Holsum Dairy melds two facilities together for perfect fit
By Carol Stender
cstender@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 07/15/2010 4:08 PM
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HILBERT, Wis. —An 80-stall rotary parlor was a highlight of the Minnesota Milk Producers Summer Bus Tour stop at Holsum Dairy's Holsum-Elm Dairy operation.
Holsum-Elm, located near Hilbert, is one of two dairies operated by Holsum. The other, Holsum-Irish, is the older of the two and was built in 2001. The Holsum-Elm operation was constructed in 2006.
The two farms have 6,900 cows. More than 3,600 are milked at the Elm dairy with the remainder milked in a parlor at the Irish location.
More than 500 cows-per-hour can be milked in the rotary system, said Holsum Dairy employee Kirk Vander Dussen. Four milkers work in the rotary parlor.
They milk three times daily. The equipment and parlor is cleaned during the down time between each milking, he said.
The farm uses an anaerobic digester with a solid separation and three-stage lagoon system. Waste water is irrigated from the second and third stage lagoons and placed on recently harvested hay ground and corn ground after harvest.
Electricity produced from the anaerobic digester can provide enough electricity for 800 to 1,200 homes. The anaerobic digester is part of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources "Green Tier" program.
All of the power is sold on the grid. The dairy buys back what is needed.
"By having this on the dairy, I am eliminating my electrical bill for the month," he said.
Excess bedding is sold to neighboring dairies.
The solids are 70 percent dry and 30 percent moist, he said. Of the nine inches of compost, the top two inches is fresh and gets raked in the stalls.
More than 70 full-time staff care for the farm's 8,000 cows. Around 550,000 pounds of milk is harvested each day. While Holsum Dairies is often not viewed as a family farm because of its size, it does, however, operate because of the families it employs, the company said.
Holsum Dairies also works with 40 farmers to procure crops for feed.
The cows are fed a TMR from a 1,450 cubic foot Lowen mixer equipped with Fed Watch. One full-time and one part-time feeder handles the feed needs for each dairy. They mix 18 batches daily and work 11 hours per day, he said. Deliveries to the milking groups are based on the milk schedule and coordinated between the feeder and herds people. Dry matter is adjusted three-times per week on forages.
The milking and dry cows are housed in four-row barns in a head-to-head arrangement, he said. Separated solids from the anaerobic digester are used for bedding. Calves are group housed at birth and transition to freestalls at 2.5 months of age.
Holsum Elm Dairy has a hospital pen and a mastitis pen. Cows are fore-stripped to check the milk. The cows will go for a six-day period before another culture is conducted on the milk.
"Sometimes the cows will clean up on their own," he said. "And if they are treated, it's surprising how much the milk will change from one milking to another."
Cows that have four incidents with mastitis are automatically culled form the herd. The only exception is cows six months pregnant. They are then kept until they calve.