Viewing a thread - pics of my economical dairy set up

Forums | Classifieds (178) | Skins | Language

You are logged in as a guest. ( logon | register )

pics of my economical dairy set up	View previous thread :: View next thread
Forums List -> Stock Talk	Message format

rodave

Posted 2/25/2009 11:11 (#622290)
Subject: pics of my economical dairy set up

Heres some pics..
the parlor is a surge side exit auto flow 5 stalls, its attached to the older tie stall barn, I kept 8 tie stalls for milking cows that need to be seperated and also remodeled so to have a couple calving pens and the rest of the old barn is made into calf pens. Heifers and dry cows are housed in an open front barn which has a locking headgate along the feeding area, this I want to put a roof over it since sometimes its just not possible to work with the cows when the weather is nice. Feed is stored in tower silos and wrapped bales, I dont use a TMR mixer, the cows get silage twice a day via a patz v-plow belt feeder, 60 feet long and have access to dry hay and wrapped hay in feedersd in the yard and in summer they have pasture. I feed a 16% dairy supplement in the parlor while milking, it works well the cows seem to be encouraged to come in and they have something to do while being milked. Most of the milking system is surge, the bulk tank is a daricool(boumatic) 1000 gallon. The freestalls are iin a old remodeled shed that I built onto so it would be big enough, the stalls are bedded with sawdust twice a week with the skidsteer, I have a side slinger bucket for this job, its pretty dusty so I am glad to have a full cab on the skidsteer. Manure is semi solid, and scarped with a tractor or the skidsteer into a pile at one end of the yard. At the moment I am milking 62 cows, which is a little more than I have stalls for but I fiugure that not all the cows will lay down at the same time. Its about 1 hour 40 minutes to milk with this parlor. With more cows I would need to have a double side parlor.