QUALITY WATCH
What is Dairy Care Academy and how can it help your farm? WE ASKED THE EXPERTS:
Lyndsay Earl
Christy Dinsmoore
Jeremy Beebe
MMPA Member Representative
MMPA Area Supervisor
MMPA Member
Dairy Care Academy (DCA) is a unique training opportunity provided by MMPA to help our members meet the FARM program continuing education and employee training requirements. Our day-long training sessions cover three key topics to ensure proper milking practices, stockmanship and calf care. Each session reinforces best practices, provides a live forum for interaction and improves employee performance on the farm. With the gathering restrictions in place for the foreseeable future, we will have to get a little creative as to how we offer trainings in the coming year. As with most events, DCA will be going virtual for 2021. Our team is currently working on putting together virtual training options that will benefit members long after the initial training day. Though the details have not been finalized, we believe this will be a great opportunity for the future of employee training on member farms. We understand that this is not an ideal solution for all farms, as not everyone has the ability to attend an online meeting. Going forward, on farm trainings can still be conducted in small groups by member representatives for those interested in other training opportunities.
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milk messenger
/ NOV-DEC 2020
Employee training is critical to all dairy operations. Training keeps all animal caretakers on task and performing best practices to provide excellent care to animals. Though DCA may look differently this year, it continues to provide members an opportunity to train employees to meet FARM program requirements. During DCA, participants are trained in three key areas: milking practices, dairy stockmanship and calf care. These topics were selected because they have a direct impact on milk quality and production. With milking practices, corners tend to get cut over time and DCA training covers not only what procedures should be but why they are important. Good dairy stockmanship procedures help reduce cow and people injuries and good down cow management can get cows back on their feet and in the milk string faster. DCA teaches the importance of establishing procedures for calf feeding equipment cleanliness and colostrum feeding, which can lead to faster gains and healthier calves giving farms more choices in quality replacement animals. Farms that benefit most from training are those that commit to incorporating DCA best procedures on their farm. Setting expectations and evaluating adherence to procedures long term are surefire ways to help the farm team be successful.
If there is one thing anyone knows about me, it’s that I value continuing education. I’m always wanting to learn new things and share ideas and I try to pass that attitude onto my kids and farm employees. I’m never happy with just status quo because if we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it better. The best way to accomplish getting better is by learning, and that’s why I make sure all of my employees attend DCA every year. DCA serves as a training refresher for employees who have worked with me for years and as a more thorough training for newer employees. The best part about DCA is that it teaches people the why about what we’re doing and expecting from them. I don’t necessarily have time to teach them the why when I’m first bringing them on, so DCA provides that for me. Attending DCA is as good for me as it is for them because I know that I’m always going to hopefully learn at least one new thing. It may not be anything earth shaking, but I know I’ll walk away knowing something that I didn’t before.
