{"id":3961,"date":"2014-11-03T10:08:26","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T15:08:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/livestock\/?p=3961"},"modified":"2018-11-13T21:01:23","modified_gmt":"2018-11-13T21:01:23","slug":"cows-and-crops-dairy-systems-always-changing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/extension.umaine.edu\/livestock\/2014\/11\/03\/cows-and-crops-dairy-systems-always-changing\/","title":{"rendered":"Cows and Crops: Dairy Systems\u2026Always Changing"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rick Kersbergen, Extension Professor, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, richard.kersbergen@maine.edu<\/span><\/span><\/a>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Dairy<\/a>So my visit to the Netherlands has been an education for the scared traveler from Maine. Not only have I experienced driving in Holland, but have witnessed some of the worst traffic jams I have ever seen\u2014but no scared selfies from me, just lots of dairy barn pictures. Finding out that it costs \u20ac.50 to go to the bathroom at a rest area might also change my addiction to excessive morning coffee.<\/p>\n

As part of my work on this trip, I am investigating some possible milking systems that might be able to be used in Wolfe\u2019s Neck Farm new organic dairy teaching and research facility as the first phase of the project begins.<\/p>\n

Today I was fortunate to visit with Europe Dairy Systems as they took me around to visit farms that are using their \u201cMobistar\u201d system of portable parlors. I was lucky to also go with Alfonso Lago from DairyExperts in Tulare California on these visits. (Small world: Alfonso recently did some research with Pete Erickson from UNH with whom I went to graduate school at University of Maine.)<\/p>\n

Traveling in the Netherlands (or Nederland as the Dutch prefer) on a Friday is a new experience. It seems that weekends begin at noon on Fridays and traffic on the highways comes to a crawl. So instead of visiting three farms today, we only made it to two.<\/p>\n

The first farm we visited was an organic farm, or \u201cbiologic\u201d farm as it is referred to in Europe, in Ooltgensplaat. This farmer was able to rent 150 cows, and move the new parlor into place in his barn in just a few days. The parlor was easily moved into his existing barn as a single unit and another shipping container held the bulk tank. Basically, it was a \u201chook up water and plug it in\u201d system! He currently milks about 150 Jersey cows and cleans up the parlor chores in about 2 \u00bd hours! The most difficult part of the whole installation was teaching the cows to walk up the ramp to the parlor.<\/p>\n\n\t\t