C2—Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, May 24,1980
Patti Johnson puts her iove of dairy to the test
BY SUSAN KAUFFMAN
Staff Correspondent
Although farm women have had a place in the bam
daring milking time for as long as cows have been
domesticated for their milk, only recently have women
taken up the specified occupations relating to dairy far
ming such as veterinary medicine and milk sampling and
testing to name a few jobs.
More and more women are taking their training and
talents and applying them to once all-male employment
areas. Patti Johnson, a twenty-one year old lass from
York County has been a Dairy Herd Improvement
Association Supervisor for the last eighteen months in
neighboring Lancaster County. An interview with her
recently at her home near Airville, Southern York County,
gave her the opportunity to explain her reasons for un
dertaking this job and to share some of her experiences.
Patti has always been dose to the dairy industry from a
personal standpoint because she is the daughter of a dairy
farmer. Patti and her two brothers and two sisters have
grown up on the registered Holstein dairy farm in Lower
Cfaanceford Township owned by their parents Mr. and
Mrs. T. Edwin Johnson.
Patti, being the oldest of the family’s children, took a
serious interest in the work on the farm from an early age.
And when she attended Red Lion High School she par
ticipated in the FFA programs available to her. She
specialized in the dairy calf, cow and herd projects during
her high school years. At the same time she also, along
with the rest of her brothers and sisters, become involved
in the 4-H dairy club in the area. Remarking that although
she and her brothers and sisters did not always have the
top ranking animals at the shows, she said, “It was good
training for us, it was good for us to work on our animals
and show them anyway.”
Never being one to skip out on the work at hand, Patti
has readily taken'her share of the workload for granted
and gone on to complete her tasks with energy. Even now
when she keeps long hours as a supervisor for the
association, she still puts in a lot of time helping with the
chores at home. Not one at say much about herself, Patti
did admit that perhaps it was her farm background which
helped her to be chosen to fill a vacancy in the Lancaster
County Association supervisor’s staff in October of 1978.
Prior to answering an ad in Lancaster Farming con
cerning the job vacancy, Patti had worked since high
school at a restaurant and at a farm supply store near her
home. She recalled that some tune before she saw the ad,
there had been a similar vacancy in York County as well.
She said, “I guess I was just out of school and had not
really decided in time to answer the ad. When I saw the
Lancaster County vacancy I decided to apply for the job. ”
job.”
“I called the head supervisor, Wilbur Houser, filled out
the necessary forms and went for my interview with
Wilbur Houser and a County Agent Alan Bair,” she
continued. “About a week later I was hired for the job,”
she added.
The job requirements Patti applied for and hoped to
accomplish were well known to her because her father
had been a part of the York DHIA for some time. Since
Patti routinely helped with the milking on her parents’
farm she bad ample opportunity to see a testing super
visor (a term Patti says sounds very prestigous - too much
so for her modest character) at work.
For those who do not know what a DHIA supervisor
Patti is shown setting up the testing equipment
part of her job as DHIA supervisor for some of the
herds in Lancaster County.
Lancaster County DHIA su.
Packing away the tools
of her trade into the car
trunk, Patti gets ready to
go to the next Lancaster
County herd for testing.
does, Patti explained that her task is to contact par
ticipating herds assigned to her for monthly visits to the
farm during milking time to weigh and record total
pounds of milk produced by each cow, take a sample of
each cow’s milk, properly package and identify each
sample for each cow, record feed amounts and costs,
breeding and freshening dates and other information
pertinent to the computing of the actual production and
profit or loss of each cow in each herd she is assigned to.
Since she must go to the various farms during the
regular milking time (some twice a month) for one night
and then the following morning milking, Patti's dally
schedule is never the same. She gets up any time from 3
a.m. to 5 a.m. and returnes home from the evenings
milkings any where from late afternoon to after eight
o’clock at night.
Sometimes, she says, she is at a farm for as long as
eight hours during the day and on other farms she may
only be there a few hours. The time she must be on the
farm depends on the number of cows being milked in the
herd and the individual dairyman’s management of the
milking operation.
Her ability to work with so many variables such as ever
changing hours, commuting to different farms each day
and getting along with so many different personalities is
second nature to Patti now that she has worked this year
and one-half.
Another aspect of her job which also changes daily, or
almost daily in most cases, is the method or equipment
she uses from one herd to the next to weigh and sample the
milk. Patti has 29 herds she tests at night and the
following morning. She also has one herd which tests only
one milking a month. In addition she has ten herds which
are called owner sampler where the samples are taken by
someone on the farm other than the DHIA supervisor. Of
these thirty herds to which she goes to take the samples
and record the milk weights, eleven have pipeline milking
systems which require meters to be installed during
testing to properly measure the amount of milk coming
from each cow while being milked.
Ten other herds do not have pipelines so Patti takes a
bucket and spring scales to these herds to hand weigh the
milk. Several other herds are milked in parlors where
weigh jars are a standard part of.the milking system and
only require proper reading and recording of mUk weights
and drawing out a sample. Some dariymen have their own
meters which are nice for Patti she says because she does
not have to carry them to and from the farm or need to
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wash them up. “The bucket and scales system keeps me
warm in winter, she ‘quipped, implying that the extra
movements involved in lifting, pouring and dipping from
buckets and scales keeps her busy.
No matter the equipment she uses at each farm, Patti
records the pounds of milk and takes the samplpg to be
later tested for butterfat and records the herd information
required. Then when she gets back home sometime in the
middle part of the day from the morning milking, she
packages and wraps the records and samples to be ready
for United Parcel to deliver to Penn State to be tested and
finally recorded on a computer readout. The com
puterized information for each cow in the herd and herd
information is then mailed directly to the dairy farmer.
The monthly testing records tell the dairymen the amount
of milk per cow produced, the amount of butterfat per
cow, the profit over feed costs and many other factors
helping dairymen to better manage their herds.
Patti says she likes the idea that her job helps people to
keep their records and plan their dairy operations and she
likes working around farm animals and on farms. Some
day she would like to have her own farm, she said. Right
now she is kept busy testing six days a week at other dairy
farms, helping with the field work and chores on her
parents farm and milking at home on Sundays.
Patti says she likes the field* work best of all the
work on the home farm. Her parents have com silage,
baled hay and haylage as their main crop work. They own
ninety acres and rent eighty more from neighboring
landowners. The Johnsons feed their crops to their
registered Holstein herd, one half of which is polled. Patti
said her father hopes to eventually have the entire herd
polled.
Patti’s sister Abbe has been testing in York County
since last October, starting one year after Patti did in
Lancaster County. Their younger sister Edwina and two
younger brothers Chip and Keel all help out on the farm.
When Patti leaves the farm in the morning or early
afternoon to go to test some herd in Lancaster County she
packs up the papers, scales, buckets, plastic sample
packets and the rest of the necessary equipment into the
trunk of her sporty Trans-Am and heads out the lane. Her
closest herd is eleven miles away and her furthrest herd
is twenty-five miles away. Patti is one of sixteen Lan
caster County supervisors. Although she is young, email
of build and a woman as well, she says she has en
countered no problems in her job related to being all
three.