"The well thought-out design of the barn equipment contributes to the ease of work"
The old barn could only accommodate 60 dairy cows, and was therefore too cramped. "We did consider renovating and expanding the old barn. In the end, however, we decided to build a new barn, particularly in view of the company's growth. Once we decided, things moved quickly". The total construction took about 8 months. The layout of the barn was determined in collaboration with Lely; a beautiful 0-6-0 barn with separation area and straw bedding behind the robots.
The new barn has room for 120 dairy cows, with an additional 20 animals in the straw pen. The Borkes-Busshaus partnership currently has 87 dairy cows, and keeps a relatively large number of young stock in order to facilitate growth from their own rearing. Filling the barn is not a goal in itself. "We notice that the animals have become particularly calm and curious in the new barn, and believe that this is due to the cow comfort and especially the space in the barn. We would therefore rather have 110 animals producing good milk, than the barn completely full."
In addition to calmness in the barn, the new building has especially brought a lot of ease of work. "Farming is more relaxed than in the old barn". Whereas in the old barn the milking was done with a 2x6 herringbone milking parlor, in the new barn 2 Lely robots do the work and there is room in the layout for a third milking robot. But the dairy housing equipment also contributes to the ease of work. "It's clear that Spinder also incorporates farmer comfort into the design when designing the barn equipment. Take the Pingo water trough for example. The trough is easy and quick to clean because you can remove the float cover without tools." The barn is further equipped with Comfort NG cubicles with deep bedding and a knee rail and waved neckbar for proper adjustment, several Spinder cow traffic gates and a Baseline feedfront. The Highline feedfront is used in the straw pen. "Again, the product was well thought out. We can now easily secure individual animals for treatment". The Cuddle box in the straw pen has not been used much yet, because calving still takes place in the old barn to this day. This will also be renovated in the future to increase cow comfort and ease of work in the old barn as well.
The entire barn equipment was installed by the dairy farmer himself. Quite a job, but the end result is impressive. "Niels is quite a perfectionist," jokes Bernd, "so he will always say that it could be improved. But if we are honest, we are just extremely proud of our new barn".
Watch the Report in Elite about milking in the new barn.
