Cow Comfort

In this episode, Mike Donaldson discuss the critical importance of cow comfort in dairy farming with expert Chris Keane from Promat (www.promatinc.com/). They explore the design and management of dairy barns, the impact of cow comfort on milk production, and innovative solutions for improving cow welfare. Chris shares real-life success stories and emphasizes the need for proper barn design to ensure cows can lie down comfortably and get up naturally. The conversation highlights the economic benefits of investing in cow comfort and the various mattress options available for dairy farmers.

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Transcript

Chris Radke (00:01)
Welcome to AK Podcasts where we explore science and nutrition behind livestock care and management with the best and the brightest in the business. I'm your host, Chris Radke, part of the sales department here at Agri-King and with me today as usual is the director of field services and a member of the sales management team, Mr. Mike Donaldson. Mike, how you doing buddy?

Mike Donaldson (00:19)
⁓ Outstanding, Chris. It's just ⁓ always a fun time of year as you get through spring and start to see some glimpses of summer. And I do like all four seasons, but I kind of like this one best maybe.

Chris Radke (00:32)
Yeah, think Spring is definitely becoming one of my favorites. I just love the idea of the possibilities that could be for the rest of the year, of. Cool, cool. Hey Mike, who's with us and what are we going to be about?

Mike Donaldson (00:38)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Well, one of the things Agri-King really works hard on is continuing training and education for our people, for our field people. And the gentleman we have joining us today actually presented at our international sales meeting last month. And it was such a well done and enlightening presentation. We asked if he'd be willing to do a podcast with us and he consented. So today we have Chris King from Promat.

Chris is basically a world renowned expert on cow comfort. He works across the globe and we wanted to just go into the kind of redo some of the things he did for our consultants last month when it came to aspects of cow comfort. So Chris, welcome to the podcast. Could you give us a little bit of your background and how you came to be such an advocate for keeping cows comfortable?

Chris Keane (01:42)
Well, thank you for having me on there and I really enjoyed the international meeting. It's nice to work with people that understand cows. You guys work hard to feed them. Fantastic organization you have, which helps me get the cows laying down. So about 25 years ago, I started with Promat. Promat invented the cow mattress in 1991. There was no mattresses. Since then, we've come a long way. We've

Had customers that loved our mattress and some that didn't way back in the late 90s, early 2000s. So we started doing a lot of video research and studying and like, why does one customer love this product and one doesn't? It really boiled down to dimensions and barn design. So our holistic approach to our whole company was ⁓ making sure that ⁓ these barns are built for a cow. You know, we're taking a live animal.

We're confining her 100 % and we're not giving her the area to lay down properly, the ventilation, all of that stuff. So we want to make sure our philosophy is bringing outdoor behavior indoors, natural environment for the cow. Anything she can do outdoors, whether it's laying with her legs extended, we want her to perform in the dairy. So we work really hard with ⁓ contractors and builders and farmers and engineers to get these barns built.

correct and I've done thousands of videos as you've seen in the presentation just proving the point you know how's a cow get up and how's a cow get down what kind of lunge room so that's our that's our approach so we've really promoted building a very strong mattress systems and making sure those cows are comfortable happy and chewing their cuds

Mike Donaldson (03:31)
One of the things that, and I'd actually seen some of your videos years ago and I was really glad, maybe they've been updated, but I was really glad to see you using that same approach. And I apologize to our audience. We're kind of hamstringing Chris, cause we don't have a good way to show videos on the podcast, but could you describe, I guess the thing that so impressed me the first time and again, last month, you've got some videos with a grid.

superimposed over the picture and you're showing a cow getting up, ⁓ the amount of room she needs to come forward, the way she lies down, the degree to which the head acts to get her butt off the ground basically. Could you describe what your videos are showing?

Chris Keane (04:28)
So what I'm really showing is that head. A cow is a hunted animal in nature. She needs to bob her head, all that weight forward to transfer her weight properly so she can get up naturally. She lunges and her chin touches the ground. So her bed and what's in front of her needs to be the same level dimension. Anything we put there as we raise that anything in front of her up, could be bedding, it could be concrete.

It changes her ergonomics. She just can't bob her weight. She starts struggling. So if she can bob her weight forward, she lunges forward, transfers her weight on her knees and stands up. Now, when you get the neck rail and the width of the stall in the lunge room correct, it's a no brainer. There's no hock sores. She's not rubbing. She's not hitting metal. She's getting up like she's in pasture. So we want to make sure her experience in that dairy is very natural.

And then you'll find cows will get up more, go eat more, go lay down. And you know, cows lay down, they chew their cud, nutrition starts working. You know?

Mike Donaldson (05:36)
I mean, I think I'm probably a little older than you. We don't need to get into a fight over that. But I can remember very clearly being, know, 40, 50 years ago and being around somebody and if they were looking at a barn, they were going to change, they were going to redo. And it was very common. Well, if I make the stalls two inches smaller, I could get two more stalls on a side.

⁓ we're gonna in a tie stall barn, we're gonna make sure we put a big curb in front of that cow so that no bedding goes into the feed, no feed goes under the cow. Have we stopped doing quite so many stupid things or is it as bad as it's ever been?

Chris Keane (06:21)
⁓

man, I wish we could say that we have. I've been in the new dairies in our colleagues and we're talking about renovations. It's brand new. The information's out there. Really shame on you if you can't get this right. It's you know, it's my biggest challenge all the time with stall width, getting that extra stall. Well, if they can't lay down in it, you're not gaining anything, you know, and I recommend one to one. It doesn't happen, guys. You know, they're 10 percent, 20 percent overstocked.

When you get the stalls right and the beds right, you'll notice those cows don't have a bed. When it's not right, there's always cows walking around. So, ⁓ you know, getting those stalls correct, man, they lay down. We've had dairymen reduce their cows in some of these small dairies. You know, I'm from Canada, you know, 60 cows, you know, two robots. And, you know, they've built a new barn and reduced cows like 20 cows and getting more production than they did before.

Mike Donaldson (07:19)
Is it? I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this one. So.

I know you, I guess I'm trying to, I want you to tell a story, but if I tell you, if I tell the story, it's not as good as leading you to telling the story. You told us about a newish construction, and you essentially convinced him to go get some jackhammers. Could you tell the beginning and end of that story? I thought that was fascinating that someone, that you could get, you're a good salesman because you got somebody.

Chris Keane (07:36)
you

Mike Donaldson (07:58)
You got somebody to break out some pretty fresh concrete.

Chris Keane (08:02)
That was a farm in Michigan about 20 years ago and people were starting to put these concrete barriers in front of the cow and You know what they're building it for the contractor. They're making it easy to put this metal in it's a slap the metal in let's pour a bunch of concrete at the front They're not putting the cow at the top of the of the pyramid. She's got to be number one So I said to the guy said listen, I'd love to sell you mats right now I said I'm not gonna do any difference for you

You should put some money in some of this design and we'll come back later. Now my dealers hate that, right? Cause I can just sell. They said, listen, if you want the performance, you can't put a Ferrari engine in a Lada and expect the performance from that vehicle. So I said, take your smallest row. Let's jackhammer this concrete flat. He had fairly good lunge room. So the cows were off. They were coming up, you know, eight, 12 inches on this concrete.

You could see them struggling on the ⁓ back end trying to negotiate where their head goes. So this forces the cow to go sideways to gain a little bit more level ⁓ lunge room. And that's why you see cows on angles. They're telling you there's a barrier in front. So he did. He jackhammered this row out and didn't change anything else. And unbelievable. Cows were laying straight. Those stalls filled first.

And he did the whole barn. This was a significant barn. It was like 1500, 1800 cows. I it was a huge undertaking to go in there, move cows, jackhammer concrete, you know, fix it back up. So we did go back in. I made lots of adjustments on neck rail location, heights of the stall. He actually replaced all his metal at this point. He had some metal design for a contractor. That's how I put it. So we got all these things right. And, you know, just

night and day difference. He actually told me is one of the best things he ever did and really appreciated it. And you know, what really got him to do that was I always had my iPad in my hand. I've shown him the videos of a cow in the grass getting up naturally in pasture, and then cows in dairy barns like I showed you guys. So it's so clear what a cow does. And he says, you know, I feel stupid. I said, we get tunnel vision. You know, we just

Yeah, your focus is your reality when you change how you look at something you change what you see And it changed his whole perspective on these cows are banging metal. They're polished the steel's breaking Guess what your stalls are too narrow. You got no lunge room Even if you switch to jerseys, you're still gonna have a problem. So yeah, it's it's really a visual for me these videos

Mike Donaldson (10:52)
think one of the things, I've only been able to do this occasionally, but to people who think that modern agriculture, modern livestock agriculture is nothing but cruelty and animals being abused and ⁓ short, short lifespans. I've taken them, I've picked good places.

but you take them to a barn that's set up correctly. And it's like, I want to come back as her. If I don't get to heaven on the first try, I want to come back as that cow because look at her. She's laying on the beach. She's in a mattress that better than the one I sleep on. She's got food. She's got water. And I think trying to get people to understand, yes, we farm in order to make money.

We do it to try and attain a profit, but that is so much more achievable when you take care of those animals and give them the things that they need. And I think that's what your videos and your approach make it so attractive to me, is just those things.

Chris Keane (12:09)
Yeah,

that's the key. You know, we want to make a Hilton, a five-star hotel for these cows. Guess what? We're all here today right now because the cow fed us. Right? We're in the harvesting milk and cows. You know, you got to walk into this barn and you know it's calm. The cows aren't running from you. You know, you can tell lot of behavior about the farmer too with how the cows are reacting when you walk in.

Mike Donaldson (12:25)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Keane (12:39)
You want the airflow good. These cows are just happy up and down. Eat, drink, lay down, get milked. You know, this animal, we got to give her the tools she needs. It's so simple, man. It really sometimes blows me away on these large corporate dairies. And I'm doing, you know, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 milking cow dairies. You got to get it right. You know, it changes. I don't care if you got 50 cows or 30,000.

These cows need the room to get up and they have to get up naturally. If you give her the tools, she pays back. You just give her what she needs and she'll provide you with the milk. So we can't expect high production on a cow that can't lay down 12 to 14 hours a day. You guys know it well. I love working with nutritionists because they understand and I've seen you guys get blamed for a lot of things. I've gone to a dairy and yeah, we're switching for five cents a pound. You know, we're going to get our production up.

Guess what guys, your cows can't lay down. You know, when do they make milk? When they're laying down. That's their factory. Chewing their cud, ruminating. Now the nutrition works. The genetics work. Reduces her stress level. Everything goes up. Milk production, know, reproduction, everything. having a comfortable bed was more than just making something soft for a cow to lay on. Now we did invent it. We have lots of copies out there.

We're still number one in the world for sure. We're in over 65 countries and I am going to countries where these beds are definitely better than what these humans are sleeping on. And I gotta say the ones we're working on with the engineers and the group of colleagues I work with globally building these dairies, they listen to us and they get it right. And it's just fantastic walking in to get that feeling like you're talking about. Calm, the calmness, you can feel it. You can see the cows are enjoying it.

and we take care of our cows man and they will take care of you. Extra Lactations, let's go.

Mike Donaldson (14:40)
It's kind of interesting. I wanted to sort of disclaimer, ⁓ and you're right. I think, think nutritionists do get blamed for a lot and maybe we take credit for stuff we shouldn't too. I'm not sure. I know the blame thing happens. I, I think there's to say something's working is such an elusive definition because if I mean, I've always said there's farms.

There's farms, our Agri-King people, if they can keep somebody over 70 pounds of milk or 50 pounds of organic milk, it might be lifetime employment. And there's other farms, if they drop under 95, they're out the door. mean, there's just, people get to decide what success looks at. And that's great. I have no trouble with that. But it does, like you say, that aspect of can she lie down? Is she living a good life?

Was there a point where you saw, you were talking about the steels there for the contractor, the cement to put the steel in. Was there a time period when it was really bad as far as designing for lowest cost per square foot? And I mean, I remember seeing the freestyle loops that had the big bend in the front, because we were going to train them there. Well, they don't need any lunch space.

They're going to get up going sideways and that means your barn is going to be able to be four feet narrower. And that is this many cubic yards of cement and we're going to save you money by doing this. Was there a time it was really bad?

Chris Keane (16:20)
There was, mean, when you're going back 15, 20 years, even 15 for sure, just this cost, bring it down. Let's make the barn narrower. Let's get these costs down and it just affects the cow. At the end of the day, you're building a facility to house a cow. We've gotten a lot better, man. There's a lot of good information out there. I've been recommending in my company 18 foot head to heads for 20 years.

years they looked at me like there was stuff on my nose the same dimensions and you know a mature Holstein needs 10 feet from the back of the curb to a wall to get up naturally you know it's a lot of room but boy I tell you it pays off not only that you increase airflow between these animals so we get a lot of airflow between them or in front of them which is critical they're heaters they blow a lot of heat at each other so

Mike Donaldson (16:50)
Yeah.

Chris Keane (17:17)
Yeah, that's you know, we are really passionate on that I mean I'll do this presentation on a tailgate in the back of a barn Get them to get the people that clean the stalls. I want them there. I want to see the videos Why are they cleaning these stalls? How important is this animal sitting around on hay bales and doing a presentation like there's nothing better than Seeing somebody think ⁓ man. I get it Wow. Yeah, this makes sense

Mike Donaldson (17:45)
It's gotta still be hard if you're gonna have, whether it's a three row barn and you have to have a row of stalls facing out, or if they've arranged a two row barn so they're tail to tail, where you're telling somebody to move that post that much further out from the front of the stall. That's gotta still be one of the tougher things you deal with, isn't it?

Chris Keane (18:09)
It is and I'm really lucky I work with ⁓ large dairy designers like 5G Consulting that design mega dairies around the world. We've worked together for 20 years. I've been doing presentations with them. They make the barn from the drawing stage to accommodate all of this, whether it's, you know, water space, ⁓ water ⁓ consumption for the cow, how many, the width of the barn, all of this.

You know, and when you start it off right and it just works, it's really not difficult. But that is hard. You know, somebody is going to make the barn 10 feet shorter or narrower. Man, you know what? You're to pay for that for 20 years. You really will.

Mike Donaldson (18:53)
Well, want to, I want to get to a sort of, I think it's interesting the number of approaches you offer. And, and we're not trying to say that you're the only one that should ever put a mattress in. You'd be the one that did mine. But before I have you run through some of the things that you can do on the mattress side, suppose you come to my farm, I'm milking.

Like you say, it could be a hundred cows, it could be 10,000 cows. And the facility was designed 20 years ago. And I don't have the head to head. I can't get the dimension that you want. What are, what are some things you've seen or would recommend to try and help me be better than I am? If it's, if it's not time to rip down barns and build new.

What are some things you've seen that could help me be better? Not right, but better.

Chris Keane (19:57)
Yeah, and we see this every day. I mean, depends on succession plans. Where are they going in five years? All of that stuff comes in. We get a tape measure out. So what I look for when I go into a dairy and our colleagues and our good dealers, if the cows are in the parlor, we look at the steel. If there's massive polishing on the metal, polishing on the neck rail, meaning it's really shiny, ⁓ where's the...

Mike Donaldson (20:21)
And you're

saying the cows are in the parlor, but you're looking at the stalls with them out of them. OK, perfect.

Chris Keane (20:28)
Absolutely. You have

to listen to cows with your eyes, not your ears. So the next thing I look for is where's the manure placed at the back of the stall? When we get manure directly underneath dividers, they're on an angle. Why are they on an angle? They're telling you, I can't lunge. I can't lunge forward, so I need to get up on an angle. I need to lay down on an angle. You'll get polishing in the one corner on the neck rail.

you'll get polishing on the sides where her hips touch and You know what we'll do there is listen guys. You've got a wall the cows going nowhere Let's get this neck rail further ahead at least so she can walk in The stalls have to be the right width if we can increase the width of it It can compensate a little bit for the forward lunge. So the farmer knows at least he knows why his cows are on an angle

They need that room, so gotta try to accommodate it. It's critical. That head is critical for her getting up naturally. And that causes a lot of stress on the animal, big time, which you know affects everything down the road.

Mike Donaldson (21:38)
Well, before I turn you loose on some of the options, think, and I'd sort of put this back to the first time I saw your videos. I think it's important. You think about for us, okay. I went to bed last night. I laid down in bed. I was conscious. I was lying down in bed. However, I didn't think much when I got up this morning. I was more focused on laying down than I was getting up and

Chris Keane (22:06)
Yeah.

Mike Donaldson (22:07)
I was, you I've done this and it's pretty good game to play with people. If you won't stand where you want a cow to lie down and drop to your knees without touching anything, just, you don't have to jump up. But if you won't drop to your knees, then you should not be asking that cow to lie down. But I think the thing that you guys opened my eyes to is the importance of when she stands up.

that she can get her feet dug in a little bit, that she doesn't scramble. I mean, you watch cows and you see in their eye when they're nervous about having to get up and not sure how this is going to work. And I think that's one of the pieces of a proper bed that sometimes people don't appreciate that, do they?

Chris Keane (23:06)
No, it's taken for granted a lot. ⁓ You know, we did invent it ⁓ and you've got to have that dig in. And like you said, if you're not going to drop to your knees on it, man, why would you put a cow on it? She's huge. So we make sure our mattresses, they dig in, they get that sure footing. You don't want them being scared of slipping. When she's standing, you want that neck real in the location. So we got all four of her feet on the dry bed, off the alley, keeping her hoofs dry.

you know, making better for back foot health. Very important. Now, listen, I got competitors, lots of them, hard, thick rubber, because we make top covers that last up to 20 years. And that's a fabric that's thin and is abused by that cow daily. You know, there's not much else on the farm 20 years old and you're complaining about a mattress. know, John Deere's three, three years old. So

Mike Donaldson (24:00)
Yep, yep.

Chris Keane (24:01)
It's really important and our engineers are fantastic. We do a lot of in-house testing and with metal hoofs and cycling them hundreds of thousands of times to get this. And we really look at the cow. It's got to be for the cow. Listen, if I'm a couple bucks more, I'm going to justify why we are number one in the world. ⁓ My job is getting her laid down, comfortable, get up easy. And listen, I don't sell the steel, but I sure promote it to my dealers.

You you got to get this deal right or we don't want to be putting the mats in with you, you know? And we're adamant. We're well known around the world. Definitely.

Mike Donaldson (24:41)
Now, I'd like you to give a little, mean, last month it was interesting to see the array of ways you can address a mattress, a stall, even to the point of some areas, almost a hybrid system that incorporates sand, but in a way that cuts down on the usage of sand. ⁓ Could you give us a little bit of a run through?

how you folks approach the marketplace.

Chris Keane (25:14)
Yeah, so we have a large menu. We have options for any climate, any cow size. So we want to fit the right product with the dairy or the climate or country we're working in. A big thing we've been doing for at least 15, 20 years is a product called PacMat. Now this, you don't see it when you walk in the barn. It goes underneath the sand on an earth base. You don't have to pour concrete. It's a mattress system. And then we leave a couple inches, two to three inches of sand on top.

Well, she gets the comfort because she's got a mattress underneath and she gets the sand, which is great. The farmer is getting 75 percent less sand usage. The big thing for us was now the stalls remain the same. I put this neck rail at 50 inches. She digs a hole. Changes every day. Cows hate change. So now the mattresses look like they were manicured all day. It can make a dairyman that's not so good at

doing the bedding look a lot better. Some guys with sand bed every three, four weeks, they put this big four foot pile of sand in the cow. Look at the production sheet, you'll see a dip in production. And I'll say, is that when you bedded? They said, yes, it is. Said, well, the first thing to do bed once a week, at least that he'll say, there's nothing in front of my cows. I see you got a four foot pile of sand. She's not lunging into it. She's going sideways. She digs it out.

Mike Donaldson (26:17)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha.

Chris Keane (26:43)
It doesn't lie to lay down as much. So we know that as sand bedding gets lower, the surface becomes harder and lay times decrease. Having that mattress on top underneath with a little sand on top, benefit of both worlds. Cow gets the dimensions, the comfort. Dairyman's getting 70% less sand, which is, you know, manure handling and trucks coming in and out leveling and raking. So.

Mike Donaldson (27:07)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Keane (27:10)
Again, it's cow comfort. It's getting those consistent dimensions and how do we achieve it? This system can be used and we use it all over the world. Sand, compost, some parts of Canada like British Columbia, they use sawdust, chopped straw. ⁓ In Finland, they'll use peat. So it's a deep-packed material that can be used anywhere. And it's a fantastic system being studied ⁓ in depth ⁓ at a Madison University.

Mike Donaldson (27:39)
Yeah. So, so when it comes to a a pure mattress, what are the approaches that you especially like to use? Say you're, you're coming to my farm, new construction, and I, for whatever reason, I do not want to use sand anymore. What are the directions you might, what are the directions you might show me?

Chris Keane (27:40)
Yeah.

Well, if they don't want to use sand, ⁓ the pack mat is a good one because you're not pouring concrete. If they want to get right out of that, maybe it's a manure handling issue. They're just fed up with sand. ⁓ You know, it's pour concrete, but you're committed. You're committed to a mattress. You better have the right dimensions because now there's no forgiving in a deep sand bed. It's forgiving. That cow can dig her dimensions a little bit, you know, so it's got to be right. And that's where we see the biggest problems when you're committed.

on concrete and you don't have the right dimensions. And we wouldn't be selling a system at all if we didn't think it was fantastic. So we do have five or six options, water beds, foam systems. have a mattress, our number one seller, recycled rubber tires and tubes like an air mattress, nice foam layer, high density designed just for a cow and a protective top cover. So all these systems are

little bit different price ranges, but what does it fit the farmer and fitting the farmer with the right product for him, especially his management is very important.

Mike Donaldson (29:09)
That's perfect. I think it's fun talking to you, Chris, because you've got such passion for what you do. You talk about being all over the world. You talked about, I can't even remember, the Philippines or Indochina. As we get close to the end here, you have a, but bet you didn't know they do this and that country kind of story you want to share.

Chris Keane (29:31)
I do and I don't know if I showed the video to you guys. It freaked me out. about 10 years ago when I went to this ⁓ in Indonesia. They'll build higher up elevation because it's so hot. It's tropical area land's cheaper. We've taught them now how to do tunnel barns at sea level. But this story is I go there and I'm standing outside and there's like huge flights of concrete stairs and these cows are going up and down it.

twice a day to the parlor, I mean guys, stairs. I'll send you this video after, but, and the guys like, well yeah, just make the stairs the right dimensions and they can walk up it. I'm going, okay, you got me on the dimensions. Cause I said, I've never seen, you know, and I've showed dairymen, they're going, no way. And I mean like, you know, 20, 30 concrete steps that go around in a circle to get down this hill to go to the parlor. that was, ⁓ to me, that was, I thought that was just amazing. And he's like,

Mike Donaldson (30:03)
Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha!

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Chris Keane (30:27)
Well yeah, don't make them correct. mean, make the right width and there's no problem. I'm going okay.

Mike Donaldson (30:31)
Ha ha ha ha!

Oh, that's a good one. That's very good. Any other thoughts to wrap things up here that, I mean, you kind of said the same thing through the whole talk here about comfort and taking care of cows, but I want you to bring it to a close in your own words.

Chris Keane (30:53)
I would say if you're looking to upgrade every penny you spend on cow comfort, we know we get a return on that investment. Got to remember it. We're here for the cow. She's giving us all the profits we need to maintain these facilities and buildings and employees. Man, let's take care of her. You know, we call us in. You need a quality product. You need to look at things sometimes from different eyes, but

You know, we stand behind our products. We truly make a difference and we'll, we add a lot of value to what we do. Listen, I'm a mattress guy. That's all I do. We do a little bit of rubber as well, but people go, that's all you guys sell? Yeah, we focus. That's all we do. So I would say get some good people in the dairy, call our folks. We'll send in some dealers. We've got great reps around the world, especially in the U S and let's take a look at what you got and look at your options. It's a

Make it clear. Nothing funny. Not just dropping quotes. Here's why. That's a good company and that's a good sales.

Mike Donaldson (32:00)
Well, I know, and you and I talked a little bit about how much people use the internet and go, go look and go find. And I'm sure that they could probably search Promat. They could search Chris Keene, but to make it a little easier on them. Could you share some contact information in case someone listening to us wants to get in touch with you folks?

Chris Keane (32:23)
Yeah, I think the best way is right to the website, ⁓ ProMatInc.com. It shows all of our products, ⁓ all of our contact information. There's no problem. If you have somebody email you they need something, let us know. We'll send you a link or send some videos or send in some dealers to go over it. And I'd love to do another presentation with your guys or, you know, another event. ⁓ That's what we do. We get the word out there. We're not scared to share what we know.

Mike Donaldson (32:52)
That is perfect. Well, Chris, think that's, I had to give you a lot of things you can, same question as always, Chris, what'd you learn?

Chris Radke (33:03)
Hey, ⁓ something I'm always fascinated with is somebody who takes a quote unquote simple problem and basically figures out a way to fix that and solve that problem, whether it's something as simple as what McDonald's or Steve Jobs or what Chris is doing. I'm fascinated with that you saw probably thousands of hours of videos. How many hours do think you have? Like total. Like just the videos you showed us is incredible.

Chris Keane (33:24)
It really is that it's thousands

and with our colleagues. Yeah, honestly thousands. There's it's just crazy.

Mike Donaldson (33:28)
You

Chris Radke (33:31)
Yeah. And just the fact you just, I mean, you just play, I remember one of the videos, it just seemed like it looped. And I was just like, wow, that cow really leans forward. It's like what you learn from that. And then you, you know, you're bringing that to, you brought it to us, but now you bring it to other people that I'm just fascinated with that idea. So keep it up, Chris. Yeah.

Chris Keane (33:43)
Yeah.

And we do a lot of the time lapse video too.

we'll set up cameras and run it one second equals a minute when we're done to troubleshoot a barn. yeah, that's a big ⁓ thing, time lapse.

Chris Radke (33:56)
yeah it's just

it's just studying it just another way like i would i never think about that like why would you study the cow in the pasture you know what where the cow naturally lives it makes sense but somebody says gives you the problem so ⁓

Chris Keane (34:06)
No, no, really, why?

Mike Donaldson (34:13)
Well,

and you know, the other thing, I'm not sure where you would have to farm before your cows are not going to spend part of the year in a barn. ⁓ There's probably someplace where they own nothing but a shade cloth and, but you know, even the dairies in the United States that I've ever been to that pasture heavily, there's still at least three or four months a year that they're going to be primarily inside.

Chris Keane (34:41)
Mother Nature's

tough.

Mike Donaldson (34:42)
Yep, yep, yep, so.

Chris Keane (34:44)
We've had dairies

where we leave gates open and they don't go out.

Mike Donaldson (34:48)
Sure, sure.

Chris Keane (34:49)
I'm dead serious. know, he...

Chris Radke (34:50)
They love your Hilton experience.

Chris Keane (34:52)
Absolutely, they stay in the resort, go for the spa, right? Yeah!

Chris Radke (34:55)
Yeah. ⁓ Get their nails done.

Cool. Alright, if you liked us, or like what we talked about, like what you listened to, or like what you heard, you can hit us up on any of our socials. You can now find this video on our website, agriking.com, and if you have any questions, you can email us at podcast@agriking.com. Alright, thank you very much, Chris, and thank you, Mike. Have a wonderful day.

Mike Donaldson (35:22)
Thank you both.

Chris Keane (35:23)
Thanks guys, good to see you again.

Mike Donaldson (35:25)
Thank you.