COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • JANUARY 2019
Popular dairy tour showcases
diversity Self Tour runs day before ag show
by DAVID SCHMIDT ABBOTSFORD – The BC
Dairy Expo begins the day before the Pacific Agriculture Show with the popular annual Dairy Farm Self Tour on January 23. This year, the tour provides
opportunities to see new robots, new barns and even a new dairy centre. The robots include two new DeLaval V300 robots at Kelton Holsteins in Abbotsford and a new Lely A5 robot at Sytsema Dairy in Deroche. After being tested in
Europe for the past two years, the V300s are the first to be installed in BC and have been retrofitted into a 10-year-old barn.
The A5 is Lely’s latest
version of its robotic milking system. Farmers should also visit
Four Sons Dairy in Chilliwack which has installed the more- established Lely A4 robot in a new barn optimized for robotic milking. The tour includes
examples of the Boumatic single and double milking box robots and the GEA Monobox robotic milking system. Toop Farms retrofitted three Boumatic double-box robots and one single-box robot into its existing barn in Greendale. Toop Farms also features a new GPS beacon system to allow the operator to easily find any cow in the barn. Oroby Holsteins in
Dewdney built an entirely new barn complete with a GEA Monobox robot. The GEA’s In-Liner Everything system cleans, preps, milks and post-dips with a single attachment. In the Fraser Valley, GEA is sold and serviced by Pacific Dairy Centre. PDC recently relocated to the Chilliwack Industrial Park and invites all dairy farmers to an open house at its new 40,000- square-foot facility during the dairy tour.
It’s not all robots Not every farm is installing
robots. Bredale Farms in Chilliwack just finished installing a new 50-stall DeLaval PR3100 all-stainless rotary parlour with interactive data display and two new Mueller milk tanks with a computerized monitoring system in a new sand-bedded
flush barn. Farmers can also see a new flush barn complete with sand bedding and a US Farm Systems manure management system at Lone Prairie Dairy in Chilliwack. Bredale Farms, Oroby Holsteins and Systsma Dairy will be open for viewing from 9 am to 4 pm. Lone Prairie will be open from 9 am to 3 pm. Four Sons and Toop Farms will both be open from 10 am to 4 pm. Kelton Holsteins will also open at 10 am but close at 3 pm. The Pacific Dairy Centre open
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Optimized for robotic milking, Four Sons Dairy in Chilliwack is one of the stops on this year’s self tour.
house runs 8 am till 5 pm. Complimentary lunches will be available at Bredale
Farms, Toop Farms and the Pacific Dairy Centre. Tour guides are available
from dairy equipment suppliers and the BC Ministry of Agriculture.
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