WELCOME

to our

60 stall

Rotary Milking Parlour!!!

Story of a Cow

What use to be a woman’s job in the 19th century, milk is now technology’s realm. Both men and women work together on some pretty amazing farms milking a lot of cows and work at their own business.
For a cow, it is an everyday thing. As long as there is enough food, water and a place to lay or a cow brush to rub on, they are happy.
It all starts at conception. In order for a cow to produce milk, a cow has to produce a calf, which a cow is bred through a bull if they are a heifer(never calved before) or through artifical-insemination using frozen bull semen. Once a cow calves, the heifer (female) calves are separated from the mother and put into a calf barn where they are raised on milk replacer that gives all the nutrients a calf needs to grow up healthy. The first milk that a calf gets is its mothers colostrum, which builds up their immune system, just like humans. The calves must get two portions of colostrum before going to milk replacer. The bull(male) calves are shipped where they are sold for meat.
Once a cow calves, a cow must be milked two or three times a day, seven days a week. If a milking is missed, her production may drop until her next calving. Three months after calving, she is bred again, but the milk continues for another 7 months. For the last two months of her pregnancy, she is “dried off” and put into a dry cow pen. Once a cow calves, they are considered fresh cows and that is when they produce their highest amount of milk.
If a cow is not “milked out”, which means that their udders are not totally empty after being milked, that could lead to mastitis, in which the cow would have to be taken out of the herd into a sick cow pen and put on penicillin until her mastitis is cleared up.
Another problem with cows is their feet. If their feet are not properly taken care of on a regular basis, problems could arise such has foot rot, strawberry or ulcers. Cows must go through a foot bath on a regular basis (formaldehyde and water) and trimmed by a hoof trimmer 2-3 times per year to keep up the health of their hoofs.
A cow is a pretty neat animal, to all dairy farmers, the cows are what make the money, so keeping the cows in good health is a main priority. If you don’t have the cows, you don’t have the milk!

What is a rotary?

For those of you who are not sure of what a rotary is...

In a rotary milking parlour the cow walks onto the platform which is always turning. In our case, the rotary turns clockwise; as the cow walks

onto the rotary, the cow moves to the operator position. The operator preforms the necessary tasks to milk the cows properly.

After each cow has been milked, our cows exit the rotary through a sorting gate and then back to their group, in which, they came out of previously.

On a rotary, the cows are constantly entering and exiting the parlour. The continous flow is what makes a rotary parlour milk a lot of cows in a

short amount of time!

MILKING PARLOUR FEATURES

      1^st 60 stall Delaval/Rota-tech milking parlour to be installed in Canada.

    8000 gallon Mueller milk cooler.

      Mueller AT10 floor mounted stainless steel plate cooler.

      2x 10 hp oiless vacuum pumps with variable speed controllers.

     Germania ReceiveAll system.

      All stainless Rota-Tech rotary deck.

      Germania air operated crowd gate.

      Pre-manufactured holding area fencing.

      Basement access to inside of rotary.

      Automatic sorting system.

      Extensive cow sorting & management area.

      AFI/Germania automation system.

    AFI/Germania stainless steel sorting system.

   AFI/Germania activity monitoring system.

      5hp high volume wash down system.

  Hot water boiling system.

   Artek Y2K floor mount stalls

    Bauman barn gates.

    Agpro barn flushing system.

      DeLaval swinging cow brushes.