March 13, 2011

I returned from my leadership conference today and was completely exhausted. I did not do anything productive on my project because I spent most of the evening sleeping. Although, I found out tonight that I was accepted to the University of Wisconsin for Dairy Science! :)

March 12, 2011

I attended a leadership conference in Cape May County this weekend so I did not have time to really think about my project. I was the co-chair of the conference so I was constantly busy making sure the event ran as planned.

March 11, 2011

Mr. Reising and I had our weekly mentor meeting today. We reviewed the equations and I showed him the questionnaire I constructed to send to various dairy farmers. He suggested adding a question but otherwise thought it was great. During our meeting when reviewing one of the packets of information I found we came across a section that talked about how nutrition affects reproduction. Originally I wanted to just focus on how dairy cattle nutrition reflects their performance in the show ring but I've decided I want to expand it to how it reflects their productiveness in the herd.

March 10, 2011

I revisted the equations Mr. Reising and I set up today to try to convert a 14% protein feed to an 18% protein feed. I used the recipe I had gotten from the University of Mississippi website which gave you the amount in pounds for how much ground shelled corn, 44% soybean meal, crimped oats, limestone, trace mineral salt, dicalcium phosphate, and vitamins A, D, E supplement is needed. I successfully calculated a recipe for an 18% protein feed. Now I just need to figure out if the percentage of protein is crucial to the growth of the dairy cattle then dad can mix it and I can begin feeding it to my own cattle.

March 9, 2011

Since interviewing people is part of what we are supposed to do with WISE I decided to construct some questions today. I need to visit one of the local dairy farmers this weekend and he is very supportive of what I'm doing with my project so I'm sure he'd be willing to answer some questions. I also want to email them to Bill Taylor, the man who works for Cedar Lane Farm, and get his point of view on the topic. I constructed the following questions:
1. How many cows do you milk?
2. What percentage of protein is in your feed?
3. Do you believe that the higher the percentage of protein, the better the growth rate will be?
4. What ingrediants do you add to your feed and how much of each ingredient?
5. Do you believe feeding cows higher percentages of protein pays off in their milk production?
6. What is your herd average for milk produced?
7. Do you show your cattle?
8. If yes, do you alter the cattle's diet to get them to grow or fill out for the shows?

March 8, 2011

In class today Ms. Welker gave us the book "The Last Lecture" and assigned us to read the first three chapters. It was pretty difficult reading about a man who knows he's going to die from cancer when I attended a memorial service for Mr. H who died of cancer, just last night. Randy Paush has alot of great ideas though, he really makes you think about whether you've lived your life to fullest or not. I especially love his saying "we can't control the hand we're dealt, just how we play them" because it's so true. Life isn't about what what you're given, it's how you live with what you have.

March 7, 2011

Today was Mr. Hilgendorff's memorial service so it was a very difficult day and my WISE project was not worked on. Tomorrow I will be getting back into the swing of things and focusing again.

March 6, 2011

Today I went through all of the papers I printed out and reviewed the highlighted information. I took notes on what I believed was important and I am beginning to understand the charts. I'm still struggling with everything that happened this week with Mr. H and wasn't able to focus very much on my WISE project.

March 5, 2011

Today I reviewed some of the information I previously collected to see which information was actually useful. Some of the articles mention that the amount of protein does not determine the growth rate of your cattle which agrees with Dr. Hoffman from University of Wisconsin. So the question still stands, who is right...Dr. Pettit or Dr. Hoffman? I'm really glad that this is the focus of my WISE project because hopefully through this I will be able to figure out if it is necessary to buy the expensive high protein feed or if my dad is just wasting money on it.

March 4, 2011

Again I was in the shop majority of the day making memorials for Mr. H and did not attend WISE class or work on my project. Although while in the shop Gill and I discussed details about our projects with each other.

March 3, 2011

I did not attend WISE class or work on my project today. I spent the entire day in the Ag. Shop with the FFA kids mourning the loss of one of our advisors.

March 2, 2011

I did not work on my WISE project today because I recieved news that one of my FFA advisors was not in good shape.

March 1, 2011

I am still trying to figure out the equations for this feed recipe I found a few weeks ago. Mr. Reising and I spent a large amount of time focusing on it at my last mentor meeting but it's extremely confusing. Mr. Hlubik is under alot of stress right now and is very busy so I don't want to bug him about getting his brothers number. Throughout the week I will continue to work on figuring out the equation and how to convert a 14% protein feed recipe to a 18% protein feed recipe. My goal is to have this figured out Friday for my next mentor meeting with Mr. Reising.

Feburary 28, 2011

Melissa and I have multiple classes together throughout the day and in the hallway today we discussed our WISE projects. Because we often discuss our projects in class I knew what Mel was planning on doing but during our chat today she filled me in on some of her ideas. She's off to a really good start and I'm excited to see how her project progresses and the final result. Her's is definately one of the presentations I plan on attending!

February 27, 2011

As I was flicking through the TV channels today I found the movie Julie & Julia, the same one we were watching in class. I began watching it despite hating the main character's voice and realized why our teachers decided to show it to us. The movie depicted the concept of keeping a journal very accurately and made me see the importance of documenting my work. I was very busy on the farm throughout the day so I did not get a chance to do any more research on my project today.