Lin Shu Jhih Dairy Breeding Farm

Lin Shu Jhih Diry Breeding Farm

The first time I visited Lin, Shu Jhih Cattle Farm was because of the radio frequency identification (RFID) technology plan of Shin Chu Branch, Mr. Lin Ding Bo, the son of Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih, as a representative to join the demonstration farm of the project households, therefore, I had the close interaction with Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih families. A deep impression on Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s family, three sons are handsome and young, also made whole-hearted effort in their own cattle business, everytime I visited Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s farm, three sons were mixing the ingredients, taking cattle medication, or helping cattle to cut cattle’s hooves together, three brothers worked together with full understanding, a look and an action were just the perfect cooperation, their father, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih just stood by them, and provided some advice and assistance to these three brothers. The delicate emotion and experience heritage were flu out from a strict father.

Our branch planed to put RFID into a dairy farm as an individual cattle identification system, to replace the handwriting record and the complicated repeating paper work, these works wasting time, labor and various cattle performance data collection work. To improve the dairy farm cattle’s automatic data collection mode, to use the electronic transmission technology, full use of DHI information to enhance dairy farmer’s production and operational efficiency, to reduce the milk production cost. According to the promotion of model dairy farmers, gradually to establish a dairy farm in e - management models, also to be a reference for those dairy farmers who are interested in investing in RFID technology. I really appreciated a lot Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s support and cooperation for our branch’s program, and he always offered us the most helpful comments, we will try our best to design the most convenient management system for the dairy farmers.

Since Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s father began to raise cattle, in 1973, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s brother took over this business. Until 1983, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih was demobilized from military service, he purchased 3 cattle from a nearby dairy farmers and started to deliver milk to Tainung Company. In 1992, cattle number gradually expanded to 80, since 1998, they started to sell raw milk to the Uni–President Company. Just so hard working to raise cattle and hold up the family of six children. I asked Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih that for his twenty years’ raising cattle experience, what experience can share with us ? Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih said : “ Just live seriously. who is the most powerful people? People with no money is most powerful ; who is the strongest ? Poor people is the strongest. Life was really tough in the beginning, to take care of wife and children, made money from cattle production and milk just enough to buy the daily necessities, and he was really afraid to run out of food. “ at that time, it was just like skating on the thin ice, in order to maintain all the family overhead, under pressure pushing, he continuously worked hard until today. In the beginning, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih was just like other farmers, he went to class to learn the methods of cattle breeding and mating, than gradually he worked out his own methods, now their total cattle is about 380, lactating cows are about 180. Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s three sons, even though they grew up in the cattle farm, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih also took them to participate in a variety of cattle - related training courses, so that they learned more new knowledge to put on their farm, two years ago, his sons finished their military service, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih let his son taking over the family cattle career, Mr. Lin Ding bo is responsible for mixing ingredients, providing materials and feeding work, Mr. Lin Yong tsun is responsible for cattle disease treatment, etc. Mr. Lin Yong cheng is responsible for cattle breeding and other work . Three brothers carries out their duties, a perfect division of labor is just like an enterprise management of cattle industry, offered the cattle the best care and management. When mentioning his three sons’ responsible attitude, I could see the shimmering pride in Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s eyes, showing that his hard working in the past was worth it.

Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih mentioned that he had a plan to convert the barn and build new barn five years ago because of the number of cattle was gradually increased. But at that moment, due to the limit of funds, so he hopes to achieve their goals at the lowest price, he visited different barns around Taiwan to see their design as a reference, than he drew a simple diagram and recorded the measurements, ordered the materials by themselves, just like that, slowly and step by step to modify cattle homes with his sons, from the small part, like laying cement for cattle bed, to the large part, like the barn beams erection, they did it all by themselves. Father and sons, these four persons with two hired workers made all their efforts to complete the new barn area wthin a year, including cow bed, scraping manure road, scraping fecal road end of the collection areas. Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih mentioned that just designed the cattle bed and spent a lot of work, before completing the tilt angle of the concrete cattle bed surface, the bracket location of the cattle bed ..etc, they spent a lot time to adjust and measure them, so far the tilt angle of cattle bed in two districts are different, they tried to find the best angle mostly suitable for the cattle herds to lie down, and cattle are also used to bed cattle facilities, cattle’s lying bed rate is also high. Since the use of cattle bed equipment, except to scrape the feces of cattle bed twice a day to keep bed dry, also to use dry-type pre-milking cleaning, disinfectant plus a dry cloth to wipe the dirt on the nipple, reducing the nipple bacterial infection caused by water column wash, Mr.Lin said that they tried several steps to find this light dry - type cleaning methods to identify the most suitable way, and have the disinfection twice a week surrounding the farm to reduce pathogenic bacteria, focusing on a clean environment plus with the setting of the cattle bed, not only decreased the entire herd mastitis incidence, but also saved a lot of water consumption. Mr. Lin smiled and said : “ in the beginning, the venue of mastitis has been troubled them a lot, further, accompanied with the increasing of cattle numbers, just lit up the idea to build an additional barn and cattle bed, I did not expect such a change in the whole issue to solve all the problem ! even easier on the management.” Sometimes a crisis is a turning point, nothing has the certain answer, just “ do it “ ! Regarding the system of cow bed with scraping manure road, Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih explained that scraping manure road was installed by others, but the terminal portion of scraping manure and laying of scraping manure road were the special design, the concrete surface of scraping manure road must be flat, or even using the scraping manure machine, still easy to accumulate cow dug in the dead spot, in addition, the end of the scraping manure machine road also deliberately left a small crater, so that feces can accumulate in a small pit about two to three days, than exposed the accumulation of faeces directly in the open space with a bucket machine, so than it is convenient than the general drag dung machine, until the exposure of cow dung became a moderated drying just sold to nearby farmers make fertilizer, to supplement the family income.

Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s farm is having the fan and sprinkler systems, also a cool fan, as well as the use of water to reduce the temperature of the wind blowing from cool fan, Mr. Lin said that he used this cool in his son’s wedding, he found it was good, so he bought some and set up in the barn, from every April to October, the fan and sprinker were turned on whole day long, hoping to reduce influence from cattle heat stress. When I walked in Mr. Lin’s farm, I felt breeze wind blowing by and it was pretty comfortable.

I asked Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih : “ it is not common to see three brothers work together in the same dairy farm, you must feel very happy and pleased ? “ Mr. Lin replied me that they just started to take over the family cattle business, the three brothers are earnest and hard working, but for now they probably only get the passing score of 60, he hopes they can be better. Hoping three brothers can learn from the first line of cattle work, gain experience, and gradually increase to the management level, and to find their goal of life. During the interview with Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih, he always said earnestly that he can only give them his experience, teach them not to walk through the wrong way, and gradually increasing cattle number through their efforts, in the future, after they have their own familiy, they still can reply on this cattle career to sustain their family. I think Mr. Lin, Shu Jhih’s expectations for the three brothers is just the same expectations for all dairy farmers, I hope all the dairy farmers friends can operate their farms successfully, create an amplification and sustainable development cattle world.