A2O-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, June 24.1989
No Room For Compromise At Apple Way Farm
BY PAT PURCELL
GETTYSBURG (Adams Co.)
Roger and Mary Sprague don’t
put anything in their milk tank that
they wouldn’t drink themselves.
As a result, for the past 17 years
they have, received quality pre
miums for producing milk of the
finest quality - pure and fresh.
“In the 15 years we’ve been
shipping milk, we’ve gotten our
quality premiums every month
except for seven in all of those
years,” said Roger with pride.
It’s not what they do at Apple
Way Farm that makes them one of
the 39 members of the Atlantic
Dairy Cooperative to earn their
quality premiums for 12 consecu
tive months. It’s how they do it
“You have to do everything
right. And if anyone tells you they
have the product to solve all your
problems, they are wrong,” said
Guyi Roger and Mary’s son.
Roger was 38 when he began
farming. The only farm experience
he had, came from working on his
grandfather’s farm when he was a
young boy. Mary was ‘very much
a city girl’, having grown up in
Letchworth, England, a town
about the size of Gettysburg,
located 30 miles outside of Lon
don. They met while Roger was
stationed in London and married in
1958. Much had changed in dairy
farming during those 20 years
Roger had been away from the
farm life. Most of those years he
had spent in the Air Force and gov
ernment service.
In 1973 Roger and Mary pur
chased the Apple Way Farm, a
130-acre fruit farm with no dairy
facilities. They had much to do to
ready their new home for dairy
cows. Roger and Guy laid the
block, installed the pipeline and all
the electrical work for their parlor
which continues to serve the
Spragues today. They added a silo
and built a fireestall bam and 40
cows to HU it.
“I thought I had all the answers
when I started fanning, but I
learned very quickly that I did
not,” Roger readily admits. “A lot
had changed in fanning. When I
left my grandfather’s farm we
were still using horses.”
By January of 1974, Apple Way
Farm was shipping milk. Today,
they milk 80 cows, own 130 acres
and farm an additional 280 acres.
Guy, returned to the farm after gra
duating with a degree from Penn
State in electrical engineering and
now he has his own herd of 22
registered cattle.
Production at Apple Way is
15,273 pounds. Before the series
of droughts during the past three
years, production hovered at
16,000 pounds.
“We could make more milk than
we are making now, but not as
cheap,” said Roger. “Before the
drought 17 percent of the milk
check went for grain and the herd
their communication control center. A cow’s treatment and
health record are kept on the calendar for each to refer to
before milling begins.
quality milk.
“I drive the cows in at 4 a.m. If I
see a cow with a problem I call the
vet immediately,” said Roger. “We
do pay attention to detail around
here. In 1985 we hit 93 percent of
the detectable heats. I guess that’s
pretty good.”
Their quick attention pays off.
They don’t lose cows to coliform
mastitis at Apple Way Farm. They
last cows lost were in 1973 and
they were not lost to coliform mas
titis. They use a strip cup twice a
day, use the California test and
examine their DHIA somatic cell
county report each month. All
cows are cultured and dry treated.
Guy’s herd ranks in the top three
producers on the somatic cell
count honor roll for Adams County
DHIA. Roger would also make the
list except for several older cows in
his herd which tend to keep him
off the honor roll.
They bed with green
but keep mastitis infections down.
“The vet tells us we could do
better with straw or kiln dried saw
dust,” said Roger. The bam is
scraped once a day and manure is
raked out of the (hit beds at least
twice a day.
In the parlor, cows are washed
with a damp cloth wet with an
iodine and water solution. A sepa
rate reusable towel is used and all
are washed and dried daily. Roger
feels the heat from the dryer steril
izes the towels.
They use strip cups. There are
no automatic take offs in their
double-three parlor, but careful
attention to the milk flow prevents
over milking and all udders are in
good condition. Of first priority in
the parlor, post dip is sprayed
immediately after the milkers
come off.
Two different dips are used. The
iodine solution is used most fre
quently, but when it gets muddy
around the farm as it did after the
two weeks of steady rain they had
recently, the Spragues use a barrier
dip. It is much thicker and has a lot
mote staying ppower than the nor
mal dip.
“We make sure we feed our
cows enough, but we don’t feed
them too much because we want
them to stay on their feet long
enough in the bam to eat and give
their teat sphincter muscles time to
contract and close the opening of
the teat canal,” said Roger.
Equipment is disassembled and
cleaned twice a day, with detergent
and acid.
"We try very hard to do all the
things that need to be done and
doing what’s most important
first,” said Guy.
All milk is tested before it goes
back into the tank. Roger and Mary
are proud to say they have never
had to dump a tank of milk. Pro
pounds.”
The equipment is not new. The
milking equipment was 20 years
them IS years ago. Guy says that’s
an advantage in one way. The
equipment is simple to repair.
However, the electronic controls
are new as are the pipeline, tank
and washer. Roger and Guy do
check the system frequently and
make repairs. Guy’s degree in
electrical engineering comes in
handy.
There are several drawbacks to
the system, Guy admits, “We do
not have as big of pipeline as we
should. The pipeline is 114 ”, the
pulsator line is 114 ”, and the supp
ly line is 114 ”. None of which are
supposed to be adequate for six
units,” said Roger. “But the vet
checked them recently and the
specs were okay.”
It works for Spragues, accord
ing to Roger, because their parlor
is very compact.
“We are just not moving the
milk as far as most people have to.
And there are not as many joints,
so there are not as many leaks,”
said Roger.
Keeping somatic cell count low
as well as the levels of P.I. and
standard plate count is the result of
setting priorities and their attention
to detail.
Inflations are changed every
eight weeks. Roger buys soaps,
detergents, and sanitizers by how
well they work. He follows closely
the sales representative’s recom
mendations and the wash water
temperature is always at the
required level.
In the parlor, red bands on cows
mark the cows whose milk is not to
go into the tank. The calendar in
the parlor is a control center. Roger
and Guy record dates and times
when treament was begun or ended
and withdrawal periods.
“Communication is everything
here,” said Roger. “We may not
see each other between milkings. I
milk in the mornings and Guy
milks at night, so we’ve got to
know what the other one is doing.”
“We don’t trust luck. Every
thing in the system has to work,”
said Roger. “No point goes
unchecked.”
The Apple Way herd is on a
monthly herd check. The calving
interval is 13.1 months. The last
three years Sprague’s herd has
been affected by the drought. The
stress affects the reproduction sys
tem by shutting it down. But top
nriority here is cow health and
ducing a quality product and pro
tecting their cows ’ health are prior
ity at Apple Way Farm. The cow
does not go back into the milking
herd until she is ready and not
before.
Atlantic Dairy Cooperative
members who were the reci
pients of Quality Milk Awards
for the 1987-1988 fiscal yean
District 1 Luther Davis,
Kutztown, PA
District 2—John Bishop VI,
Columbus, NJ
District 3 Noah N. Sensi
nig, Quarryville, PA
District 3 Abner L. & Sar
ah B. Stoltz/us, Peach Bottom,
PA
District 3 Donsdell Farm,
Peach Bottom, PA
District 5 Frey Dairy
Farms Inc., Conestoga, PA
District 6 Dan F. & Mary
S. Petersheim, Gordonviile, PA
District 7 John K. Peters,
Manheim, PA
District 9 Green Acres
Farm, Lewes, DE
District 13 Rodney D. &
Marlene W. Reese, Port Matil
da. PA
iger- jyc. pi
with their 80 head milking herd, but not for the same price
vaccum . pressure valve > part of the original
equipment Installed at the Apple Way Farm more than 15
years ago. It may be vintage equipment, but the Spragues’
careful attention to performance keeps this System In top
shape and up to their veterinarian’s specifications.
There is no room for eomprom- their milk tank that they wouldn’t
isc at Apple Way Farm, because drink themselves. Now, that’s
the Spragues don’t put anything in REAL milk.
District 13 Harold J. &
Norman W. Davis, Hunting
don, PA '
District 13 Galen D. &
Gordon C. Baney, Petersburg,
PA
• District 13 Gene Musser,
Petersburg, PA
District 16 Clyde & Mar
illyn Fogelsanger, Shippens
burg, PA
District 16 Kenneth R,
Voorhees, Newport, PA
District 18 —Jesse L. Peach
ey, Belleville, PA
District 20 Harold M. &
Priscilla Summers, Martins
burg, PA
District 24 Bernard Groft,*
New Oxford, PA
District 24 William
Myers, Brodbecks, PA
District 25 Edward R. &
Deanna S. Smith, Myersville,
MD
District 26—Raymond E. &
Leah F. Rodes, Waynesboro,
PA
District 26 Richard E. &
Helen Hoffeditz, Mercersburg,
PA
District 30 Roger L. &
Mary Sprague, Gettysburg, PA
District 30 Ralph &
Deborah Robertson, Westmin
ster, MD
District 33 Valley Stream
Farm, Millville, PA
District 34 Lloyd M.
Oberholtzer, Lebanon. PA
District 36 Rice Crest
Farm, Chambersburg, PA
District 36 —Dr. W. A. Ben
der, Chambersburg, PA
District 38 Alton & Paula
Olver, Honesdale, PA
District 38 Lynn & Brid
gitte Soden, Thompson, PA