Martin's dairy
The Farm:
- Located in Wisconsin, USA
- Owners: Elvin Martin and family
- 170 dairy cows (Holstein)
- Housing: Loose-housing
- 2x8 Champion parallel parlour
- 3 milkings per day
Farm Management:
“Milking three times a day with two people requires high efficiency. Timing is critical to us and we try to do everything in a timely fashion. Our labour force is my wife, my son and I. We do whatever needs to be done on time and we are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to ensure things are done. We don’t use any hired labour to milk this often, but it fits our schedule well and we are never overwhelmed by it. In fact we are grateful for this life because it keeps all the family employed, safe and together in a good working environment.”
Milking:
Two people use the farm's rapid-exit milking system to milk 80 cows an hour, three times a day.
Average daily milk production is around 82 pounds per cow on Martin's Dairy, with butter fat at seven per cent and protein at 3.1 per cent. The average cow somatic cell count is currently 220,000.
Milk is transported from the farm daily and Elvin says “there are at least a dozen milk contractors that we could choose from to buy our product but we currently ship to AMPI which is 40 miles from here”. He adds; “our milk is strictly used for cheese. We have a one-year contract with AMPI at a locked price for 60 per cent of our production”.
Herd management:
The herd’s vaccinations, dehorning, shots and overall AI breeding is contracted. Heifers are reared off the farm using a contracted arrangement which Elvin says “works well” for the family.
“For the last eight years we have sold our heifer calves to one person and then we buy them back at a pre-determined price about a month before they are due to calve. Right now we sell the calves for $200 a head and pay $1400 to buy them back.”
Elvin notes that the cow buying procedure for Martin's Dairy is well structured and efficient. “We use CMT to test cows for mastitis before buying them and we don’t buy any cows that aren’t vaccinated against diseases we are trying to control. We also try to buy cows that have been SCC tested first. We also ask people coming on the property not to go in with the cows.”
Housing
All the housing for lactating cows is sand-bedded loose-housing stalls. 170 cows are bedded in 158 loose-housing stalls and the dry cows are also sand-bedded in a 38-stall barn.
“We take good care with cow comfort, feed and milking. We prioritise cow comfort with plenty of sand bedding and bed every 5 days. We don’t overcrowd the cows and we scrape the free stall barn three times a day – every time we bring the cows in to milk. Manure is scraped out to keep the cows cleaner and more comfortable. Stall size is more than adequate for even the largest cows and that goes a long way in cow comfort.”
Crops and forages:
Most of the forage is grown on the farm and this consists of about 60 per cent corn silage. One hundred acres are allocated for growing wet hay and western hay is purchased off-farm.
Manure is treated as a semi solid and hauled daily for spraying on the crops.
Feeding:
Martin's Dairy uses a one-group TMR system consisting of corn silage as the main forage, with haycrop silage and western hay. Each cow is fed around five pound of cotton seed. Shelled and dry ground corn is used to meet energy needs. Protein comes from Soya-bean meal and roasted beans which are purchased from a local mill and delivered every 10 days.
Feed costs account for 55 per cent of the operation’s total cost.
Future:
“We’ll be trying to feed more consistent and better rations to improve milk yield. As far as milk quality is concerned, our goal is to achieve a cell count below 200,000 and keep it there. Testing the milk and doing even better, more consistent milking is one way I know to achieve this but it will require a lot of consistency and effort.
"A lot will depend on what the family wants to do in the future. We have no plans for expansion and are simply concentrating on greater efficiency right now.
We have noticed over the last 10 years that buyers are paying for quantity and are getting better at paying for quality. The related bonus is getting better and this has to do with competition amongst the buyers. Farmers are more business orientated now and aware of what is available too, which has forced contractors to improve their payment system.
Milk price is better than ever before. A year ago was the lowest for many years and the reason for that is simply supply and demand. There seems to be a shortage of producers right now for various reasons and as far as milk price is concerned, there will be more farmers contracting in the future because we need stable prices and contracting is one way to achieve this. "
Published: September 2004
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