The Rural Voice, 2006-05, Page 21h
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father had been a dairy farmer and
he'd helped out but didn't have any
experience running a farm.
He took a job at Fergus and drove
throughout the countryside before
deciding he wanted to settle in the
Listowel area. When a 40 -cow
tiestall dairy farm became available,
he and Ella bought it.
They started in the typical fashion
of dairy farms at the time. The barn
was a bank barn. They owned all
their own cropping equipment. The
I50 -acre farm was divided into many
smaller fields. Eventually they sold,
most of the equipment, hiring custom
operators to plant and harvest crops
and enlarging the size of the fields to
make them more efficient and tiling
low spots.
Jn
1994 they built a freestall barn
for 70 cows with a double -six
milking parlour. They used the
old bank barn for their younger
cattle.
In 2000 they built a new house
themselves. then, with the help of
neighbours, built a heifer barn that
fall.
"We kept buying quota every
year," Ella says.
By 2003 the freestall barn was
over -crowded with 80-85 cows and
they were debating what to do. "We
either had to extend the dairy barn or
build new and move the heifers into
the old dairy barn," Frank recalls.
They decided to build a 136 -space
freestall barn. Then came the other
momentous decision. They designed
and built the barn for two Lely
robotic milkers.
Frank recalls he never
contemplated installing robots when
he was first thinking about his new
barn until he went to the birthday
party of someone who had one.
Since robots have been in use in
Holland for 15 years, they had no
doubt they would work. But Ella
liked milking cows so had to think
about it. For Frank, it the idea of all
the computer work was intimidating
at first for a guy "who didn't know
how to turn on a computer".
They figured Ella, who was
interested in computers, could do all
the computer work. But after some
training, Frank became comfortable
with the program and now he is the
main computer user.
"We priced out the building with a
milking parlour and it was quite a
A cow goes through
one of two robotic
milkers at the
Kieftenburg farm
(above). At right.
the milker seen
from inside the milk
room. Cows can be
milked as often as
they want.
shock how much it was costing to get
the parlour in." Frank recalls. "And
then I says to myself if we have to
put this out. I'm stuck for the next 20
years in the parlour. If the kids are
interested enough in it, you can take
turns. But if you're getting older you
have to do that seven days a week,
twice a day for three or four hours a
day by the time you're milking.
cleaning and everything. That's quite
a commitment. I like milking cows
but for the next 20 years, that's quite
a commitment."
"We got a robot because we didn't
want to have hired staff," added Ella
At first they installed only one
robot and continued to milk another
40 cows in the old milking parlour.
Unlike many people. they had no
problem training their initial 40 cows
for the robotic milker because Lely
wanted to use their herd at Canada's
Outdoor Farm Show at Woodstock
so they took the cattle there and
trained them. By the time the cattle
came home. they were comfortable
with the milkers.
During the first year they
accumulated enough quota to make
the second robot profitable.
When it came time to train the
Young Christy Kieftenburg visits some of the older calves in the heifer barn.
MAY 2006 17