A small farm is making some big changes

Doris and Dale Heatwole from Harrisonburg, Virginia.

A farm that got its start in 1847 in picturesque Rockingham County, Virginia, is now one of the most innovative dairies in the area.

Dale and Doris Heatwole are the owners of D&D Dairy. The land on which the farm stands was originally bought by Dale’s great-great-great-grandfather, Gabriel. It is now home to 100 milk cows on 96 gently rolling acres in Harrisonburg. The Heatwoles milk Holsteins, Red and White Holsteins, Brown Swiss, an Ayrshire bred to a Holstein and a few rare Randall Linebacks. They also raise corn, hay and wheat.

On August 7, 2006, Dale officially began milking cows using a robotic voluntary milking system, thus increasing he and his wife’s ability to milk cows by 55 percent. He also became one of only a handful to bring robotic milking to a small-size dairy in the United States.

Long considered a large-farm technology due to its expense, benefits such as a reduction in labor costs have now made it feasible to use on small- to moderate-size farms. The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs estimates that labor costs can be reduced by 10 percent for farms milking twice a day; 30 percent for farms milking three times a day. Still, the technology is new to this country. For instance, one of the leading manufacturers of voluntary milking systems, DeLaval, has only 18 systems in the entire United States.

The Heatwole’s barn, which houses the robotic milking system, is a stunning three-sided facility. Dale designed the steel, single sloped roof barn to face south to better allow the sun to reach the back alleyway to melt ice in the winter and allow hot air to escape in the summer. There are curtains on the north side of the barn that are controlled by a thermostat which opens the curtains when it gets hot.

Planning for the new barn and two robotic milkers started years earlier when the Heatwoles had to decide whether to replace their 1967 double-four herring-bone parlor with a conventional facility or a robotic one. Dale liked the idea that the cows could be milked when they wanted and that the teat cups would drop off as each quarter was done.

After visiting farms with similar systems used on 45- to 600-cow dairies in Wisconsin and Canada, Dale decided to purchase a used robotic milker in order to cut costs by as much as $50,000 per robot. The year following the installation of the voluntary milking system was an eye-opener for the Heatwoles.

“This changed things so completely. They ought to make a law that the supply company sends a psychiatrist for you to use the first year,” Dale says half jokingly. “There are things that hit you. Once you learn what to expect, though, it’s a lot easier.”

The dealer, C&C Farmers Supply, set up the system and helped design the floor plan for the equipment and the 129 loafing stalls. This will allow the Heatwoles to expand when several of their heifers become fresh. One-way gates allow the cows to go from the loafing area to the robotic milking parlor and then to the feed alley. A software milking program provides Dale and Doris with a customized milking routine for each cow.

The cows now are milked whenever needed, around the clock, with the exception of two, hour-long daily cleaning cycles.

Dale says he learned that it often helps cows that are being trained to the robots to see another cow go through the process, and he adds that the cows aren’t as skittish when another cow is in front of them. He says that he and Doris felt like they had taken a crash course in computers, and they use the myDFA Web site to get their quality results.

Now that the robotic voluntary milking system is running efficiently, the Heatwoles have moved on to their next project. They are participating in a study run by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) to determine how efficiently phosphorus can be taken out of manure. The university is conducting the study because much of the runoff water in the area flows into the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, which has experienced a variety of environmental problems. Dale says he’s also interested in the study because, if it works, he can apply more manure on his fields and the phosphorus granules may be sold as organic fertilizer.

The Heatwoles also are entering the field of agri-tourism. In October the couple welcomed 120 home schoolers to their farm.

Dale says even though the new milking system gives him more flexibility, he can’t just leave and go on vacation. Doris helps more with the evening chores, and also teaches Spanish at their Mennonite church school. Three of their children – Althea, April and Gabriel – are out on their own, and two others, Chloe and Twila, keep busy with their own activities, but all of them are available to help with farm chores.

The system has taught Dale and Doris a new way of managing a farm and allows them to milk more cows. But Dale says the first year made him feel like he was on electronic probation and tied to his cell phone because of the electronic messages sent to him by the computer system every time something malfunctioned.

“I’d do it again,” Dale says frankly, “if I could skip the first year.”