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Woodham, Ontario | I have been meaning to post some pics here of our construction project this year. Maybe some of you have seen some of them on Facebook or Twitter. I have been hesitant to post anything since I know a lot of people have been losing money in dairy in the US and this looks like a massive expansion.
We are located in Canada and we have quota. Currently we are milking a little over 600 3x in a double 12 parallel at our main farm. We also milk a few over 300 cows on a second location in a double 10 parallel. The quota system is controlled by Dairy Farmers of Ontario (DFO) which represents all dairy farms. We elect board members. The current rules do not allow us to merge farms at all. The new barn and parlour will only be able to milk the cows from the home farm. As we buy more quota we will be able to milk more cows. The DFO is also able to give us "incentive days" which are used when the processors need more milk than the current quota levels. The last couple years have been pretty good. We have had some quota increases and quite a few incentive days. However in the last couple months we have had a 5% quota cut which is unfortunate, but at least our milk price has been stable and profitable. We will have to buy more quota to fully fill the barn, but it is not easily available. Quota is sold for the same price to all producers interested in buying it and we can usually get only about 1 cow worth of quota in a month. There is a lot more to the quota system. We have invested millions of dollars in quota, a lot of it borrowed from the bank, but the bank likes the consistent returns.
To get a building permit we also need to show that we have adequate land owned or rented, or agreements with neighbours to apply the manure. We also have to stay a certain distance away from the neighbours. That is why the manure storages are where they are, that is the only place they can be!
The dairy barn has around 900 freestalls. We are putting in a 50 stall GEA rotary parlour and we will be bedding with composted manure solids from a Daritech Beddingmaster. The 2 new manure pits are for the new barn. The older barns have slatted floors and storage under them. We also poured a 250'x400' silage pad.
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Attachments
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 DJI_0116 (full).JPG (157KB - 118 downloads)
DJI_0118 (full).JPG (144KB - 103 downloads)
DJI_0120 (full).JPG (101KB - 131 downloads)
DJI_0121 (full).JPG (131KB - 136 downloads)
DJI_0124 (full).JPG (131KB - 138 downloads)
DJI_0125 (full).JPG (161KB - 132 downloads)
DJI_0127 (full).JPG (180KB - 118 downloads)
DJI_0130 (full).JPG (120KB - 136 downloads)
DJI_0132 (full).JPG (129KB - 115 downloads)
DJI_0088 (full).JPG (117KB - 134 downloads)
DJI_0093 (full).JPG (121KB - 163 downloads)
DJI_0099 (full).JPG (92KB - 118 downloads)
DJI_0053 (full).JPG (143KB - 140 downloads)
DJI_0056 (full).JPG (164KB - 122 downloads)
DJI_0059 (full).JPG (197KB - 115 downloads)
DJI_0079 (full).JPG (130KB - 116 downloads)
DJI_0081 (full).JPG (158KB - 139 downloads)
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New dairy barn construction pics
