Pierlou farm, Canada

The Farm:

• Located in Canada
• Owner:  Pierre Bercier
• No. of dairy cows: 72 milking plus dry cows, calves and heifers
• Breed: Pure bred Holstein
• Milking system: Pipeline milking system with carrier rail
• 2 milkings per day

Farm Location: Canada

• Number of farms with shipments of milk or cream:  16 970
• Average no. of cows/farm: 63
• Annual revenues from milk and cream sold off farms: appr $265,990 per farm.
• Average milk production per farm: 4,484 hectolitres. 
• Average milk production per cow enrolled on official milk recording 9,459 kilograms/lactation.
• The Holstein breed represents 93% of the Canadian dairy herds.

For more information on Canadian dairy production click here.

Source: Canadian Dairy Information Centre Figures are from 2004

Farm Management:

Pierre Bercier bought the farm in 1979 with the help of his parents and has managed to build it from what he says was “an operation with no management system in place and a good but mixed breed herd” to what it is today.

“I started with improvements very slowly and now my herd is recognised as one of the highest producing herds in the area", he says.

Pierre’s parents and two brothers have a farm eight kilometres away from Pierlou Farm, which he says is good for him because the whole family is close.

Milking:

“We use a DeLaval carrier rail system. This parlour saves us time because one person can milk 72 cows in one-and-a half-hours. It’s very easy to use and you don’t have to be very strong – my daughter and young students often help with the milking.

We are very satisfied because the system is good value for money. It’s very good for consistent milking. With the milking units I also feel comfortable letting others milk where as before I was worried about the take-off and attachment side of things.”

The farm’s milk is picked up every second day and delivered to a small, local co-op factory, which uses it for cheese production and also to large dairy factories.  The farm currently gets 12 500 kilograms per lactation with 3.7 per cent fat and 3.5 per cent protein.

“I remember that 15 years ago the dairies didn’t want fat in the milk and were more focused on protein. Canadian milk producers worked hard to achieve this type of production using genetic modifications and succeeded to the point where we probably now need more fat in the milk again.

However, protein is two thirds the price of fat and this is of course important,” says Pierre.

The farm averages 12 500 kilograms of milk from milking twice daily within a 305-day lactation period and most of the cows are dried off when they reach 30 kilograms production per day. Pierre adds that the farm is trying to keep each cow’s SCC below 100 000 to regulate good yield and quality milk production.

Herd management:

Daily herd management decisions are taken by Pierre while his wife takes care of “all the paper work”, but the couple also use outside resources to optimise their management and administration processes.

“We are in a local management club made up of 45 farmers who are working together to design the best management programmes possible. Two management specialists are working with this group and they help us with decisions once a month.”

Embryo transfer has been successfully used on Pierlou Farm since 1998 and Pierre intends to maintain this breeding approach by siring his best cows with what he terms “the world’s best bull.” He says, “I raise my own heifers and three out of five stay on the farm for a long time, but the others are sold. I like large cows because they eat more forage and produce more milk, economically. They are also healthier for first calving at two years”. 

The farm’s average cow age is five years.

The farm manages solid and liquid waste on-site. A sediment tank contains liquid manure, which is sprayed on the cropping fields before seeding time in combination with the irrigation system. Waste water from the milk house also goes into the irrigation system and is mixed with the manure daily.

Feeding:

Pierre is very content with his TMR “feeding on a rail system” because he believes it caters to the exact feeding needs of his herd.

“Different rations are fed to each cow because not every cow gives the same milk, fat or protein in her milk. The robot mixes unique rations for each cow six times a day,” he says.

The feed used includes corn silage, alfalfa, soya-bean, wheat, high moisture corn and three kinds of additives.

“Every month we make a new programme with new rations according to the DHI recommendations and we work with the local co-op to do this too. I download onto my laptop from a phone modem and then plug it directly into the robot.” The farm feeds “lots of hay”.

Proteins are delivered via alfalfa and energy via corn silage and high moisture corn. 

Calves are given protein-enhanced milk three times per day.

Crops and forages

“We use rotation cropping with half in corn and the rest in wheat and soya-bean. We try to change or rotate the hay field every five years. The alfalfa field uses 100 of our 350 acres and stays for three years with three crops per year. We also use 100 acres to grow contracted crops.”

Housing

Pierlou farm includes a self-built stanchion barn that can contain up to 72 cows and related storage products.

“We want to keep the farm small but profitable and with this barn it’s easy to add more cows if we chose too.”

Like most of today’s successful milk producers, Pierre believes that comfortable and relaxed cows offer optimum milk quality and yield. Pierre says “every day except maybe Sunday, we try to do something in our spare time to make the place easier to work with and better for the cows”. Pierre describes the stalls at Pierlou Farm as “very large and comfortable”. He uses pasture mats together with “lots of straw and wood chippings” to encourage his cows to “rest for as long as possible”.

The future

Consumer satisfaction is the primary aim of Pierlou Farm and Pierre believes that one way to achieve it is through raising consumer awareness of milk production. “I am the chairman of a local organisation designed to keep young people in the rural region and educate the public about how farm produce is made. This organisation works with the local university too. We are currently running a project that shows how to make speciality cheese and we are encouraging young people to consider this type of business. We are also trying to get young people to produce regional farm product for local market.”

Pierlou Farm hosted an open day September 2004 to support its aim, inviting “city people to visit and see how we milk and feed cows today”.

In the future Pierre intends to concentrate on genetics that will develop cows with a great capacity to ingest forage and to produce large quantities of milk daily for as long as possible. 

In other words:  A cow that produces economical milk.