Dairy Internship Directory Available

College students who are looking for an internship can find an assortment of possibilities on the Dairy Shrine website. The directory currently contains 36 different internships across the country available to college students. Because some of the internship positions have more than one intern, the actual number of offerings totals 69. There are opportunities for students to take internships in communications, public relations, marketing, on-farm consulting, youth education, and company development. To visit the directory, go to www.dairyshrine.org and click on Students’ Corner found on the website’s left navigation bar. From there, click on Internships to find the complete directory.

If companies would like to post their internship on this directory, they can go to the Internship page and scroll to the bottom and select the Post an Internship icon. There they can fill in details about their internship and have it posted free of charge for college students from across the globe.

National Dairy Shrine brings together dairy producers, scientists, students, educators, marketers, and others who share a desire to preserve our dairy heritage and to keep the dairy industry strong. National Dairy Shrine now has over 17,000 members encompassing virtually every facet of the industry. In addition, Dairy Shrine gives over $30,000 annually in scholarships to dairy students. Postings for these scholarships also can be found under the Students’ Corner on the National Dairy Shrine website.

To join the 17,600 members of National Dairy Shrine, contact Dave Selner at National Dairy Shrine, P.O. Box 1, Maribel, WI 54227; e-mail info@dairyshrine.org or phone at (920) 863-6333.

Farm interns depart at summer's end

As summer comes to an end, so does my internship. I have learned many valuable skills from the employees here at the Hoard’s Dairyman Farm, including learning to treat sick cows from Megan Lundy and learning how to scrape and milk in the tie stall barn from Brandon Schleif. Jake Agnew showed me how to run buttons for releasing cows and letting cows into the parlor, and Stephanie Ayoub showed me how to feed baby calves here at the farm. I have learned many new skills that I would like to implement on my family’s dairy.

The second half of my internship has been full of activities. I helped picture cows for advertising, mated cows, and went on a five-hour road trip to pick up semen and visit the beautiful Rolling Hills Prairie Dairy where the Walter family milks 200 Guernsey cows. I have also been involved with a research project to determine the heat stress exposure in the free stall barn. We finally started this project and placed intervaginal temperature recorders mounted on CIDRs in the cows. We will also be looking at the effects of sprinklers in the holding pen as well as exit lane sprinklers on the cow’s body temperature. Time is evaluated to see how long the cow is in the holding pen until she exits the parlor and water use is monitored for the sprinkler system.

More Hoard Farm intern experiences

Wrestling heifers, chasing dry cows, tagging cows, pulling twins at midnight, and being chased by bumblebees are just a few things that have kept my internship memorable so far this summer.

I have had a great learning experience, as well. I work with the herd health manager, Megan Lundy, and the calf manager, Stephanie Ayoub. In addition to breeding cows, I have learned how to IV cows. However, some of my favorite experiences have been pulling twins at 12:30 till 1:30 at night with Stephanie’s help. Both twins had their heads down so we had to push them back and pull the head up so we could pull them. My latest project has been to check cows that need tags, order tags, and finally tag the cow. After hours of tagging with Megan’s help, we were exhausted and happy that the task was complete.

I found a the nest of bumblebees in the straw pile while bedding the dry cows.

As part of my research project, Hoards had the sprinkler systems installed. One system is in the holding pen and the other in the return alleys. The system in the holding pen is on a timer with five individual sprinklers. When the sensors are tripped in the return alley, the cow is sprayed down when she walks though, cooling her before she returns to her pen.

These are just a few experiences of my internship so far. Now I need some hot weather in August to complete my research on heat stress.