Farmer Spotlight > Duane and Marilyn Hershey
Expansion brings new technology to the farm
| Duane and Marilyn Hershey |
Pennsylvania |
550 |
My husband, Duane, is the second generation to operate Ar-Joy Farm, established in 1965 by his parents, Art and Joyce. Duane took the reins of the operation in 1982, when Art was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Art has now served in the House for nearly 25 years, so while Art is not directly involved in Ar-Joy Farm anymore, we welcomed his advice when we were researching ways to grow our business.
In a two-phase plan, we expanded from 80 cows to 550 in three years. Expanding our herd size made sense economically, plus, the farm is now at a size that can accommodate any of our four children into the business if they someday choose dairy farming as their career.
Building new facilities allowed us to incorporate more modern technology, more comfortable housing for our cows and an environmentally-sensitive system for handling the manure - all extremely important to us.
Cows thrive on fresh air, so the first thing we did was position the new barn on a hill where there is always a breeze. Heavy curtains are the sidewalls of the barn, so we can open them in the summer and close them partially or completely on cold winter days. Cows become stressed when it is hot, so we installed fans and misters to keep the cows cool during the summer.
Cows are free to move around the new barn, eating when they want and laying in roomy freestalls when they want to rest. The stalls are filled with deep sand, so it is like napping on the beach, with a cool mist and a lot of shade!
One thing we didn’t want to lose with a larger herd was the one-on-one attention we could give to 80 cows. Excellent employees and a state-of-the-art computer system have allowed us to maintain individualized care.
For animal identification purposes, and to keep good health records, each cow wears a transponder around her neck, which includes a computer chip, to identify her in the computer every time she walks into the milking parlor. Among other things, the computer alerts us if a cow produces less milk than she normally does. If a cow is not feeling well, it will show in reduced milk production before there are any visible signs, so the computer gives us a heads-up to take the cow to the hospital area for an exam.
Every one of our animals is still given a name at birth. This is one of my favorite, albeit, one of the most difficult tasks! We register each animal with a national registry, similar to how purebred dogs are registered.
It is a fact that happy, comfortable cows are the most productive. Since we built our new facility, we have seen the herd production climb to more than 3,000 gallons of milk per cow per year! This indicates our decision to grow the business was a good one.
