Dairy Farmers of America, Inc. (DFA) is a dairy marketing cooperative that serves and is owned by more than 18,000 dairy farmers in 48 states. DFA is a premium provider of market opportunities for farmers and a value-added supplier of innovative dairy products and food components for customers around the world. As one of the country’s most diversified manufacturers of dairy products, DFA provides quality service in a cost-effective manner, building domestic and international opportunities that increase returns to members.

On Monday afternoon, Aug. 4, you can tour two of the Northeast’s most innovative dairies

     PRO-DAIRY is sponsoring a tour of two new and exciting dairy facilities in western New York. The drive-yourself tour features Hemdale Farms’ new robotic barn and Merrell Farms’ eight-row cross-ventilation barn with a rotary parlor

Hemdale Farms Inc.
     The Seneca Castle, N.Y., dairy, a partnership of Dale and Rene Hemminger and Casey Kunes, built a 227-stall robotic barn in 2007. It has four Lely robotic units. The dairy, which has grown from 110 cows 15 years ago to 690 cows today, opted for robotics instead of a new parlor as part of what Dale Hemminger calls a “risk-aversion” model. As with nearly every dairy, labor is a challenge, and the robotic barn requires much less labor than conventional barns. “Young people who won’t milk will work in a robotic barn,” Hemminger says.
      Here are two notable features you’ll see at Hemdale Farms’ robotic barn:

     1. Each Lely robotics unit handles 60 to 70 cows at approximately 70 pounds of milk per cow. As production climbs to 85 to 90 pounds of milk, each machine can milk 50 to 60 cows. “They have a glass ceiling on capacity,” Hemminger says.
      Cows go to the robots 2.7 times per day on average, though some show up to be milked as often as four times a day, Hemminger says. The robots feature quarter milking, meaning they monitor milk production and five quality parameters on all four teats. Somatic cell count in the barn runs about 150,000.

     The robotic barn has waterbeds for stall surfaces and rubber belting in the robotic unit areas, the feed alley and at the waterers. There is one feed alley with headlocks. The barn has extended day lighting.
      2. Manure system. Hemminger is enthusiastic about the barn’s manure handling system. There’s nothing unique about its alley scrapers. But the 2-inch slot under the alley scraper cable is different. Urine and solids run through the slot and drop into an 18-inch tube. Waste travels to the discharge end and finally to storage. “The urine leaves the floor; that is the big issue,” Hemminger says.

Merrell Farms LLC.
     The Wolcott, N.Y., dairy, owned by Jon and Karen Merrell, features a new eight-row cross-ventilated barn. Like Texas, everything about the dairy complex is big. The barn is 216-feet-wide at the widest section and 823- feet-long with 1,424 stalls. There are 77 fans and baffles above the head-to-head stalls. The barn also features an evaporative cooling pad.
      The dairy’s holding area for the 72-stall rotary parlor houses radio frequency sort gates, a foot-trim lane and a four-row fresh heifer and treated cow area. There’s also a bedded pack. The dairy beds with sand, and the manure handling system will eventually include four Fan separators.
      The Merrells’ older freestall barns were noted for cow comfort, thanks to sand bedding and stall designs that make it easy for cows to lie down and get up and out comfortably. There new barn promises the same for the couple’s herd. “Natural ventilation wouldn’t work at this site,” says Karen Merrell about the couple’s decision to build the cross-ventilation barn. “There wouldn’t be enough space between barns. (The couple is planning a second wide barn at the location.) The milking center and the holding area, with sort gates, foot trim lane, four-row stall area and bedded pack, have a wealth of unique features worth seeing on this exclusive tour.

Directions to Hemdale Farms
2800 Orleans Rd., Seneca Castle, NY 14547
Directions from Rochester, N.Y.
-Thruway Exit 43, Manchester
-Turn right off thruway exit onto Rt. 21
-Turn left at light onto Rt. 96 South
- Travel 7 miles and turn right on Rt. 488 South
- Travel 1.5 miles, take 2nd left hand turn onto Wheat Rd. (Y in road)
- Travel 3 miles, continue straight thru blinking light
- Hemdale Farms is on the left

Directions from Syracuse, N.Y.
-Thruway Exit 42, Geneva
-Turn right onto Rt. 14 South
-Turn right onto Rt. 96 North
-Travel about 10 miles through the town of Phelps
- Turn left onto Rt. 488 South.
- Travel 1.5 miles, take 2nd left hand turn onto Wheat Rd. (Y in road).
- Travel 3 miles, continue straight thru blinking light
- Hemdale Farms is on the left

Directions from Geneva – From East
-Travel 4 miles west on Rt. 5 & 20, out of Geneva
-Turn right onto Seneca Castle Rd. (near Ontario
County Landfill)
-Travel 2 miles through village of Seneca Castle
- Hemdale Farms is on the right

Directions from Canandaigua – From the West
-Travel east about 9 miles on Rt. 5 & 20
-Turn left onto Seneca Castle Rd., (near Ontario
County Landfill)
-Travel 2 miles through village of Seneca Castle
- Hemdale Farms is on the right

Directions from Southern Tier
-Take Rt. 17 to Rt. 54 North
-Take 54 North through Penn Yan to Rt. 14 A
-Take 14A to stop sign in Hall, go straight (turns into County Rd. 5/Post Rd.). Do not follow 14A signs, go 3 miles to Rt. 5 & 20
-Turn left on Rt. 5 & 20, go 1 mile
-Turn right on Seneca Castle Rd.
-Travel 2 miles through the village of Seneca Castle
- Hemdale Farms is on the right

Tom Lorenzen of Alltech will present “Bottlenecks to efficiency – case studies for finding profit on the dairy” at this morning session, which includes a continental breakfast for attendees. Lorenzen, who has worked in the areas of dairy nutrition, udder health and sanitation, and milking equipment, will present information gleaned from performing audits of dairy operations where he looks for non-nutritional bottlenecks that may affect quality milk production and performance. The session is sponsored by Alltech, a company driven by the mission of improving animal health and performance by adding nutritional value to animal feed, enhancing the performance of the animal and increasing animal production. For more than 25 years, Alltech has improved animal health by using natural yeast fermentation as solutions to increasing challenges of feeding high-performance animals.

      “I worry more about feed bunk space than stall numbers,” Knopf says about the dry-cow area with 130 feet of feed bunk space.
      The dairy moves all cows that are dried off to the area on the same day, and they’re moved out the day they freshen. They go into a 20-cow group for a couple weeks. “They’re all fresh, and there’s less competition” compared to when Knopf used to put them into a group of 120 cows.
      He emphasizes the importance of transition cow feeding and has looked for a way to feed forage lower in potassium, finally settling on straw and the right kind of hay. To get the right particle size, Knopf uses a grinder. It did a lot to curb sorting and DAs, he says.
      The dairy monitors fresh cows for about 12 days. “If she has a fever, we want to know why,” Knopf says. “But if a cow looks OK, is chewing her cud and her production is where we expect it, we don’t bother her. If she’s coming up in milk, it’s a sign things are OK.”             Knopf sums up his approach this way: “In the end it comes down to people doing the right thing that allows the cow to succeed.”

Bob Stoltzfus, DVM, Salunga, Pa., cites reasearch that shows “50% of cows that calf have at least one health problem,” says veterinarian Bob Stoltzfus with Lancaster Veterinary Associates. “The focus should be on prevention of these problems not just treatment.”       At Tuesday’s seminar, Stoltzfus will discuss two areas where dairies can focus attention to prevent transition cow problems:

Cow comfort. Prevent overcrowding, create comfortable stalls and keep calving areas clean are high on Stoltzfus’ list.

Nutrition. Stoltzfus formulates rations for many of his clients in addition to handling their herds’ health and reproduction. For dry cows, he strongly recommends a high-fill, low-energy straw diet.
      “In every instance (where dairies began feeding this diet), it has made a huge difference in herds across the board,” Stoltzfus says. Overall, DAs decline to less than 2% and ketosis incidence drops below 10%. “A cow calves and gets up and eats. She’ll come to feed quicker.”
      Dr. Stoltzfus will provide guidelines on the high-fill, low-energy straw diet at Tuesday’s seminar.

” A cow that’s eating is a healthy cow, says Eric Clifford, Starksboro, Vt. “ I want the cow, especially in the 12 to two hours before she calves, to eat. If the cow is full, she won’t have a metabolic problem,” says the owner of the eighth-generation Clifford Farm LLC.
      Clifford has a 200-head milking herd, averaging 90 pounds of milk. He raises all his youngstock on the dairy, as well as all the dairy’s forages on 300 acres.
      In his transition-cow program, Clifford keeps dry cows in one group, housed in a three-row barn with headlocks built in 1997. The barn is bedded with sand, except for the maternity pen at one end of the barn. It’s a bedded pack where cows are moved a few days before calving.
      The barn takes advantage of a cow’s social instincts. For one thing, it minimizes social changes. “And when a prefresh cow gets up to eat, the cow in the maternity pen can see her and she’s stimulated to eat, too,” he says.
      Maximizing dry matter intake is his top priority for transition cows. “If you feed them good forages to keep their bellies full and put them in a social setting where they’ll eat, you don’t need to do anything extra.”

For the last six years, John Knopf, Canandaiqua, N.Y., has been in an expansion mode, building barns but making due with a 12-stall flat-barn parlor. When he built a freestall barn two years ago, Knopf allocated space for dry cows at one end. It had 90 freestalls and a bedded pack for calving. Then he took 20 stalls out for a post-fresh group.

A Very Special Program This Year at Empire Farm Days
Tuesday, Aug. 5 in Seneca Falls, NY
Dairy Industry Lunch at 12 noon. Panel discussion begins at 1 p.m.

New Profit Opportunities…

REGISTERED HOLSTEINS IN LARGER DAIRY OPERATIONS

Embryo transfer using breeders’ elite genetics and the recipient cows available in larger, commercial herds offers plenty of opportunity for added income… for both the breeder and the commercial operator. Listen to this panel discussion at the 2008 Empire Farm Days. Come and bring a neighbor. These dairymen explain how it works for them.

Moderator: David Rama of the Cattle Exchange, Delhi, N.Y., who has helped countless buyers and sellers establish Registered Holstein merchandising programs.

Sponsored by the NYHA Breed Promotion Committee, Ed Tyler, Rome, N.Y., Chair
For more information contact Ed Tyler at 315.337.8974

Tom Lorenzen of Alltech will present “Bottlenecks to efficiency – case studies for finding profit on the dairy” at this morning session, which includes a continental breakfast for attendees. Lorenzen, who has worked in the areas of dairy nutrition, udder health and sanitation, and milking equipment, will present information gleaned from performing audits of dairy operations where he looks for non-nutritional bottlenecks that may affect quality milk production and performance. The session is sponsored by Alltech, a company driven by the mission of improving animal health and performance by adding nutritional value to animal feed, enhancing the performance of the animal and increasing animal production. For more than 25 years, Alltech has improved animal health by using natural yeast fermentation as solutions to increasing challenges of feeding high-performance animals.

Lynn Murray and his wife, Peggy, had built their Copenhagen, N.Y., dairy by adding on facilities. That was until 2006 when the couple built a four-row 448-stall barn. At Wednesday’s seminar, Lynn Murray can explain why the dairy opted to build this type of freestall barn with its head-to-head stalls.
    Like any new dairy facility worth its salt, the Murrays’ freestall is designed for cow comfort. That’s achieved with, among other things, sand bedding, stalls with ample lunge space, strategically placed sprinklers and fans, and healthy air movement.
    The barn has proven itself. “Our goal at one year in the barn was for production to be back at the level before we moved,” says Murray. They reached that after only three months in the barn.
    As impressive as the barn is, the Murrays’ planning process is even more noteworthy. During today’s seminar, Murray can talk about how they improved management and herd performance before expanding.
    “For two years, we held monthly meetings with whomever we needed to talk to, with an eye on improving things in our current facility before expansion so we wouldn’t have to do it in the chaos of construction,” Murray says.

Jake Swyers, dairy manager at Adirondack Dairy, Peru, N.Y., oversees the 1,580-cow herd. He has first-hand experience on how to succeed when facilities are overcrowded. The dairy, which has two freestall barns for lactating and dry cows and one for heifers, can be anywhere from 45% to 75% overcrowded.
    How does the dairy manage to mitigate the negative impact of this? “We feed multiple times – 4 or 5 times a day – changed fans and added shade cloth on the west side of the barns. We try to make adjustments,” Swyers says. Sand-bedded stalls help a lot to ease some problems that might result from overcrowding.
    The dairy converted a bedded pack for close-up cows to freestalls. “It was one step we had to make for overcrowding,” Swyers says. The change also minimized fresh-cow mastitis and improved cow cleanliness. But it resulted in more DOAs.
    If milk production is proof of a dairy facility’s performance, Adirondack Dairy’s barns are performing well. The herd was at 94 pounds of milk per cow this spring. “Chasing 100 pound is great for morale,” Swyers says.

Tom Barley, Conestoga, Pa., and his partners in Star Rock Dairy focus a lot of their effort on keeping cows cool and comfortable. In the dairy facility built a few years ago, Barley; his brother, Rob; and cousin Abe Barley installed fans every 24 feet over the head-to-head stalls and every 48 feet over the feed bunks. The six-row barn, which is 650 feet long, has sprinklers, rather than misters, installed every 8 feet over the feed alley and the inside rows of stalls.
    Fourteen-foot sidewalls, an overshot ridge vent and few trusses help to keep air moving and cows cool.
    This standard of cow comfort on the 1,250-cow dairy carries over to the special needs barn, which also has 14-foot sidewalls, sprinklers and fans.
   “Heat abatement is working,” Barley says. “Our cows peak out in early summer and maintain 90 pounds of milk through the summer.”
    Sand-bedded stalls are another important factor in cow comfort at Star Rock Dairy.

Curt Gooch, a registered professional engineer and PRO-DAIRY’s facilities specialist, focuses on dairy housing and waste management systems with these goals: to enhance animal performance, efficiency and well-being; to help ensure environmental compliance and overall farm profitability; and to foster labor efficiency.
    Gooch can provide a wealth of information on how to maximize cow comfort in new and existing dairy facilities. “In the Northeast where dairies have expanded on existing sites, we have to think about what they can do to make cows comfortable,” Gooch says. “Ventilation is one important thing. Another is heat stress mitigation. Those two go hand-in-hand; one can’t be addressed without considering the other.”
    Have a question about manure management or biomass-based renewable energy systems? Gooch has both practical experience and applied research in these areas and can help clear the air on what handling systems might best fit different dairies.

Rick Grant, president of W.H. Miner Agricultural Institute in Chazy, N.Y., has spent a good part of his career researching cow behavior. In particular he looks at how facilities affect a cow’s ability to do what she needs to do – eat, lie down and reproduce. Stalls and feed bunk space are both important to a cow’s ability to practice her normal behavior of feeding and resting.
    “Facilities and management are cows’ environment,” Grant says. “What are the dollars and cents of optimizing them?”
    Grant will discuss recent research on the role stocking density plays in those two essential activities. One example: When a breeding pen is overcrowded and bunk space drops from 24 to 12 inches, you cut in half the number of cows pregnant, Grant says.

Corwin Holtz of Holtz-Nelson Dairy Consultants LLC works with his clients in New York and Vermont on nutrition, facilities, herd health and cow comfort.
    The biggest impediments to cow performance are stall design, stall surfaces and overcrowding, says Holtz. He’ll talk specifically about stall surfaces. There are three of them high on his list: sand, waterbeds and deep straw. Deep straw?
    Holtz first saw deep-straw beds in Germany where some dairies are having great success with the system. He now has a few clients in the Northeast trying deep straw beds.
    Holtz will provide all the details but, generally, straw, chopped 1 to 2 inches long and mixed with lime and water, is put into stalls 10 inches deep.
    Some questions you might have: What are the economics? What about mastitis incidence? What’s the mix of straw, lime and water? How do you get that concoction into stalls? Holtz will answer these questions.
    “From a strict cow comfort standard, deep straw beds are really good,” Holtz says. “On dairies where they have deep-straw beds, cows are waiting to get into the stalls. It’s an alternative to sand.”

Jon and Bev Rutter, Bridport, Vt., have been grazing their herd since 1991. “We jumped in with both feet and fenced the entire farm the next year,” John says. “We began selling organic milk in 2001. It was a natural evolution.”

The Rutters milk 260 cows and raise about 200 head of youngstock with four full-time employees. Their herd is mostly crossbreds, and they have a herd average that runs between 13,500 and 14,000 pounds.
    They grow 500 acres of haylage. About 70% of their forage comes from pasture, the rest from stored feed.
    Mother Nature is the Rutters’ biggest grazing challenge or, as Bev puts it, “mud.” Their farm – 250 acres fenced for milking and dry cows and another 100 acres on a neighboring farm fenced for youngstock – is all clay soils. “In the spring we wait for the soil to get hard and if there’s rain, we can’t put them out early – we have to wait until it’s dry,” Bev says.
    “It’s a profitable way to farm,” Jon says. “There are better managers [than us] at many facets, but we’ve been able to step back and look at this business in a different manner. We work hard at giving our cows an opportunity to succeed – good feed, good bedding, and animal health is better outdoors.”

Kathie Arnold has been a player in the dairy grazing sector for many years. The Truxton, N.Y., dairy farmer is president of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance and writes for Graze magazine, among other roles.
    At home, Arnold dairies with her husband, Rick, and his brother Bob. They have intensively grazed their 125-cow herd since 1993. In 1998, they began organic milk production. The Arnolds herd is a mix of Holstein and crossbreds.
    Twin Oaks’ cattle graze on a mix of native grasses, orchardgrass, clover, timothy and rye grass for about 200 days a year. After being in hutches for a few days, calves are mob fed in paddocks with portable shelters.
    Arnold can address the changes in the economics of organic dairying. “Becoming organic was a philosophical and business decision,” she says.
    But with the increased costs of feed inputs and more dairies producing organic milk, the economic picture is changing. “We’re facing the same situation as conventional dairies with high feed costs, yet the price paid to farmers for milk is not as high,” Arnold says.

Garvin Button, Jasper, N.Y., milks between 45 to 50 cows, grazing them on 15 acres. He will talk about how to manage a grazing herd on a skimpy land base and paddocks that “are not by the book in any way,” Button says. “But they work well with our landscape.”
    After a wet year, he changed his paddock setup to reduce reliance on fixed laneways. “We cut them in half so cows don’t have to slog through mud,” Button says.
    In the spring, his herd gets 75% of its forage dry matter (DM) from grass for four to six weeks. As the season progresses, that will drop to 25% DM from pasture and 75% from a TMR.
    For the last 10 years, Button has been crossbreeding his herd of registered Holstein and today has four Holsteins left. The rest of the cows are a mix of Dutch Belt, Brown Swiss, Normandy and Norwegian Red. “We haven’t lost production, and to climb our hills, the crosses seem to do better.”
    What about the dollars and cents? Button participates in the Dairy Farm Business Summary program to track his dairy’s financial performance.

Dave Forgey, Logansport, Ind., was driven by economics to begin grazing in 1991. When he found himself hit with high feed costs because of a drought and pressure from his bank, he looked for an alternative. Grazing was his choice.
    “I was looking for ways to produce milk for the lowest price we can,” says Forgey, who dairies with his wife, Ellen, and partner Scott Foerg. “Now with concentrates going up, we’re even better off.” For historic perspective, Forgey’s grain costs went from $2.02 per cwt. in 2006 to $3.08 last year.
    Forgey, who speaks about grazing nationally, has the numbers to back up his claim that grazing is a sound low-cost approach to dairying. His nearly 200-head herd produced 12,582 pounds of milk last year. He sold a little more than 900,000 pounds of milk per worker and had an asset turnover ration of 0.59. Net farm income per cow was $1,115.
    Besides talking numbers, Forgey can discuss how he and his wife brought Foerg into their dairy business. He had worked for the Forgeys for eight years when in 1999 they set up a New Zealand-type share milking system. In 2005, Foerg became a full partner.

Rick Kersbergen is an Extension professor with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and co-chairs the Northeast Pasture Consortium. Since 2000, his research has focused on forage systems and organic. Kersbergen will present data collected as part of a three-year study, conducted collaboratively with the University of New Hampshire, on the economics of diverse forage systems, such as corn silage and small grains, compared to a grass-based system.
    Kersbergen also has cost of production data on organic dairying. “Organic has the potential to be beneficial for small dairies. But you still need to be a good manager,” he says. June 2008 Northeast DairyBusiness 49 “Whether pasture-based or forage-based, you need to manage very well to control costs.”
    This is particularly true in today’s environment with rising grain prices. From 2005 to 2008, 18% protein has increased 70% for organic dairies. “It’s not just cost but also availability and quality,” Kersbergen says.

Its approximately 85 members include dairy farmers, agribusiness professionals, educators, researchers, government officials and industry organization representatives.
    Task Force members serve on five working committees: human resource development, environmental stewardship, business and production management, economic development, and outreach and communications.
   “The CDE did not have the funds to implement all the projects and initiatives developed by the Task Force last year,” Kenville said. “Projects funded in 2007 were those that were ranked as highest-priority across the dairy industry.’’
    The Task Force funded these projects:

Profit-Focused Discussion Groups for New York Dairy Farms: Facilitated by agri-service professionals and coordinated by PRO-DAIRY, the program promotes broader adoption and more effective use of business and production management tools on dairy farms. The project will establish 20 dairy farmer discussion groups around the state.

Herd Manager Skill Enhancement Modules: The CDE is providing supplemental funding to the Wyoming County Dairy Institute for further development of a herd manager training curriculum. The modules focus on milk quality, labor efficiency, breeding and herd health. Following the pilot, the curriculum will be available for use elsewhere in the state.

Manure Management Technology: CDE funds are jumpstarting a position within PRO-DAIRY for an employee to identify and initiate investigations of manure management technologies. The person will also develop facts sheets, articles and presentations on these projects as a resource for dairy farmers.

Environmental Management Articles: The CDE will fund the development and dissemination of a series of in-depth articles to profile successful environmental practices. The goal is to encourage dairy farmers to consider implementation of sound environmental practices.
    The progress being made by the CDE results from a collaboration of a cross-section of the state’s dairy industry, through the leadership of the New York Dairy Industry Task Force.
    The Task Force welcomes additional members and is interested in increasing producer involvement, particularly with more diverse representation of the various dairy farming practices in the state.
    For more information on the Task Force, contact Mark Kenville, CDE director, at 315- 453-3823. Email: mkenville@nycde.org.