGINE THIS:


I've got an empty five-gallon bucket in one hand headed back to the grainery.  With the other hand I'm pulling a little flatbed garden cart...and I'm runnin'!

I saw mom in the truck driving around and she was going about 1 mile an hour, and me being, well, me, I thought I could take her on!  I sprinted around the back of the fence, but she saw me and she floored it! We're almost there and I'm still in front of her! Then we got to the grainery (our finish line) I WON!!! Looks like the two track meets paid off!  I feel proud!   :)

So, how did you come to be interested in Dairy? Proud To Dairy blog post: July 6, 2012

I got an email the other day suggesting a blog post:

“I'd like to know more about how you became interested in dairy. You said you live in town and your parents and grandparents weren't involved in raising livestock through 4-H or FFA. So how did it happen? What sparked your interest in dairy?”

In my family, it’s been three generations since anyone was involved in agriculture. Most all of them sold products to creameries.  Only one still farms and he only has a few beef cattle.  I’m not a farm kid.  I’m not even a country kid, but  I am a third year 4-H member with four registered dairy show cattle, with another calf on the way, and assorted pairs of orphan calves that I tend every day.  I don’t even live in the town where my cattle are.  They live at my Godmother’s little farm, so I do chores every day on the way home from school.  On weekends, holidays, and breaks, I still make the half hour trip from my house, do chores, and make the half hour trip back home again.  Even people who know my family wonder how I ended up raising dairy cattle.

I’m guessing I was just over a year old when my mom made arrangements for me to come to the FFA Week Petting Zoo at the high school where she teaches. 

My (now) 4-H leader carried me around and showed me all of the animals.  The one animal that I pet and seemed to like the best was “Daisy”.   She was a dairy heifer that one of the students had won in an essay contest.  I attended the FFA petting zoo every year for at least eight years.  


When I was about four,  I started my Pee Wee Showmanship career.  I came to the Local show and showed every species.  I went to the County show and showed beef, dairy, and sheep. 

I went to the Sooner State Dairy Show, and  I went  to the Oklahoma State Fair to do Showmanship.  The ring was almost full, and as I got ready to walk through the gate, I looked up at my Godmother and announced that I could do it all by myself.  I led that giant Holstein around the ring with no problems.  My mom still tells the story about how I was the smallest kid in the ring with the biggest animal and the only one with no help at all!  
Another year I started doing the Purdiest Cow Contest.  The little Jersey and I were "Hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon."
It was also around that time that I learned I could be in 4-H and have my own heifer when I turned nine.  I thought my ninth birthday would NEVER come!  After I turned nine, two very special friends decided to give me one of their Ayrshire calves to raise for my own. 

Since then,  I have saved up my stock show winnings, birthday money, Christmas money, and odd job money and bought my other animals by myself. I bought a Brown Swiss calf.  I made and paid off a purchase agreement for a Holstein yearling, and I financed my Brown Swiss nurse cow and paid her off.  I sold the Holstein and kept her heifer calf.  My Ayrshire is due in less than a month.  The Brown Swiss nurse cow gets preg checked in three days, the Brown Swiss heifer is going to be in heat any day now so she can get A.I.ed., and I have bought and sold three pairs of orphan calves for my nurse cow to raise.

“Where do you think your determination comes from to raise dairy animals?”

I guess it does take a lot of determination to raise dairy cattle.  In my little corner of the world, dairy doesn’t get much respect.  Our county only allows ONE dairy heifer in the premium sale.  They do not allow dairy to compete for money in showmanship.  They do not allow any crossbreds.  They do not allow any fresh or dry cows.  Over the winter, our STATE Fairgrounds tore down the cattle barns and rebuilt them...without a milking parlor.  There will be no cows, not even dry ones, shown at the State Fair starting this fall.

Even though dairy is treated the way it is, I keep working.  Maybe it’s because I’m stubborn.  My MawMaw looked at me on the day I was born and told my parents, “That is going to be a strong-willed child!” 

The work is hard, and sometimes I get frustrated.  Not as much as I did when I was littler.  But when I do, and I get UGLY, my mom stops me and asks me, “So what do you want to do?  Quit?  Sell out? It’s fine if you do, because it will save us a lot of money.”  She says the same thing every time because she knows that those words will shake me up and get me to straighten up SUPER-FAST!  She knows I don’t want to quit.  Quitting is like being beaten, and who wants to feel the agony of defeat? 
I know I don’t.   : )
 
Written for Proud To Dairy/Progressive Dairyman 
Posted July 6, 2012

Dairy Field Days

June is National Dairy Month and we do dairy things, like go to dairy judging events for all the major breeds.

June 6th was Milking Shorthorn field day held in Cushing.  I don't really want to talk about it because we didn't do well.  But even so...
Big thanks to Cushing for hosting us all!

We all saw Susan Allen from Dairy Max, and she gave us our new dairy t-shirts!


The next day, however, was a much better day.  We went to the Brown Swiss Dairy Field Day in Agra at Bryan Reedy's dairy.  Thank you Mr. Reedy!

Eight of us represented our school at this competition, including my friend and OK Brown Swiss Jr. Princess, Diana.  We judged five classes, and we ended up having:
the 2nd place 4-H team (that was my team!!!)
the 3rd place FFA team
the 4-H 2nd high individual (my buddy Kasey)
and 3rd high individual PeeWee (my little buddy Savanna)!
Not bad for eight kids.

Then we had a one day break.  Monday morning we met at our Ag Farm and cleaned our facility to get ready for our company.  We host the Oklahoma Jersey Field Day every year. 

Not to be too proud and braggy or anything, but we serve some pretty awesome food, AND not only does Dairy Max provide bottled milk for the day, but we also provide ICE CREAM for everyone while we are awaiting the judging contest results.  They are store-bought ice cream treats, but they are GOOD!  (I've heard wild rumors that when the Chupp family hosts a field day, they have two flatbed trailers lined with freezers of all kinds of homemade ice cream.  I hope those stories are true, and that I get to see for myself.)

Tuesday we went to Perkins for the Ayrshire and Guernsey field day.  I was 5th high 4-H individual.  I was also on the FIRST PLACE 4-H TEAM!  Woo Hoo!!!  My buddy Kasey was high individual, and our new team member Breanna was 3rd high individual!

OH! And I was re-crowned Oklahoma Ayrshire Jr. Princess!!!
GOOD TIMES!

AAAHHH!!! I'm in print!!!

My mom got a weird multimedia text from a friend a couple days ago.












It was at that very moment that we realized I had been published!








The next day we figured out that we could go online and see the actual magazine.



Oooh.  It's pretty!

UN.BE.LIEVABLE!!!

 AAAHHHHH!!!

The most amazing thing happened!  I was invited to post to PROUD TO DAIRY on a regular basis!  They've sent me six months worth of topics to write about.  They also want me to post videos.  But wait!  There's more!

They want to feature my content through:


 AND










 








AND

AND

IN THE PROGRESSIVE DAIRYMAN PRINT MAGAZINE!!!

They also post links on their facebook pages to articles and photos they want to feature.

But I don't know.  I'm going to have to think about it...um, let me see...uh,

YOU BETCHA!  I'm IN!

I don't know who to thank first.  Really, I wouldn't even be posting stuff online if Kara Eschbach, the Tulsa State Fair Agribusiness Coordinator, hadn't chosen me to blog about my 4-H dairy project, given me info on where and how to set up a blog, and linked me to their facebook page.  So THANK YOU, KARA!
Then of course I want to thank EMILY CALDWELL,

Web Editor, East Coast Editor of Progressive Publishing, because I'm sure she had something to do with that decision AND she was the bearer of the good news!  Thank you also to ALAN LEAVITT, Publisher and WALT COOLEY, Editor of Progressive Dairyman magazine because I know that they are the BIG DECISION makers!

Hope I can come up with some good stuff for you to use.
(If I'm dreaming, don't wake me up.)

...and the winner is...Maddie Moo!!!

THANK YOU SO MUCH TO EACH AND EVERY PERSON WHO TOOK TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY AND WENT TO THE PROUD TO DAIRY SITE AND VOTED FOR MY PHOTO!

AND EXTRA SPECIAL GREAT BIG GIANT THANKS TO THE PEOPLE WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE FOR SPONSORING AND RUNNING THIS PHOTO CONTEST:

TABITHA CROMER 

Marketing Communications Manager

at Innovacyn, Inc. (the makers of Vetericyn)

ALAN LEAVITT 

Publisher 

Progressive Dairyman magazine

WALT COOLEY 

Editor  

Progressive Dairyman magazine

and 

EMILY CALDWELL

Web editor

Progressive Publishing

*******

PROUD TO DAIRYby Progressive Dairyman

THE CHALLENGE

Show us your pride:  Participate in the June Dairy month photo contest!

Do you have a Proud to Dairy hat? Snap a photo of yourself wearing it and upload it to Proud to Dairy for a chance to win prizes from the makers of Vetericyn Wound Spray: http://proudtodairy.ning.com/profiles/blogs/show-us-your-pride-participate-in-the-june-dairy-month-photo. Don't have a hat yet? Earn one by posting a blog or video and tell us why you're Proud to Dairy!

*******

So I made a blog post AND I posted a video.  They sent me TWO hats!  I put my hair up in a bun, headed out to do chores, stuck my Proud To Dairy hat on my head, and Mom snapped DOZENS of photos with her cell phone.  Eventually we got some good ones. 

Do I look PROUD TO DAIRY, or what?

Photo contest winner:  ME!!!

Tell her what we have for her, Johnny!

  TWO of these

and one of these!

These prizes have a combined value of  $120 (or more, depending on where you buy them)!!!

I had my choice of three products.  The third option was Umbilical, Navel & Udder gel.  I figured with as many flies as there are, I had better get two of the pink eye spray.  Darn those flies!  I will NOT let them get the best of MY girls!  As soon as these come in the mail, I'm going to be heavily armed!  I've already used Vetericyn wound spray and liked it a lot.  That's why I was extra excited about this contest.  I wanted some more Vetericyn products for my supply box!  They are GOOD stuff!

Thanks again to all the individuals who made this contest and these prizes and my WIN possible! 

Thank you!  Thank you!  THANK you!