Since some pics are not showing anymore, those who want to see the pictures again can go directly to my photobucket album... I already exceeded bandwidth for the month!   http://s740.photobucket.com/albums/xx47/nickdubuc3/Ferme%20Landrynoise/

I estimated the value of the farm just for fun... land, quota, herd, buildings, equipment.  I came up with a ballpark figure of 60-65 million dollars (!)  As many have noticed, a lot of overhead, and a lot of equipment, even for the size of the farm.  Well there's the climate aspect of things, when it rains often, you have to get field work done quickly, and manure spreading has to be done between April 1 and September 30, so basically 3 tractors a pretty much spending all their time spreading.  But yeah, they are definitely over-equipped.  That's a trend in Quebec dairy operations of all sizes, it's just magnified in the case of this operation.

They already owned 450 kg of fat in quota in 1990, clear of debt, so they made a lot of money to pay for more quota.  And I suspect that the extremely wealthy Jewish community of Montreal has some financial interests in the operation as well (it was transferred from the father to his 3 sons a few years ago... imagine the tax bill that came with the sale!)

Robots are around 250k each in Canada.  Price goes down with the number of units (need one software to control them all).  I suspect they got one or two for pretty much free, and the two Junos as well!

Price of milk in Quebec right now is around $72 per 100 kg of milk, or $32 per cwt.  One thing to consider though is that you have to pay $25000 per kg of fat per day in quota (roughly 45k for the right to produce 100 lbs of milk per day if my math is correct).  But in the end I think SM is a good thing, we get stable prices and consumers get fair prices.  They didn't want to say anything about the kosher milk deal.  All I know is that the Jewish community wanted one supplier, and this farm was the only one large enough in the province to supply all their needs.  

A satellite view?  There you go: 

http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=1150+Petit+Rang+7,+Saint-Albert,+Quebec+J0A+1E0&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=46.307569,114.169922&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1150+Rang+Petit+7,+Saint-Albert,+Arthabaska,+Qu%C3%A9bec+J0A+1H0&ll=46.003423,-72.075433&spn=0.012103,0.027874&t=h&z=16

I don't think they do any custom work, just over equipped as I said above.  And I think you are right Rod, the Chaffey/Cormier operation milks more than 1000 heads in Newfoundland... and that's a 2007 figure.  http://www.gulfnews.ca/Community/Feature/2007-11-19/article-1419717/100-plus-years-and-counting/1

I think robots test the first drops of milk with an EC test to see is there's mastitis, and then milk is directed to a different tank if there's a problem.  Not too sure about how exactly it works though.

Somatic cells count is 150000 per ml. 

Gerard is right about equipment.  Some (like the SP mixer) were there for display only.  All the blue tractors are theirs, as well as the JD artic and the 8345R.  As for the 8225R and Besson plow, I suspect it was brought in by the dealer.  Still that's a lot of equipment.

As for the number of cows per robot, it's about right (they usually say ~60-70 heads per robot.  I found that the number of rejected milkings is quite high, taking some robot time, so perhaps that explains why they are in the lower part of the range.  As for the number of employees, I also find it high, for an highly automated operation.  Many of them are family members though (and I think they have a medium swine operation as well).  Their future plans include a cheese processing facility and a biogas plant.