A3o>Lmcastar Farming, Saturday, March 13 1993 VERNON ACHENBACH, JR. Lancaster Farming Staff PENRYN (Lancaster Co.) Two years ago. Dale and Steve Hershey, partners on a small family dairy farm near Penryn, were using a computer to help increase their bottom line by keep ing better track of farm records. The brothers milked about 50 cows, three times-per-day, in an old stanchion bank bam. They also did other jobs off the farm. Now, using technologies that dairy academians are currently presenting at dairy seminars as the latest improvements to a modem family dairy farm, the Hershey brothers have given a face-lift and expansion to their family farm. Nestled in the south foothills of the red sandstone South Moun tains, the 135-acre Hershey dairy farm is one of the most recent local dairy operations to expand. However, this expansion is different. Il may look like the typical, newly built, 88-foot by 100-foot, 150-capacity freestall bam with an alley scaper, manure pit, two pre cast double-wide bunker silos out side, and a double-eight milking parlor, but it isn’t. It’s been fine-tuned in a way that maximizes cow comfort and human efficiency in the same design. In finalizing the plans, the brothers incorporated a number of university dairy science recom mendations for creating a success ful modem dairy operation. The Hershey brothers are Steve, Dale and, within the past year, Clair. Clair came back to the farm after it was decided that an expan sion fit into the plans of all the brothers. The brothers’ facility and opera tion was opened to the public on Tuesday and about 600 people attended the midday event. While most people were from the area, some traveled from New Jersey, Maryland and from Pennsylvani The plastic curtains on the open walls of the 150 freestall building roll to the middle from the top half and from the bot tom up. This allows better control of ventilation to the cow while she is lying on her bed, since the cow’s head is closer to the bottom of the wall. Hershey Bros. Expand Partnership, Operation From the left, the Hershey brothers’ farm layout is bunker silos, 150 freestall building and the manure storage expanded from the old barn and silos, to the new horizontal tank in ,ront of the building. a’s northern tier counties to visit and examine the new facility. According to Steve Hershey, the public got to see the result of some difficult decisions made by the brothers. The Hershey s’ decisions, they said, were based on years of per sonal research, attending universi ty extension-sponsored and agribusiness-sponsored seminars, and reading. Other factors also played a role in the decision to expand: the price of milk, the condition of the family bam, the poor potential for its expansion; the need to add more cows per man to stay competitive; the current economic condition; the three families to support; and the farm having enough acres, with rented cropland, to take on a 150-cow milking string. “It was a combination of things ... a whole bunch of stuff at the same time,” Steve said, about the maternity pens within the Hershey brothers' 150 freestali building shows the sawdust bedded beck stall arse. Not seen in the foreground is an aisle with gutter scaper. timing with the project “It was also a good time to put things out for bids.” Some of the decisions the Her sheys made about how the opera tion would function were continu ations of past practices. Other functional decisions were based on recommendations and going on tours and seeing specific technolo gies work in practice. The most major decision they made, of course, was to slay in the milk-making business. From there, the decision to expand was almost a given. With the old 50-tie stall bam, Dale and Steve had just gotten the size of the all-registered Holstein milking string up to almost a 70-cow average. Common wisdom holds that it takes about 50 milking cows to support one immediate family. The herd needed to expand to a level large enough to support all three families. The location of the expansion, across the road from the farm house and bam, fit perfectly for the freestall operation, because of access to roadways, the contour of the land to provide a ridge for using natural thermal air flow for bam ventilation, the room to build and to locate structures according to total operational design rather than siting because of limitations, etc. The new facility is also close enough to utilities and the family houses to make working the farm not a major chore.- (Turn to Pago A3l) Looking up from the floor of the new Hershey brothers’ freestall building, the unique roof structure is apparent. Sunlight comes through the open roof peak, casting light on rafter beams. Interior, suspended rainspoutng is the flat, four-tracked sheet going from the top right of the picture to the bottom middle.
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