our first adventure in Scotland

Day One: Complete.
Immediately following the flight we found ourselves on the tour bus ready to start. While some of us could barely keep our eyes open, we saw rolling green hills and tons of pastures with animals grazing. Our first stop was at the National Museum of Rural Life, where we saw a scottish "man trap" and soon ventured up to the preserved farmhouse. On film we captured a ridiculously photogenic Highlander cow and soon saw the owner herding his sheep in before a rain storm. This sight was impressive, noticing not only the herder's specific and alternating calls, but his sheep dog's aggressive and experienced training. Morgan also could not help but wonder why the sheep's tails were not docked.

Our next stop was at the Scottish Agriculture College, where we were greeted by the manager of dairy operations at the college, a pleasant Mr. John. John took us for a tour of some of his pasture lots, barns, and milking parlor. In Scotland, cows primarily graze on rye grass, unlike the Marylandish alfalfa and clover. We learned from John that cows are turned out when the length of the grass is approximately the height of a beer can, and they are switched to another lot when the grass is as tall as a golf ball. The average herd size is around 200, because it is the maximum number put out on pasture; even the number of cows spending the majority of time out on pasture alone, astounded us yanks. John informed us that because Scots are not good record keepers, they tend to view management and reproductive practices from other countries, like the United States, New Zealand, and Germany. (Never trust the records of an Italian). On another interesting note, we found the identification system to be much more strict, since the outbreak of BSE.

Down in the barns we were showed their grain supplement, a "PMR", pelletized distillers grain, pelletized beet pulp, and soy beans. Then we came across a calf pen, where John showed us his new automatic calf-feeder, which can be programmed to ration out milk, knew which calf was drinking and how much, and could slowly wean the calves by distributing less milk. There were about eight calves on just one machine, and the calves were in excellent health and condition. We learned new vocabulary when venturing into the "cubicles", or what we refer to as free stalls. Even the barn alleys are known as "passageways" in Scotland. The milking parlor was a double twelve herringbone, and parlors are the most type of milking facility in the UK, where most cows are milked twice a day (three if your lucky).

~The Team