BAYVIEW
When William Ferguson’s mother and father were first married they used a three-legged stool and a bucket for milking their cows.
If they were alive today they’d have a hard time believing how much the family farm has changed since it was first founded in Bayview in 1833.
In February, the Ferguson family officially started using their new state-of-the-art dairy barn complete with a robotic milking system and sort gate.
The system they installed comes from Germany and is called the GEA MIone. Each cow wears a tag with a chip in it that the system reads, so when the cow approaches the robotic sort gate it scans the tag to tell if they’ve been milked recently. If they haven’t that gate will let them through a chute to the milking stations, which they walk up to at will and are given some grain while a machine attaches itself and milks them. If it doesn’t attach properly it will detach and attempt again. The system measures how much milk comes from each cow and how frequently it comes to milk. The cows can go to be milked whenever they want with the exception of two 40-minute breaks each day when the machines are cleaned.
William Ferguson watches as a cow enters a milking station. The cows go in at will and the machine milks them and tracks how frequently the cows are milked and how much they’re producing. The Fergusons have seen their production increase since switching to the new system in February.
If the cow approaches the sort gate and the scan shows it has been milked recently it will be directed toward a feed area.
If there’s a cow that has recently given birth or are sick, they will be directed to a third area, where they can be cared for.
“We’re very pleased with the way everything’s going,” Ferguson said.
Milk production is up and the cows are happy in their new home.
While some of the computer aspects behind it all baffle him a bit, he said his children have picked it up easily.
“I’m not used to it,” he said. “It’s a younger generation thing.”
His daughter Terri Ferguson said the new system isn’t so much less work, but less manual labour.
The building itself was designed in Germany and designed with cattle in mind. There is an abundance of natural light, and fibreglass shutters on the side walls and top of the building allow for ventilation.
“It’s a beautiful building and the cows adapted really well,” she said. “They adapted to it better than us most days because everything’s been consistent since they walked in. The milkers are in the same spot. The food is in the same spot. Cows are creatures of habit so as long as everything’s the same for them, they’re content.”
The Fergusons have slightly more than 100 cows in the barn now which produce more than 3,000 litres of milk a day.
The new barn is 76 feet wide and 265 feet long and was constructed by Thermo Energy Structures which imported the product from Germany.
All the beams and panels were pre-engineered and built so the main structure took just seven days to build.
While they welcome visitors anytime, the Fergusons will be holding an official farm day this Saturday and encourage people in the area who are interested to stop by and see how the new operation works. The open house will go from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The farm is located at 381 Bayview Rd. in Pictou.
