A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A FARMER
AGRINEWS PHOTO/MARTHA BLUM
John Mitchell prepares to administer aspirin to a cow in the fresh pen on the farm near Winnebago, Illinois. Mitchell identifies cows that are not feeling well based off their rumination collars, which track how many minutes per day the cows are ruminating and their activity compared to the baseline normal for each cow.
Training day Phibro interns get hands-on lessons at farm Follow the Mitchell family throughout the entire year. Each month, look for updates about the family members and the decisions they make on their farm. By Martha Blum
AGRINEWS PUBLICATIONS
WINNEBAGO, Ill. — Summer interns for Phibro Animal Health prepared for their summer work during an on-farm training day at the Mitchell dairy farm. The Phibro Animal Health interns traveled to northern Illinois from across the United States.
“We have interns from New York to California here to teach them Phibro’s approved method for being on farm, handling cows and safety along with industry standards for farm management,” said Erica Varner, senior account manager for Phibro Animal Health. The two-day training session started with day of instructions at a hotel. “We went through safety, educated them on products, expectations in the field and some sales training so they know how to talk to people on the farms,” Varner said. “We also gave them an overview of Phibro — who we are and why we do what we do.” At the dairy farm, the interns observed the cows and the dairy facilities to learn about a variety of management criteria such as body condition
scoring, manure scoring, cud chewing, cow comfort, stocking density, respiration rates, proper TMR consistency and urine pH testing. “Our interns are hands-on with cows and we give them projects,” Varner said. “We help them, but we allow them to run their projects independently.” The Phibro interns will do projects such as heat stress assessments or overall farm stress assessments. “All the interns will come together in August to present their projects and all the information they found to the intern group and the Phibro leadership team,” said Varner, who is also the intern coordinator. “They asked me for some tips about being courteous on See TRAINING page 10
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