September 19th, 2013
Sweetridge Dairy
Winkler, MB
Used to milk the cows
Identification tags
Cow feed, that still needs to ferment. If they eat it at this stage, they will get sick.
Our stylish boots...
tsk tsk....
Jersey cow
Checking out the milk...12,000L
Mmmmm..milk
3 week old calf
Jersey calf
Here is where they store their liquid manure....it can hold up to 3.2 Million gallons!!!
Hydro Digester
Miriam is getting the hoses ready for milking time...
Milking time!
Thank-you Miriam for the tour, the delicious goodies & the fresh milk! Yum!
Hello! Today we visited the Sweet Ridge Dairy farm. So it's a dairy farm and it has tons of cows. They milk them 3 times a day; 4am, 12pm and 7pm. They milk them all by "hand" with machines. We got these high end fashion boots too that cover our actual shoes that were beautiful. I felt like I could be on Americas next top model! We saw the calves and cows there. They barns smelt delicious. I just love the smell of manure. They scrape out the manure from the barns and put it into a big actually huge container that holds 32 million gallons of poop! That's a lot. One sniff and you are out. They were also working on a Hydro Digester while we were there. When it is up and running it will save a lot of hydro for them. The baby cows were super cute. They also had lots of energy to lick lots of people. I really enjoyed the desserts at the end. They were really good. ~Heather Penner
ReplyDeleteSweetridge dairy was another dairy farm, but it was different than the others and it was pretty nice considering it's a farm. we got to wear the most awesome, good-looking boots ever (not at all)! the little deserts were really super good and I liked the little calves.
ReplyDeleteHey! Sweet Ridge Dairy Farm was a lot different then the rest of the dairy farms we went to. when we got there we had to put on these plastic good looking elf boots lol it was really funny. We got to go into the barns and I believe there were about 4-5 barns we went into (it smelled really really bad in the barns lol). At Sweet Ridge Dairy Farm we got to see really cute little calves, some were a couple of months old and I that I remember was a couple of days old it could hardly walk, it was still getting use to walking. At the end of our tour in the barns we got to have some chocolate milk and cookies and some crisps, they were really good. it was a really good day except for the smelliness lol.
ReplyDeleteThis family immigrated from Ireland in 2000. In 2009 they purchased this farm which has 220 adult cow's and approximately 220 young, all in different ages. They have 600 acres where they raise these cow's, but also rent out 150 acres that farmers grow corn and alfalfa on. This farm has mostly registered pedigree Holstein cow's, but they have a few Jersey's as well. They sell the steer's and keep the heifer's only. Each cow has a collar with a monitor attached to indicate if a cow is sick, or if it's in heat. All ears are tagged with a RIFD,(Radio Frequency Identification), chip to record all information about that cow. This milking farm uses a "cluster" that has sucking and pulsating capabilities which is manually put on by a hired hand. They will automatically "drop" off once the milking is done. This is much different than the robotic farm we toured earlier at Skyline Dairy. The milk is warm when it is first milked but it passes through a cooler to bring down the temperature. Then it get's filtered before it is stored in the large holding tank. There it is cooled down some more and it is taken to the processing plant. We go to see inside of this tank. It holds 12,000L of milk. Wow! September is the busiest time of year foe harvesting their corn and alfalfa for feed. The bails you see on the fields that are covered with a white plastic need to ferment before it is ground up for feed. It stays covered for 3 weeks. This optimizes the protein levels but they do add supplements to ensure a high quality diet. Miriam showed us two kinds of feed. One greener in color, is the corn silage from the wrapped bails and the other was the alfalfa. 2,000 bails per year are used to make bedding and feed for the cow's. There are two open-ended 165' barns that are protected with plastic curtains to shelter them from the cold wind and to help regulate condensation in the buildings. It's never colder than -21 C inside. They have heated water bins to prevent from freezing and sleep on concrete floors with bedding on it. A long scrapper glides along the floor 4 times a day very slowly to remove all manure. The cow's will just step over them as they pass them. The manure get's put into a holding tank called a hydro bio-digester. It is kept at 36 C at all times and it will separate the liquid from the solids. This bio-digester will separate the gases as well and burn off the sulfur, but store some gases to help generate power on the farm. This is the first one in all of MB and it is not fully operational yet. They have been working on it with MB Hydro, Fed. and Prov. Government for the past two years. Once operational it's stored gases will provide power for the next 20 years. Wow, recycling waste, very cool! The liquid waste is stored in a large blue tank made of glass plated steel and they reuse it to fertilize the field's. This tank holds 3.2 million gallons of liquid. Wow! The solid waste is dried and will be mixed in with the bails for bedding. This helps for insulation to keep cow's warmer in winter.
ReplyDeleteThe calves depending on age are kept in small pens with little huts for shelter. Each level of age is fed a different diet. Newborns to 8 weeks get milk, 8-12 weeks get water and a special cereal called "meal". Calves 3 month's old and up get a pelleted cereal that contains TMR,(Total Mixed Rations), and protein supplements. It looks different but it has the same nutrients that an adult cow get's. If any calf had feeding issues or get's sick and vet comes in to test the levels of protein and supplements in their diet and will change the levels needed to help them get better. They are kept in a separate insulated barn where each calf has their own pen. They were loosing too many calves at first, but now this eliminates cross infections. The temperature is kept between 2-5 C all winter. In winter sometimes a special jacket is put on the calf to help them get used to the outside temperature and to prevent death. What impresses me most about this farm is that they are working together with MB Hydro and the Government to provide another source of energy to use. If manure can be safely converted to provide electricity, then maybe we can get rid of our lagoons we have surrounding our towns/cities that are taking up precious land space and rid us of that horrible smell! Thank you Miriam for giving us a tour of your farm!
ReplyDeletesweetridge dairy was just another dairy farm and once you've seen one you've kinda seen them all but one thing that set this farm apart from the others was the smell the smell at that dairy farm was defiantly worse than all the others :/
ReplyDeleteWhere is sweet ridge dairy located?
ReplyDelete