Background
Stan ter Woerds farms in Ontario, Canada with his parents, brother and sister.” My family were farming in Holland until 2006,” explains Stan” but the price of land, meant it was impossible for us to expand and so we immigrated here when I was eight.”
The family now farm a 750-acre mixed enterprise, with Stan managing the herd of 100 Holstein cows on two DeLaval robots. They converted from conventional milking in 2010 with one DeLaval Classic, before adding an additional one in 2013.At this time they were operating on a free access system which was working fine, but when they decided to build a new cow barn in 2024, Stan wanted to have a look at a guided system.
Milk Quotas
“In Canada we have milk quotas and so although we have a stable milk price we are restricted by how much we can produce, so margin per litre is what drives us.” He explains “and therefore, we were keen to produce the majority of our milk from TMR and cut out most of concentrates in the robots. We have the acreage to grow all of our own corn silage and Triticale and so we wanted to utilise it,” he continues.
The family toured farms in Wisconsin, in the US in 2023 to see guided low feed systems and were impressed with what they saw. So, they built their new facility in 2024, with two VMS 310’S being installed by Norwell Dairy Systems.
Why DeLaval
“We went with DeLaval again for two reasons,” explains Stan. “We really wanted to go guided in order to benefit from the reduced feed possibilities in the robots and Norwell Dairy Services were keen to work with us on that. In addition, we had been getting great results with their progesterone monitoring system for all of our fertility work and this was now built in to the V310.”
New Barn
The new facility was designed for 120 cows in milk on a guided system with the space for two more robots when and if the economics allowed. ”The cost of quota is prohibitive for expanding cow numbers right now explains Stan. It is currently trading at around $40,000 dollars per cow (£22,000) but if things should change in the future, then we could add two more VMS and install another 120 cubicles.”
Nutrition
Stan wanted to challenge the herd to eat more of the total mixed ration on the feed fence and so whereas he was feeding 5Kg of pellets in the robots in the old barn, his aim was to reduce this to 2Kg on the new guided barn.
“We achieved this within two months of being in the new facility” continues Stan “without affecting the herd’s performance and so we decided to continue dropping the pellets, which we did over a ten-month period until we were down to 100 grams per day. We then cut it completely but we found that it did have a negative effect on labour for training heifers and fresh cows. So, we now feed 100 grams per day for the first 60 days and then there is no feed. The nicest part of the guided system is that it gives us options, we can feed nothing or we could feed more pellet, if for example, forage quality is poor one year. It all depends how the costs of protein/energy compare in pellets versus adding them in the TMR.”
The milk price is Canada is based on weight of butterfat, so the other bonus of feeding more TMR is that they have been able to influence the milk quality more easily with their current ration of Corn silage, Triticale, Soya and a blend. “Feeding in this way has helped us to reduce our feed costs by a dollar (55p) per cow per day,” explains Stan “which is a considerable saving over a year.”
Herd Performance
“The aim is to produce around 3400 Kg of milk per day from the two robots with 90 cows in milk, which is about right for our quota,” continues Stan. “At this level we have up to 30% free time on the system which means that there is no stress for me or the herd.”
Bedding and slurry
Stan opted for sand beds again in the new building, because he knew the advantages it offered, would outweigh the negative impact of its abrasive qualities with traditional rope scrappers preferred to a robotic slurry collector.
Future plans
“It would be great to increase our numbers, because every year we produce 40-50% surplus stock which we simply sell as freshly calved robot trained heifers. Until more demand or processing capacity is built, significant growth in the quota system here will not be possible.” Explains Stan.”
On the positive side, we do have a stable milk price, which means that we are profitable and can budget from one year to the next.”