A42—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 29,1980
The obvious bulge at
center of parlor gives the
double-ten herringbone
its “pregnant”
nickname. Design allows
for easier cow movement
at the Freys' Fair Hill
Farm in Kennedyville,
Md.
Pregnant herringbone
New setup
allows smooth
cow traffic
in double-10
BY CURT HAULER
KENNEDYVILLE, Md -
Crop farmers have
recognized for years that the
only way to justify a big
piece of equipment is spread
it over as many acres and
hours as possible
Dairymen soon may come
to think the same wav about
their milking equipment
An operation like that at
Fair Hill Farms Inc, in
Kennedyvilie, Md., began to
recognize the economies of
scale as the Frey family
planned expansion to 500
milkers, with three times a
day milking
That’s wh> we went to
Because of *'
Brothers ini
if
I i
three times milking,” *says
Ed Frey, who is in charge of
the dairy end of the
operation ‘lt gives greater
utilization of equipment ”
Ed farms with his brothers
Ken, who does the field
work, Robert, who is a vet,
and his father, Edwin Frey
‘ I think you get more milk
from the same cows,” Ed
continues
The three-times milking
started last Monday With
450 cows being milked at
present, and the string ex
pected to go to a full
capacity 500 when the
remaining cows calf within
the next 60 days, the Freys
' -ount of water required by the flush system, the Fr ey
■oldmg tank to provide a reservoir
iC* %
fs
i >
Birth of a new milkhouse idea
hardly have to worry about
generating enough milk But
getting it all collected in a
smooth and efficient manner
required loads of planning
The result was installation
of the first pregnant
herringbone system in the
East
The system they settled on
technically is known as a
modified herringbone But
almost everyone calls it a
pregnant herringbone
because of the obvious bulge
about mid-way down the
parlor
The double-ten pregnant
herringbone at Fair Hill
Farms was modeled on one
owned by Tony Bos, Mira
Loma, California, a friend of
the Freys It was there that
they obtained a number of
the ideas used in their setup
What’s the big advantage
of a pregnant herringbone 7
On a normal herringbone
setup theie is one gate to
release all of the cows on
each side of the parlor It can
take a while for 10 cows to
stroll out after being milked.
The pregnant herringbone
has a gate in the middle as
well as at the end so five
cows can exit from each
gate.
Although all 10 cows have
to be released at the same
time, there is a good savings
of time with the two exits
Since the milking units are
'quipped with automatic
detachers, the milker easily
can tell when the cows are
ready to leave
The setup was fabricated
by Jones Dairy Service of
Medford, New Jersey The
milking system is by Bou-
Matic, the buiK milk cooling
system by Dan-Kool
Owner Bucky Jones is an
active defender of a large
dairy setup ‘You have to
think like they do in
California,” he says
A man with 100 cows will
have more money invested
per cow in his milking
equipment than the Freys
do," he notes
»$ * 5 S< <* r ?
ti .„. je
Jl'
This 4000 gallon bulk tank will be emptied on once a day pick up by Inter-State
Cooperative
r
Ed Frey says what he paid
for the parlor is irrelevant.
“It’d be 20 percent more
today with inflation,” he
says
But a ballpark figure on
the milking equipment itself,
without plumbing and
pair of heat exchange
units provide economical hot water for the dairy.
: -n»8l *
f£SS*
electrical, would be m the
area of $3OO per cow.
Frey says he prefers to
look at the pounds of milk
taken from the cows per man
hour At present he is getting
about 1000 pounds per man
' (Turn to Page A 43)
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