January 2022

The Laros family moved to Canada from the Netherlands in 2001, and Gerard’s parents bought a broiler / cow-calf operation in Arthur, Ontario. Gerard first worked full-time for several dairy farms and then worked as a long-haul truck driver for 3 years. With help from his parents, in 2009, Gerard was accepted into the new entrant’s program for dairy and moved to the farm. They bought a used Double 6 herringbone parlour and installed it themselves in an old bank barn, and they converted the old beef yard and manure storage into a free stall barn.

For a few years, Gerard worked part-time for another dairy on the side to generate some extra income to support the new dairy farm. Since starting milking, they’ve bought quota every month and almost tripled it. They were also able to buy some extra land since starting milking for cash crop purposes. Gerard is married and has two young children, ages 3 and 1. On the farm, Gerard does the majority of the work himself, along with his dad and occasional help from his mom.

With their existing setup, they knew that something had to change, and they analyzed several ideas and options. The old barn was very labour intensive, and the capacity was getting full. They ran out of dry cow space, the cow flow was not very good, and there was no ideal place for hoof trimming or other cow treatment needs.

In regards to the planning stage, Gerard said,

“Initially, I had planned to expand the old barn and put a new milkhouse with a new parlour on it. However, I found that it was going to cost almost as much as putting up a new barn. I already had my mind fixed on a different parlour until I went to visit a friend of mine, Symen Cnossen, at Cnossome Holsteins. Symen had just built a barn with Dairy Lane Systems (DLS), and I really liked the design of the parlour. I spoke with Mike van Logtenstein at DLS, and he was a big help with the barn design. I think it’s very efficient; one guy can easily manage 100 cows.”

Gerard is also friends with the Noom’s at New Morning Holsteins who built a tunnel ventilated dairy barn with DLS in 2014. This played a factor in choosing tunnel ventilation. He says,

“I’ve watched friends of mine who have had tunnel ventilated barns for years, and I always liked the environment and air quality in their barns. For us, I think it works really well with a 3 row barn since cows don’t like lying in the outside row with an open curtain barn in the summer when it’s hot.”

In their old setup, it took 1.5 hours to milk, which has been reduced to 50 minutes. They really like how simple and easy the Double 10 Vertical Lift Parlour is to use. They have also enjoyed having the stainless steel DLS Sort Gate. This has been a huge time saver for them, and they have found it to be simple to use and it communicates well with their herd management system. They said it saves them from having an extra milking group. The sort gate is currently sorting fresh cows out for the first 21 days, high activity cows over 70 DIM and sorting out cows for hoof trimming.

The free stall design is the Jourdain US stall mounted to a twin rail system. Gerard says that:

“The cows look very comfortable. I like the extra space in the front for lunging, and it gives them lots of space to get up. They seem like they have a little more freedom and are less condensed than our old stalls. Gerrit’s Ag Service installed the Jourdain stabling, and watching them install this system made it look easy. They have a phenomenal crew and were great to work with!”

Other key project features include DLS exhaust fans, DLS curtains and GEA manure equipment all controlled by a Maximus Control System.

“Overall we have cut down our chore time, the cows are showing better heat activity, and the older cows have increased their milk production. We couldn’t be happier with the DLS parlour and how simple and easy it is to operate. I’d also like to note the whole DLS installation and welding crew was awesome! They are all hard-working, knowledgeable guys that were fun to work with throughout the building process. ” (Gerard Laros).