Day 25: Data Collecting

Hi everyone!

Today was another day out at Debre Zeit. After breakfast of toast and strawberries we left at 7:30 am. Our first stop was at GGK Farm. This was another large scale farm but still 'old-style' in it's production. They milk completely by hand. They had 75 Holstein Friesian dairy cows and A LOT of chickens! She answered my questionnaire about their farm that I will compare with the milk yield data that I currently have. When I finished, Hannah asked her about the chicken production. After that she took us the building where the feed was mixed. They buy ingredients individually (like most farms) and mix the feed on the farm. We then made our way over to the dairy barn. Then we visited the chicken buildings. They had laying hens, pullets, and cockerels. There's a lot of management that goes into these large farms!

The next farm we stopped at was smaller with only 15 cows. We were not actually able to visit the cows at this farms because the manager had to go to church. But, I got through my questionnaire and Hannah completed hers about the chickens as well. Where we met the manager and his family seemed to be in like a small village. There were about 4 or 5 homes centered around a main middle area. There were some trees in the main area and between two trees was a highly resourceful engineered swing. The seat was an old plastic bottle (about the size of a laundry detergent bottle) and the 'rope' was old rubber. A small girl was swinging almost the whole time while we were there while she smiled and stared at Hannah and I. We finished up there and headed to the next farm.

(The enumerator is in the tan jacket and the manager in the red)

All three farms were within a half mile or so of each other. Our last stop was at Debre Zeit Swine Farm (makes sense right?). They had hogs, dairy cows, and chickens. They also grew corn for silage and their own alfalfa. We sat down with the dairy manager and he answered all my questions. This was the only worker that was able to communicate directly with me because he had very good english. He didn't know too much about the chickens for Hannah, except that they were broilers that would be sold. The farm just happened to be right next to the slaughter house too. He took us to see the holstein bulls that would soon be slaughtered as well as the actual milking cows. Hannah and I were both very impressed by the cleanliness of the cows and their pens. The manger took me to see the dairy parlor as well. They used both machine and hand to milk. He said that sometimes the automatic milker breaks down but otherwise it is efficient. The cows just have to walk in one side and follow the 'path' while they get milked and go out the other door and back into their pen. This farm also had one of the best yielding cows of the farms I've visited. They showed me one cow that was producing an average of 34 L a day which is tremendous for this area. In the U.S. an average dairy cow is producing about 30 L a day.

Until next time!