Comments From Dairy Carrie

This past week I was able to listen to Carrie Mess, also known as Dairy Carrie, speak about her life and how she uses her blog, Facebook, and Twitter to help or inform others. Carrie is the average Wisconsin dairy farmer, owning 100 milk cows on 300 acres. Although she did not grow up on a farm, she was not far from ag/farm fields. In high school she took ag science classes and she liked them. She said she was a horse girl and married into a dairy farm family. Carrie started her blog two years ago when she was not on the farm. She also started a Facebook page and jumped into twitter when she moved from her town job to the farm. At this time she also bought a business, which was an online business that sold lingerie, and thought the media sights would help promote business. She later sold that business. Carrie said she had found a bunch of farmers on Twitter which was a great resource to ask questions about farming. She was new to diary also used it to learn about cows. The Ag Chat group was also beginning to form on twitter. Carrie has been involved with Ag Chat ever since their 1^st conference. Ag Chat shows how to use tools of social media to tell your story.

Carrie decided to launch her blog two years ago and has had 700,000 views so far, most of which was in the last year. The first big thing she did on her blog was host a hay drive due to the southwest drought. She sent 7 sent 7 semi loads of hay down to Oklahoma and Texas. Donations came in from around the globe, even bands such as Cross Canadian Ragweed and Randy Rogers participated.

She explained that you do not want to put a message out that can be taken the wrong way. Social media is no longer about controlling the conversation, but putting information out. Carrie talked about putting the story out that one of her heifers getting hurt and after days of working on her, she died. She told us that PR people do not always to show that side, but it is a part of the story and is something that can be connected too. She also shared that there was not any negative comments. Carrie said that you need to be polished, but not overly polished/smooth in her message. People want someone who is real and that they can connect with. Carrie has a lot of respect for people approach her and say they are not perfect either and continue to tell their stories.

Check out her blog: http://dairycarrie.com/

FFA Livestock Being Vandalized

This fall I have heard the worst stories about FFA livestock being vandalized. On October 15, 2013 the Chickasha, Oklahoma high school’s FFA chapter’s animals and barn were vandalized. Everything had been spray painted and the walls were painted with offensive messages and symbols. The Ag teacher spoke out and said that on the pigs the members had got most of the paint off of the hair, but that it had also soaked into the skin. So, the members would just have to keep washing the pigs as the paint slowly faded away. The sheep had been exposed to the hog feed and were basically poisoned due to the high copper levels. All the animals were let out of their pens, causing a dangerous situation. This story got shared across the country. So many former FFA members knew the care and expense that had been put into these animals. The sorrow for both the animals and the members who owned the animals had been felt not only by themselves but by many. What is unique about the FFA organization is that the members bond and form together. Everyone knows how it feels and how much work goes into a project and so when we hear news, such as this it makes our hearts heavy. Not only did this happen but later on between Friday night October 25 and Saturday Morning October 26, at the Paso Robles high school’s FFA livestock barn, a steer had been set on fire. In order to do this they had to break into school property. The owner of the steer had seen what happened when he went to feed the animal on Saturday morning. The steer was the only thing on the property to be hurt and had significant burns on his face. However, he was expected to live. It is just awful how anybody could do such things to helpless animals. There is no reason to break onto a piece of property and vandalize animals. If someone has a problem they need to man up and talk about it to the person like civilized human being. There does not need to be this much hurt involved. It is shameful and heart wrenching for all involved.

http://www.ksby.com/news/local-ffa-student-s-steer-set-on-fire/#!prettyPhoto/0/