News Around the Dairy
This year has been very busy around the dairy. We started expansion in early March and it is an ongoing project. We are building a new barn that will house a hoof trimming table and working facility, a shop to work on equipment, a new feed lane which is complete, expanding the commodity barn, a new greenhouse barn to house calves in, this will be our second greenhouse barn (they are great for calves), we will be able to house 200 calves in our barns now plus the 65 hutches we have. We also will be expanding the barn this fall adding a new office. We bought 100 head of heifers and cows this year, about 40 head of registered Swiss and 60 head of Holstein. It has been a very tough year for all dairyman though, milk prices are down, gas prices are up, hay prices are skyrocketing. We are in a severe drought here in Hardeman County, there was absolutely no wheat silage made this year. This summer has been very dry and very hot, so we are just trying to hang in there.
In July we welcomed the newest member to the dairy family, Steven and Valerie welcomed their first child, Sabrina Ruth Overststreet, born on July 7th, 2006, weighing 8 lbs. 7 oz. and measuring 21 1/4 inches. She is a very sweet baby, and we are so thankful to have her.
Michael and Cristine are anxiously awaiting their new house which should be complete in November. They look forward to getting moved in by Christmas, it has been a long time coming.
We are eagerly waiting our first crop of embryo calves this September, plus we have several of our top Swiss cows due to calve. We also are anticipating the arrival of the show season and are very excited about the National Swiss show move to Stillwater, OK this year in conjunction with the Heart of America sale, it should be a great time. We look forward to taking our undefeated heifer, Overstreet Victor Promise, and others. We are very proud of Promise as she is home bred and raised, and has matured into a beautiful heifer, she is due to calve in December, bred to the gotcha bull from Bo Joy farms.