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Farm/dairy name: Clefthaven farm
Owners: Ruth, Orville, Brian, Kevin, Bradley & Darrell Fried
No of dairy cows: 300
Breed of cows: Holstein
Housing: Parlour at home farm, 4-row free stall/loose housing at VMS barn
Milking system: 2 DeLaval voluntary milking systems VMS
Number of milkings per day: On average 3
“The biggest advantage of the VMS is that the cows can do what they want, get milked when they want, and production is outstanding...”
It all started with Robert Coleman when he bought 158 acres of farm land in 1911, in Plattsville, Ontario, Canada. But it wasn’t until 1941 when his son Merle took over that dairy operations began. His daughter, Ruth, eventually married Orville and both later became the farm’s owners in 1965. The two now run a 2000 acre farm together with their four sons as a partnership with one VMS farm and a home farm with a herringbone parlour.
Decisions about business items such as plans, objectives and priorities are made at the partners’ daily morning meetings. But in 2002, the Fried family made a very big decision: to add a barn and install two DeLaval voluntary milking systems (VMS). They’ve never looked back. Oldest son, Brian Fried states quite clearly the advantage of having a VMS. “Our cows can do what they want, get milked when they want and production is outstanding.”
The DeLaval VMS facilities are housed in a four row free-stall naturally ventilated barn with manure take on slats and scraper on top. The cows rest on mats with sawdust on top; rotary cow brushes are used for cow comfort.
The rolling herd average is 10,000 litres per cow, where the percentage of fat and protein in milk is 3.8 and 4.2 percent.
“Since we have a DeLaval VMS, the cows milk themselves about three times a day,” says Brian. “We also have a good bacteria count which averages 14,000.”
The farm uses a partial TMR without a mixer. They feed out of tower silos where high-moisture corn, and hay crop and corn silage is ran at the same time, across conveyors and then onto a feeder that drops off in front of the feed bump. After this, the cows get dry hay fed by fork.
“We feed 18 percent in the robots and 30 percent on our partial TMR. This is based on a standard ration across the board.” As the cows dry, the robot will decrease the amount fed. Most of the feed is grown on the farms, where only prepared foods for the robot are purchased.
On the farms’ two-thousand acres, the crops include alfalfa (400), wheat, (200) soy bean (400), corn silage (450) and grain corn (300). Surplus crops such as soybean, wheat and barley are sold, but about two-thirds of the farm acreage goes to dairy operations.
Fertilizer is mostly on-farm and gotten from manure waste. “We dragline most of our manure since the farms are very close to each other,” explains Brian. The dragline system consists of a pipeline that pumps the manure onto the land which gives less compaction.
Clefthaven has 300 milking cows with 200 replacements. In fact, all Heifer calves are raised for replacement. The average days in milk are 180 at the DeLaval VMS facilities. The age at first calving is 26 months. The calving interval average is 13 months. Artificial insemination is used, but mainly the calves are born by natural means. The average age of the cows is eight to ten years old. The main criteria for culling cows are old age, legs and feet.
Brian says they work with standard operating procedures with a high priority on personal safety and bio-security.
“The DeLaval voluntary milking system makes it much easier on the personnel environment. Our daily schedules have changed since it was installed. We basically turn the lights on in the barn in the morning, and instead of milking the cows ourselves, we look at a computer read-out to see how the robots have milked our cows.”
The family is happy with the VMS and has said if they were to build another farm, they would certainly use a DeLaval VMS again. “It affords us more time to have fun and leisure. We enjoy working with each other and want to continue to focus on family, work ethics, and embracing new technology.”
It is the hope of the Clefthaven family to inspire future generations to continue the family-run operation for many years to come.
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