WHITEWATER REGION (Westmeath) — A five-year-plan turned into a plan of less than a year for Joanne and Henk Schuurman.
The couple had outgrown their 212-acre dairy operation near Dorchester (just east of London) and decided to check around Renfrew County for some farmland – for at least two reasons. The first is Ms. Schuurman, the daughter of Ian and Karen Bromley, had grown up in the Westmeath area and second is farm land is less expensive than in southern Ontario.
In November 2016 began checking out properties, on Dec. 31, 3016 found the location they wanted and on April 1, 2017 took possession. Less than a year later, after building a home and a 113-foot by 350-foot dairy barn on the property on Pleasant Valley Road near the intersection of Gore Line, they moved up to Zola Farms.
On March 25,2018 they milked the cows for the final time at their southern Ontario dairy farm and loaded them onto cattle trailers at 9 p.m. They arrived at their new barn around 4 a.m. and by noon on March 26, the cows were getting milked in their new barn.
However, there were a few changes for those cows to get used to – the biggest being robotic milkers. Previous to the robotics, they were milked in a parlour, which means they were brought to the milkers. For the robotics, the cows must go to the milkers.
This is a state-of-the-art barn and the Schuurmans, including their five children: Claire, Garrett, Leighton, Elliot and Barend, are looking forward to showing it off at this Saturday’s open house, which is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
In this barn are Lely equipment, including a Vector. A Vector is similar to a TMR except no tractor is required – it works off a computer program. The Vector feeds the cattle based on a computer program. The only cattle it doesn’t feed are the calves on milk. However, Mr. Schuurman said, once they are on feed, the Vector will feed them as well. The Vector saves him almost three hours of labour.
But much of this new dairy operation operates off computer programs, including the movement of air and milking.
“If anything goes wrong, (the computer) calls me,” Mr. Schuurman said.
Explaining the robotic milkers, he said the cows enter the milking station when they want to be milked, a maximum of five times a day. While in the stall they eat grain. Once the cow is milked, the gate opens and she departs. If it’s a cow that has milk that shouldn’t go into the main bulk tank, the robot switches it to another tank and if the robot determines there’s a problem with the cow and believes the farmer should check her out, it releases the cow into a separate pen.
“The only thing I have to do is troubleshoot, clean and maintain,” he said adding, “My time is much more flexible. I can spend time with the kids.”
The barn is geared toward cow comfort, including flexible freestalls, the first one in Canada, he said. Explaining, Mr. Schuurman noted while the top portion of the stall is a steel railing, the bottom portion flexes, allowing the cows to move around and get up more comfortably.
The ventilation system also operates off a computer program, he noted. There are seven 24-foot Canarm fans and plastic air curtains. When there are temperature changes in the barn, which various gauges check, the ventilation system makes changes where they need to be.
Mr. Schuurman admits he has also had to adjust to the new computer system. Since moving from Holland in 1992 with his family at the age of eight, he began milking cows. It’s one of the farm chores he really enjoyed. And while he enjoys spending more time with the family, he does miss the milking. However, he’s had to get used to running the computer programs. He credits the support from Lely for learning as quickly as he has. He’s even thinking of getting an off-farm sales job with so much time on his hands.
The next step for the Schuurmans is to get the phone apps, which he said he wouldn’t do until he had the computer programs down to a ‘t’.
Mr. Schuurman said the community has been great in helping them out as they were building and starting up.
“Everybody’s been so great,” he said. “Everybody says hello. Some of the neighbours have even brought food.”
The Schuurmans encourage farmers and non-farmers to come to the open house. There are no guided tours, but any questions they have will be answed.
They are looking forward to “showing people what farms are really like,” he said. They want to show that farmers provide a lot of cow comforts and take pride in how they care for their animals.
