Featured Project
Reijnen Dairy
Jeff & Monique Reijnen immigrated from the Netherlands in 2002 with their three sons, Jordy (4), Michael (6) and Kevin (8). They purchased 200 acres of land and built their first barn with Bill van Logtenstein (DLS). Jeff recalls meeting with Bill in Holland and touring barns around Ontario as they planned what they would build when they moved to Canada.
They built a double 10 milking parlour with a free stall barn with sand bedding. In the beginning, they were milking 60 cows and increased to 80 cows rather quickly. In 2009, they built an addition off the parlour building for a calf barn, and in 2017 they built a large addition on the free stall barn. Today they are milking 285 cows.
The future plans and desires for the family are to purchase separate farms for each of the three brothers. In 2019, they bought the first one for Micheal. They are in the planning process of building a perimeter feed robot barn with 2 GEA R9500 robots.
With the purchase of the second farm, some decisions needed to be made on the home farm; they were milking 200 cows, and the purchase would add another 85 to the home farm until the new robot barn was completed. The free stall addition in 2017 provided them with enough room to house the additional cows, but they needed to perform some updates to the milking parlour to make for a smoother milking process with the extra cows.
From 2002, they had a GEA Mag 90 parlour with the posts at each stall. They were seeing some wear and tear on the sequence gates, and over the years, their cows got bigger, and they needed more room within the parlour stall. The main concern was, on occasions, a cow would fall in between the posts making it challenging to get her out. They wanted a safer solution for their cows.
Their milking equipment was in good shape, and two years ago, they had updated to Dematron 70 milking controls. They determined the logical decision was to utilize the existing milking cabinets/automation and give it new life by updating it with a DLS Vertical Lift parlour stall with individual indexing.
Another update factor with the purchase of the second farm and the decision to go with robots on the second farm was to try to make both farms work on the same activity systems in the event they decide to move cows back and forth. They transitioned the home farm from leg bands to neckbands and upgraded to the GEA Cow Scout system, so the home farm will now be the same as the robot farm.
The parlour retrofit project took place in January. The Reijnens said,
“We were impressed with how organized the DLS crew was to do the parlour switchover. It was a quick 2-day process.”
In reference to the results the family has experienced with this retrofit project, they said,
“The cows turn into the parlour really well. Before it was a fight, especially for fresh heifers. We like that there is nothing for the cows to get caught or stuck on. Loading and unloading the cows is more efficient. Overall, we’re very happy with how smoothly the milkings have been going.”
Employee Announcements
DLS is pleased to welcome the following people to the Dairy Lane team:
Paul McTavish
Start A Career at DLS!
We have several great career opportunities. Check them out @ dairylane.ca/careers to see what may suit you!
Employee Spotlight
Jordan Danks
Ventilation Equipment Installation Technician
Joined DLS January 2020
Jordan has been with us for a year and a half. He started on the DLS Structures team, and this past year he transitioned to the ventilation side of the business, primarily installing DLS curtains.
Prior to being here, he worked in concrete forming, took a shot at building bridges, and worked in water treatment plants. Those jobs weren’t offering what he was looking for, and when Dairy Lane became an option, he saw the potential for growth and advancement and decided this was where he should be. Jordan also spent a year at Fanshawe in the Pre-Technology program.
A couple of his pastimes are doing reno’s on his home and working on various small projects. Once travel is a safe option again, Jordan desires to visit family in Europe – now that sounds like a great post-Covid plan!
His desire at DLS is to keep learning in all aspects of the company; so far, he’s had exposure to erecting steel structures and installing stabling, ventilation equipment, and mats. He has been involved with a few other projects as well. Jordan would like to one day be a supervisor and continue to grow with DLS.
Product of the Month
At DLS, we are constantly striving to improve our systems and develop ways to help make the daily lives of dairy farmers more efficient and user-friendly. This includes providing dairy farmers with computer and data protection. Technology is rapidly changing, and data is a crucial tool for today’s dairy farmers.
The services we now offer include full backup and data protection for your computer, security services to protect your computer and data from virus malware and ransom protection, and a maintenance plan to ensure your computer is up to date and secure. We’re here to give you peace of mind that we’ve got you’re computer and data protected, and if something unfortunate happens, we can get you back up and running with ease.
View our Computer Protection brochure to see plan and pricing details.
Contact Marlon Thuemler at marlon.thuemler@dairylane.ca with any inquiries!
JOB PROGRESSION HIGHLIGHTS
Thamesford, ON
O'Neil Farms
A double 10 vertical lift parlour and 4 row dairy barn in progress!
Southwest Middlesex, ON
Macksvilla Farms
After the 3 GEA R9500 robot start-up in March, the old rotary parlour was removed to create a pack area with DLS panel fans and Jourdain stabling.
Seaforth, ON
New Morning Holsteins
The double 8 vertical lift parallel parlour was extended to double 12!
Westwaard BacTrol Backflush System
The Westwaard BacTrol Backflush System flushes each milking unit after milking each cow to prevent bacterial contamination between cows. Backflushing each milking unit between cows helps prevent mastitis.