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Rotary parlours go upscale at


two FV dairies Farmers spend less time milking, enjoy greater production


by DAVID SCHMIDT CHILLIWACK – Parlour


milking is still the system of choice for most large dairies. Two examples of today’s modern rotary parlours were on display in the Fraser Valley recently. Bredale Farms of Chilliwack showed off their new 50-stall DeLaval rotary parlour during the BC Dairy Farm Self Tour in late January while Dykman Cattle Co. of Abbotsford held an open house in late February so people could see their new 60-stall GEA rotary parlour. Both parlours replaced


aging double-10 herringbone parlours with the aim of dramatically reducing milking time. They have done just that. In the old parlour, Bredale


Farms was milking their 600- cow herd twice a day. After installing the rotary, the farm switched to milking three times a day but still cut their total milking time down to just nine hours (three hours per milking) from 14 hours (seven hours per milking) with the same two milkers.


Dykman was also taking


seven hours to milk their 500 cows and were doing it three times a day, meaning the old parlour was being used 21 hours a day. After installing the new parlour, Dykman added another 300 cows to their milking herd but dropped back to milking twice a day. Each milking now takes just three hours. Although milking three times generally results in higher average production than milking twice, the new parlour and new barn built in conjunction with it have made such an improvement, Dykman’s average has actually increased from 34 to 36 litres a day. Ike Bredenhof says


installing a new parlour rather than robots was an easy decision for Bredale. “For our size, a rotary parlour is not only more economical but also doesn’t limit growth,” he says. “Robots limit you if you want to expand. The rotary will let me add several hundred cows in future.”


Although several BC farms


COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • APRIL 2019


Tanner, far left, and Ted Dykman, milker Arnold Dungan and Colby Dykman gathered in front of the new 60- cow rotary parlour at Dykman Cattle Company in Abbotsford. Dykman hosted an open house at their farm, February 22. DAVID SCHMIDT PHOTO


have installed robotic rotary parlours, neither Bredale nor Dykman chose that option. The only reason to do so, they say, is to save on labour, something which hasn’t been an issue for either farm. “You can easily teach a person to milk in a parlour,” notes Bredenhof. The Dykmans have been meeting their labour requirements with Filipinos through the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. Tanner Dykman says some workers have already become permanent Canadian residents and the rest are


hoping to do the same. Dykman cites cost as another factor. John Bruinsma of Pacific Dairy Centre sells both robotic and non-robotic GEA rotary parlours and notes robotic units can cost double that of non-robotic units. Each new parlour is accompanied by a new barn designed to maximize efficiency and cow comfort. Bredale’s new barn splits their herd into five groups – high, low, medium, heifers and fresh – while the Dykman herd includes two high groups, one low group and a two-year-old group. Bredale’s barn also includes a bedding pack for sick cows and two calving pens. The Dykmans still house sick and treated cows in the old barn and milk them in the old parlour so they don’t have to segregate milk in the rotary.


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Both farms now use sand


bedding. Bredale uses scrapers in the barn and a flush system in the holding area while Dykman uses a flush system throughout. Both rely on a DariTech biolynk system coupled with a sand channel to separate the manure and reclaim the sand. The Dykmans had been


using recycled manure as bedding but the switch to sand has led to a dramatic improvement in milk quality. “In the year we have been in the new barn our somatic cell counts have never been over 160,000. We were always over 200,000 in the old barn,” says Dykman. Bredenhof tells a similar


story, saying his SCCs “dropped in half” with the new sand-bedded barn. Unusually, the Dykmans


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didn’t install any fans in the new barn, relying only on misters above the rows to keep cows cool in summer. “If you have large open sidewalls and situate your barn to take advantage of prevailing winds, you don’t need fans,” Dykman says. “We saw no dropoff in milk production last summer.”


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