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Main Program
| Producer Panel | Keynote Speaker
This full-day coach bus
tour provided wide-ranging exposure to some of the most progressive dairy
farms in Ontario, who are early
adopters of Precision Dairy Management technologies.
Our host farms were chosen from the South-Western
Ontario region to provide tour guests with an exposure to the
real-world workings of precision management technologies that
will include demonstrations of the data that can be acquired and
translated into labour and other management cost savings.
The Precision Dairy Management Post
Conference Tour visited four farms demonstrating on-farm
applications of dairy automation and precision management. Buses
departed at 7:30 a.m. promptly from the hotel, returning to
the hotel at 6:00 p.m.
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Summitholme Farms
Management is the
focus of this high production herd that ranks highest in the
province for DHI management score year after year.
Summitholme owned and operated by
Dave, Carl and Ben Loewith is a 320 cow dairy on sand bedding
and features the new Performance Plus pedometer system from
AfiMilk.
The
Pedometer Plus measures
rest time and rest bouts - in addition to identifying cows and
having all the traditional Afi Pedometer's Heat Detection
capabilities. The AfiFarm Herd Management software processes
this data to give indications of behavior changes expressing
comfort/discomfort. Stress levels or comfort experienced by farm
animals can be assessed by measuring their performance and
behavior. A wide array of data is collected and measured through
the afimilk sensors and then analyzed by the
AfiFarm
Herd Management software.
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Hoenhorst
Farms
In the anticipation of increasing labour
costs, Gerrit and Margriet Wensink of Hoenhorst Farms near
Woodstock have moved beyond a profitable, high production 3x
/day parlour-milked herd, and in April 2008 expanded into a new
360 cow, slatted floor freestall barn featuring 6 Lely robotic
milking stalls, robotic slat scraping, dual chamber water beds,
and perimeter feeding. This farm also features robotic calf
feeding and has participated in DHI field trials using RFID ear
tags in herd management.
The latest addition features an automatic heat monitoring
system.
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Donkleman Farms
Donkleman Farms is owned
by Henk and Dinie Kremers and their son Arjan
and his wife Marleen.
The 4 row freestall
barn was originally built in 1990 and has
undergone several renovations, one following a
fire.
Natural ventilation
is from 3 ft. (0.9 m) tip in ventilation panels
that work well in winter.
Tunnel ventilation
is used in the summer, with power supplied by 18
– 4 ft. (122 cm) diameter fans in the end wall.
Milking is done
with a new 28 stall Westfalia Surge Mag 40
internal rotary which includes pedometry, 2 auto
sort gates, and an automated footbath.
Calves are fed with
a J-V640 automated Calf Feeder.
Feeding equipment
includes a Jamesway MultiMix Auto Batch system,
a ValMetal bale slicer and a Patz 950 vertical
mixer.
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DeLaval Robotic
Milking Farm
Ron and
Debbie Riddell have just moved into their 114 x
350 ft 4 row freestall barn with sand bedding
and a manure flushing system. The barn houses
120 milking cows plus dry cows and all
replacements. The dairy herd, which will be
moved in just one month before the conference,
will be milked with 2 DeLaval VMS using a feed
first cow traffic system.
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Click Here to register for updates on the
conference. |
