4, Herd management 



a. Observing animals 



b. Studying breeding program 



c. Breeding cows or heifers 



d. Figuring rations 



e. Attaching salt blocks to stanchion 



f. Clipping cows 



g. Rearranging cows 



h. Selling and buying cows 

 i. Training first calf heifers 

 j. Driving cows to and from pasture 



Maintenance and Other Tasks 



Dairymen do other work in barns 

 in the process of keeping up the 

 equipment and barn facilities. These 

 tasks might be classified as overhead. 

 They may not be directly productive 



but are essential in the long run. 



1. Repair of stanchions, doors and 

 windows 



2. Thawing frozen pipes, repairing 

 water pipes 



The main attention of this study 

 has been directed toward the daily 

 chores, but because it was realized 

 that occasional chores take a large 

 amount of the farmer's time, esti- 

 mates were obtained on a few farms. 

 These data are discussed in Chap- 

 ter VIII. 



Ill Seasonal Differences in Chore Schedules 



With the exception of milking, in- 

 cluding care of equipment, dairy 

 chores and the hours of labor required 

 vary seasonally. During the winter, 

 when cows are confined in stanchions, 

 an intensive job of caring for the 

 cows, feeding- the cows, and cleaning 

 the barn must be done. In the pas- 

 ture season, the cows are in the barn 

 only a brief time for the morning 

 and night milking and fewer chores 

 need to be performed daily. In New 

 Hampshire there is usually about a 

 month in the fall (October) and a 

 month in the spring (April) when 

 cows are not on pasture, but can be 

 outside part of the time. 



For convenience in analysis, three 

 seasonal chore periods were taken as 

 representative of the year: 



1. Winter — five months: Novem- 

 ber, December, January, Febru- 

 ary, March. 



2. Summer — five months: May, 

 June, July, August, September. 



3. Fall and spring — ^two months: 

 October and April. 



This grouping of chore periods 

 gives more emphasis to the fall and 

 spring than actually obtains on most 

 New Hampshire dairy farms. How- 

 ever, an analysis of the situation in 

 these short periods seemed important 

 because of the possibilities of consid- 

 erable saving of time on chores by 

 special adjustments. This would re- 

 lease labor for greater progress in 

 fall and spring field work. (See Fig- 

 ure 1.) 



The main emphasis of this study 

 is on chore work in the five winter 

 months, but modifications have been 

 made for the summer pasture season 

 and for the fall and spring periods. 

 These are given special attention in 

 Chapter IX in developing chore 

 schedules for the several seasons. 



