A22-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 16,1989 On The Record Dick Barth PA DHIA General Mgr. Problem #3 My subject once again is the reor ganization of DHIA in Pennsyl vania. This week let’s take a look at how hiring qualifications for DHIA supervisors affect member services, keeping in mind that what supervi sors do, how they act, what they look like in a member’s bam, and what kind of service they provide all de pend on what they bring with them to the job. Each year about SO people are hir ed across the state to become super visors. Some come from farms, some from cities, some from small towns. Most have some appreciation for what it’s like to milk cows be cause they have done it. Some have only seen cows, and never handled them. Some know the DHIA system from growing up in a Pennsylvania DHIA family. Others are completely ignorant of cow production records. These candidates often have little in common. But, every one of them comes to State College to be trained to offer a full range of services to members. How long does that take? Well, four days at the service center and many more on the job in their testing circuits back home. It varies, of course, with each individual. Some are quick, but some candi dates never do catch on and often leave within a month or two. AN EXPENSIVE AND DISTURBING PROBLEM Hiring the wrong supervisor can didate is an expensive problem. Conservatively speaking, each new supervisor costs $5,000 to train dur ing the first six months of employ ment. And more is invested as time goes by for refresher training, in-ser vice updates, or on the telephone correcting errors. Overall, we prob ably spend well over $250, (XX) a year to train new supervisors. That’s a substantial investment, all paid for by member fees. Therefore, any re duction in unnecessary supervisor turnover leads to a direct cost saving for training needs. With that in mind you may appre ciate why we are disturbed when candidates who obviously cannot learn the job arrive in State College for training. For example, several years ago a trainee showed up with his wife. They spent three days in training together before it was ob vious that this new supervisor could not read. His wife was reading for him. An extreme case? Yes, but also a prime example of the Mure to set hiring qualifications at the local as sociation level. Other problems occur more often, like trained supervisors who leave after finding out they really do have to get up every day at 3:30 AM and drive long distances in the dark just to start work. (They often remark upon leaving that the job just was not what they were led to believe it was.) M."M" . V- I Have To Get Up When? Nearly all DHIA supervisors are hired by the 54 local association boards. That’s 54 sets of standards across Pennsylvania for candidates who do the same work. And with the variation caused by that many em ployers, it’s almost impassible to standardize hiring practices. Admittedly not all local associa tion boards do a bad job of hiring. Many should be commended for the effort they put forth to get really good candidates. But, it happens in too many locations and where it does happen, it often leads to the loss of a supervisor. Another $5,000 for training another candidate. REORGANIZING WILL IMPROVE SERVICE Reorganizing DHIA into a single direct-member association with supervisors responsible to field man agement staff will allow us to imple ment hiring standards statewide. Qualifications will then be uniform regardless of the county a member is in, and that will lead to more inform ed, better trained supervisors with reasonable expectations about work conditions and their future oppor tunities. Supervisors who stay on the job longer know more about the service they provide. If candidates are screened for intelligence, a positive attitude and the ability to learn, and if they are given an honest look at what their jobs entail before they are hired, they will stay longer, learn better, be happier on die job and pro vide better service for members. In the final analysis, that’s what we’re after. TIME WORKS AGAINST US The challenge of finding good employees won’t get easier in the fu ture. Labor shortages are predicted to become more widespread in the 1990 s and qualified, high quality people will be harder to find and at tract for all agricultural service or ganizations. That will make hiring at the local level more difficult and the pressures to compromise on basic qualifications will be strong. We must be sure that the quality of member services does not suffer as a result It’s one thing to say we will make the hiring system uniform and quite another to make it happen. It will take time, and some mistakes are probably inevitable as we develop and learn to use a new system. So, the sooner we get started, the better our chances of developing a system that will work well for all members by the time the labor crunch hits hardest Next time, let’s look at the dupli cation of effort that exists between die state and local associations and how reorganization can eliminate it Until the, all of us at Pennsylvania DHIA extend best wishes to all of you for a Happy Holiday Season. s •ray STATE COLLEGE (Centre Co.) This data is pulled from Pennsylvania DHfA’s mainframe com puter each week. It is a one-week summary repre senting approximately one-fourth of the herds on test, as they are tested monthly. These data are valuable from a business manage ment standpoint and can be used for comparing your operations to the averages from almost 1,400 herds across the state. DHIA Averages for all herds processed between 11/27/89 and 12/04/89 Number of Herds Processed Number of Cows Processed Number of Cows Per Herd Milk Per Cow (Lbs) %-Fat Fat Per Cow (Lbs) %-Protein Protein Per Cow (Lbs) Average Days in Milk Per Cow ♦Value for CWT Milk(s) To help farmers across the state to have handy reference of commodity input costs in their feeding operations for DHIA record sheets or to develop livestock feed cost data, here’s this week’s average costs of various ingredients as compiled from regional reports across the state of Pennsylvania. Remember these are averages so you will need to adjust your figures up or down according to your location and the quality of your crop. BY THOMAS J, MALONEY Bradford County Agricultural Agent TOWANDA (Bradford Co.)— Did you know that if you want your calves to grow well that you need to be into the Christinas spirit the whole year long? I attended a Junior Holstein Club meeting at a Bradford Coun ty Holstein farm recently. Although I arrived on time, I wasn’t the first there and parked my car in the far comer of the yard right near the calf hutches. After the meeting as I started the car up, my lights shone onto one of the calf hutches. A very healthy calf appeared. Right in front of her was a slab of what appeared to be excellent quality alfalfa hay. Although I still wanted to build a little hay rack for the hutch, as an educator, I still felt great just to sec the excellent quality hay in front of the calves. After seeing so much poor quality forage around the county, I let my mind wander and imagined that the good quality hay was an early Christmas pre sent for the calves. However, doesn’t it only make sense that the animals with your best genetic potential should receive a Christ mas present (good quality forage) the entire year long? Often fanners give colostrum to How Does Your Herd Compare? Average Farm Feed Costs For Handy Reference Christmas Spirit And FOCUS •Value for CWT Grain(s) •Value for CWT Hay(s) •Value for CWT Silage(s) •Value for Pasture Per Day(s) •Value for Milk Per Cow Per Year(s) •Feed Consumed Per Cow Per Year(Lbs) A; Grain B: Hay C: Silage D: Day Pasture •Feed Cost Per Cow Per Year(s) A: Crain B: Hay C: Silage D: Pasture 1,351 78,365 58.0 16,520 3.71 614 3.20 528 307 13.38 •Total Feed Cost Per Cow Per Ycar(s) •Income Over Feed Costs Per Year(s) •Grain to Milk Ratio •Feed Cost Per CWT Milk(s) Avg Level For 1090 SCC Herds generated figures Healthy Calves calves within a very short time (IS minutes to % hour) and do real well feeding a good quality milk replacer or whole milk, but then they forget that grain, hay, and water are also equally as impor tant to properly feed dairy calves. Proper feeding and nutrition of the newborn calf offers a great challenge to dairy men. Feeding the newborn calf is critical to rais ing replacement calves. At first, the newborn calf functions as a simple-stomached or monogastric animal, since the most developed compartment of the stomach at birth is the abomasum. The abo masum constitutes almost 60 per cent of the young calf’s stomach, and decreases to about 8 percent in the mature cow. The first three compartments of the calf’s stomach-rumen, reticulum, and omasum are inactive and undeve loped. Oddly enough the rumen is only about 25 percent of the young calf’s stomach increasing to 80 percent in the mature cow. A calfs digestive system grad ually matures in the first two months of life depending largely on what you, the farmer, gives the calf to eat The key is to develop the rumen. Rumen development depends mostly on-how long milk is fed, how soon dry feed is given and the amount of milk and dry feed consumed. Com, No. 2y - 2.72 Wheat, No. 2 - 3.84 Barley, No. 3 - 2.08 Oats, No. 2 - 1.65 Soybeans, No. 1 - 5.47 Old Ear Com, - 72.75 New Ear Com, - 64.63 Alfalfa Hay - 129.50 Mixed Hay - 115.00 Timothy Hay - 112.50 Normally the calf’s rumen expands and develops at two weeks of age. The microbial popu lation becomes established because the calf consumes increasing amounts of dry feed. Offer calves a dry grain mix within a few days after birth. They probably won’t eat much grain the first week of life but will eat noticeable amounts during the second week and should eat 1 to VA pounds grain per day for Holsteins and 3 A to 1 pound for Jerseys. With hay, a fine-stemmed legume hay should be made avail able within a few days after birth, in a rack off the floor. Calves should eat some hay within one week of age. Hay helps develop the rumen and contributes nutrients. Water also needs to be provided to calves within one week of age. If they do not receive fresh water, grain, and hay intakes will be greatly reduced before weaning. Do not let calves overconsume water, because they may develop pot bellies and scours. Pay attention to how you feed your calves since they contain the best genes in your herd. Remem ber to feed grain, hay, and water. Get into the Christmas spirit the whole year long! 8.14 4.18 1.52 .30 2,211 6,599 2,832 13,967 64 537 118 213 18 888 1,323 1:0.3 5.38 364,530
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