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Malayna Barnhart, a senior studying animal science at Delaware Valley University, is gaining experience on two Lebanon County dairy farms this summer. With her family having cows until she was about two years old, Malayna had an early introduction to the dairy industry and started milking cows for relatives and neighbors as a teenager.
When she had the opportunity to complete an on-farm internship and rotate between Smith-Ziegler Farm and Hideaway Dairy, she knew it would broaden her skills and expose her to new management practices such as the robotic milking technology at Hideaway Dairy.
“I knew I was going to get a good learning experience with hands-on skills through this internship. It has been nice being able to see both farms and work with robots since I’ve never actually seen them before,” Malayna shared.
Malayna’s focus has been on herd management and cow care – doing one milking shift a day, drying off cows, breeding cows, treating mastitis cows, and more. To drill down on mastitis and somatic cell count, Malayna is completing a research project related to mastitis culturing with the hopes of improving herd health.
“Both farms want to get their somatic cell counts down, so I’m doing mastitis culturing. I’ll end up comparing the two farms to see if there are similarities or if something is more prevalent on each operation,” she said. “The health and mastitis side are very interesting to me. We do some of it at school, but they never fully explained why we’re doing it or what we’re looking at.”
Applying skills she learned in the classroom at the farm level has given Malayna a confidence boost and solidified her passion for working with cows throughout her future career.
“The biggest learning curve has been learning to trust myself. Just trusting that I do understand what I’m doing. My favorite part has been working with the cows every day,” she added. “I think the farm-level stuff is is probably what I’ll end up doing. I love the hands-on part of the job, and I’ve really enjoyed this experience. It has been a great learning opportunity.”
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The Dairy Excellence Foundation, the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania, and the Pennsylvania Dairymen’s Association provide $3,000 grants to support these on-farm internships each summer.