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John Oncken: A cross-ventilated cow is a happy producer

John Oncken
Special to the Capital Times  —  11/08/2007 8:51 am

It's all about cow comfort.

That phrase was repeated a number of times during the recent Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin Dairy Summit that centered on "Discovering Dairy's New Role-Balancing Energy and Dairy Production."

One of the highlights of the two-day seminar was a visit to Rosy-Lane Holsteins near Watertown, where owners Lloyd and Daphne Holterman showed off their new eight-row, cross-ventilation dairy barn.

When it comes to barns, most folks probably think of a red, wood-sided building with a drive up hay mow for the second story with stanchions to hold the cows in a locked position, drinking cups in front of each cow, a barnyard where the cows spend a few minutes each day during the winter, and a weather vane on the roof's peak.

And that's what a Midwest dairy barn was like for many years beginning in the early 1900s.

But times have changed.

In the 1950s barns began taking on a different appearance. Pole buildings came on the scene. There were no stanchions, only an open pole building with straw that built up over the months and was hauled out a couple times a year. Cows came and went as they pleased and were milked in a parlor.

The next generation of dairy barns featured the addition of stalls -- 2, 4 or 6 rows -- where cows could lay individually on a mattress, sand or other type of soft bedding. Fans moved air the length of the barn to keep the cows comfortable, managers running the length of the building were filled from a mixer wagon, and water was provided by a central tank.

A year ago, the first cross-ventilation dairy barn in Wisconsin was constructed on the Schuh dairy near Freedom. Willard Schuh and son Brent built an 8 row-wide barn with 50 fans moving air crossways.

Why crossways air movement? With a barn measuring 324 feet long by 190 feet wide, air moves a shorter distance and thus provides more ventilation.

The Schuh family and Dennis Wellhouse of Schmidt Building and Equipment in Kaukauna planned and built the new barn with little to go on.

Interestingly, about the same time they were building the "next generation" barn, information about a cross-ventilation barn at MCC Dairy in South Dakota began to filter through the dairy world. A number of Wisconsin farmers made trips west to take a look.

Among them was Lloyd Holterman, who was planning to expand the Rosy-Lane dairy. And he liked what he saw.

The Holtermans and partner Tim Strobel milk 750 cows in their 270-foot by 210-foot cross-ventilation barn. Air is moved across the barn by 52-inch fans -- 38 of them -- that blow air over the cows and under baffles that hang from the ceiling to keep the air on the cows.

In contrast to the Schuh dairy, the Holterman barn has evaporative pads on the wall opposite the fans. Water from four 800-gallon tanks drips through the pads to create a cooling effect during hot summer days. "Swine and poultry raisers have used these pads for years," Holterman says. "Why not dairy producers?"

(Note: the Schuhs are happy with their traditional curtain wall opposite the fans setup.)

The Holterman cross-ventilation barn is not complicated. "It's just two 4-row barns side by side,'' Lloyd says.

In 1980, Lloyd Holterman and his dad milked 70 cows. Today Rosy-Lane milks 750 cows, three times a day, in a Double-12 parlor that's in use 24/7. All told there are 1,200 animals on the farm cared for by 12 full-time employees and several part-timers. Daphne Holterman is the calf expert and Tim Strobel is in charge of cropping (1,200 acres owned and rented) and manure.

There is no milk house on the dairy. Milk moves directly from the cow to a cooling system, where it's cooled from 101.5 degrees to 35 degrees, then to a semi tanker. The entire process takes just three minutes. In granddad's day, milk went from cow to pail to strainer to can to a water tank, where it cooled slowly over a long period of time before being loaded onto a non-air conditioned truck.

A tanker of milk a day (6,200 gallons) is hauled from the Holterman farm to Alto Dairy in Waupun to be made into cheese.

Sand bedding is used for the freestalls and a 7 million gallon lagoon stores the manure.

Although the Holtermans have long raised registered Holsteins, they don't exhibit at World Dairy Expo.

"Those big beautiful cows that compete in the show ring don't last long in a barn like this," Lloyd says. "Our cows are shorter, smaller and wider."

The Holtermans have also done some successful cross breeding with Jerseys. "It's a fantastic cross," Lloyd says.

But long term they will remain true to the black and white cow.

One of the major additions to the milking procedures at Rosy-Lane was the installation of an "Afi" milk computer system that measures milk production and cow activity.

"We now milk cows in groups determined by milking speed,'' Holterman says. "This has meant a major gain in overall milking speed."

He also says that the system, which measures cow activity, gives early warning of possible health problems and indicates when a cow should be bred via artificial insemination.

Records are important in today's modern dairying. Years ago, dairy records were more or less by guess with DHI testing a monthly event. Today Holterman has daily records; each cow carries an ID chip and information is recorded on a computer.

Everyone at Rosy-Lane is serious about conservation.

"We're running a biological system running from the cow to the field," Lloyd says. "Nutrient management is extremely important for the farmer and for the public."

Rosy-Lane Holsteins LLC is a family farm made up of the Holtermans and Strobels and their children. They do things differently than their parents. Yes, they use technology, research and study. But as most successful dairy producers know, their success depends on the cows. Rosy-Lane cows each average 29,000 pounds of milk per year.

As the cows go, so goes the future of the farm.

John Oncken is owner of Oncken Communications, a Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company. He can be reached at 222-0624 or e-mail jfodairy@chorus.net

John Oncken
Special to the Capital Times  —  11/08/2007 8:51 am