Dairy tour features robots and manure digester

By Jim Salfer, University of Minnesota Extension

Minnesota Milk Producers Association and University of Minnesota Extension along with industry partners are teaming up to host a dairy tour to the Turtle Lake, Wis. area June 17-18. This will provide an excellent opportunity for participants to network with other dairy producers, learn about some new innovative technologies to save labor and have some fun.

The tour will feature two farms that have recently installed robotic milkers. Kevin Herrman retrofitted his 250-cow free-stall barn to milk with four robots. He moved into the barn in early winter. Greg Barfknecht is moving from a 50-cow tie-stall barn to two robots in a new sand-bedded free-stall barn.

Another highlight of the tour will be NorSwiss Farm. They are currently building a new 2,000-stall cross-ventilated sand-bedded free-stall barn. Their manure system is being designed to separate out sand and generate electricity with their existing manure digester. The digested solids will be used to bed their existing mattress-free stall barn. They also have a soybean press. The oil from the beans is used in boilers to heat all the water for the dairy and to heat the shop and house. They feed the soybean solids to the cows.

Other stops include Duane and Nancy Kodesh who recently expanded from a tie-stall barn into a free-stall barn and will share their experience with hiring and managing labor for the first time.

The final stop is Valley Vu Dairy. In addition to the dairy enterprise, Valley Vu has a custom chopping enterprise, a trucking enterprise and a tractor repair business. They farm with their son and daughter.

There will be a panel of the farmers in the evening to answer questions with time to network with other producers. Busses will be running from the Sauk Centre area and Rochester area.