MIlking survey

NY 986

Well-known Member
Chit chat with the neighbor this past Saturday left me wondering how many tie stall/ pipeline operations there are any more? There seems to be some feeling that new replacement facilities on smaller dairies are going this route versus going freestall/ parlor due to cost of parlor. Stanchions or tiestalls along with bucket milkers were never good for the back and legs but maybe younger guys who are more into exercising such as yoga maybe have less problems?
 
Can't give away tie-stall equipment here. I don't know of any being built, only torn down.

Anything new going in thats small seems to be robots so the farmer can take a day job too.
 
Small dairies have all but died off in the immediate area here but in other parts of the state there is more activity. I think guys have their hands full but some come into a good situation due to inheritance and have that independent streak. These guys have listened to the old timers as to what to spend and not spend money on so guys are not going under due to expensive silos and so forth.
 
15 years ago we gutted the dairy barn & install new floors with tie stalls & pipeline for a 40 cow dairy herd.
20 down per side..
 
A friend of mine our in Western WI is trying to get into the organic milk business, after being out of it for 3-4 years (foreclosed). Just a small herd 50-75 cows. He's got a barn all setup for pipeline milking but is in the process of re-building it. Born to be a milk farmer, I hope he finds a way to make it.

I like the idea of listening to the old farmers. you can learn by success and by failure.
 
Where is here? If it is in New York I am not aware but at the same time I have been away from being hands on in the dairy business for many many years. Like I said the conversation the other day got me thinking about what is going on with small dairies.
 
No new/update tie stalls going in around here(central michigan) One neighbor down sized herd got rid of help and put in a robot, another family herd of good registerd holsteins (100 head) milked in tie stalls until last year and they put in a palor. Even the menonites are updating to palors, 2 new ones in the last couple years. I put the palor in 16 years ago and glad I did, so much easier on both cows and me. I only milk 35 so I probably don't count as a dairy farmer any more. HEHE There is a big guy moved in the area 5 years ago and is in the process of going to 4000 cows, I wonder if it will go with prices headin down.
 
got a neighbor that milks a 100 cows, his does the milking and he cuts all the hay, mowing, and planting grazing. He sold all of the milk cows a few years ago when they got so high, kept dry cows and replacement heifers and started over. He said he sold them to get out of debt.
 
I would not know a tie stall/ pipeline operations if I tripped over it.
Heck I have never even seen a freestall barn.

All our cows are kept outside and the only building on the place most times is the milking parlor.
The building usually has 2 rooms. One holds the double 4 herringbone parlor and the other room has the milk tank.
 
I help a neighbor milk who has a 30 cow herd. There are a few more small herds and most of the farmers are in their 50's and 60's. Here are the cows coming to the barn after I called them in. They are owned by a young couple 34 and 28 who have other jobs but want to farm.
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Still milking in a tie stall barn ,35th year . We have 73 stalls now and hope to add another 32 this fall.My oldest son is home with me full time and the two of us do every thing from planting to harvest, no hired help. Heck even we don't get paid. Perhaps in the future a new robot barn will come, but I still have a few years of hard work left in me,I am 54, and my son is 28. Give me 8-10 years and that robot will sound pretty darn good. Bruce
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Bruce,

Just you and your son? Haven't I seen Mrs. Bruce out there milking too?

I'm not nearly tough enough to operate a dairy operation permanently, but I've done a lot of "relief" milking for different guys over the years. Hard work, but when it's just "relief", it's a lot of fun.

Tom in TN
 
Anyone who puts in a tiestall barn in this day and age is a fool.
Plenty of ways to build a low cost parlor that will let you milk more cows in more comfort.
University of Wisconsin has a lot of resources dedicated to low cost parlors.
Milked a 30 head organic herd in one a couple of years back and that's about the only way I'd get back in.
 
My son milks in a stall barn with a pipeline. He can milk 52 or 54, can't remember which. Right now his is milking a few less than that. Somewhere in the high 40's. If he isn't the smallest full time producer in Lewis Co., he's not far from it. If we rebuilt what is left of the upper end of the barn, he could expand to 65 milkers without much investment, but at this point he not interested in that. He is making decent money right now and he isn't killing himself doing it. Four years from now when his oldest daughter gets out of high school, if she is still interested in the farm, then it will be time to decide how they want to proceed.
 
Yup, as long as the current set of circumstances remains static, Jeff is in pretty good shape. As things change over the years, adjustments will have to be made, of course, but for the time being, 40 some odd milkers in a stall barn is working just fine.
 

Milked cows for a farmer though my high school years in a 55 stanchion barn, with pipeline, running four units. Got paid $40.00/week during crop season, and $20.00/week during the winter. This was in the mid to late 70's.
 
(quoted from post at 16:46:47 07/28/15) Bruce,
I always thought having the cows head to head would be better than the other way around, but have never seen a barn like that around here.
Pete

I've milked cows in both types of barns. I preferred the ones with the butts facing towards the center of the barn. That's where most of the work was done, and made it easier to keep track of the cows.
 
We milk 40 cows in a remodeled 1914 hip roof dairy barn with tie stalls and a pipe line. It's a good number have 7 neighbors that milk in stalls as well some a few more some a few less. During the winter we drop down to twenty or no fun birthing and raising calves in below zero weather. We save calves for spring time fresh grass to make cheap milk. Sure we could get bigger but why work harder to pay the bank? Plus we farm for fun, getting bigger means more work and less time and less fun. I don't work out because I don't work well with lazy people and I don't have employees for same reason. Wife and I like to take time off go see her family as my parents are gone. Easy enough to find help to milk a miking or two in a simple stall barn with small cow numbers which is nice to. My dad farmed here for 40 years and was married 35 and he always said when you get married remember your married to your wife not the farm. And he's right.
 
We milk 40 cows in a remodeled 1914 hip roof dairy barn with tie stalls and a pipe line. It's a good number have 7 neighbors that milk in stalls as well some a few more some a few less. During the winter we drop down to twenty or no fun birthing and raising calves in below zero weather. We save calves for spring time fresh grass to make cheap milk. Sure we could get bigger but why work harder to pay the bank? Plus we farm for fun, getting bigger means more work and less time and less fun. I don't work out because I don't work well with lazy people and I don't have employees for same reason. Wife and I like to take time off go see her family as my parents are gone. Easy enough to find help to milk a miking or two in a simple stall barn with small cow numbers which is nice to. My dad farmed here for 40 years and was married 35 and he always said when you get married remember your married to your wife not the farm. And he's right.
 

I'm not lazy, I'm just wore out and tired. 40 cows sounds like a good number. Gives you more time to look after the cows on a individual basis. I always liked taking care of the livestock. It's when I got out in the fields when my employer used me like a hammer. Do you name all your cows?
 
I was quite shocked when we travelled to visit family in NW WI last week- only saw one obvious dairy herd outside from Milwaukee to Madison. Saw a lot of former dairy farms, but few cows. I understand economies of scale, but pine for the "good old days".
 
Cant tell you a thing about any of that. Ours was an eight finger, two thumb, bucket type milker.

I do know that when a cat jumps out of the hayloft onto the back of your cow, that she will probably kick the bucket.

Gene
 

Figured I'd chime in on this thread since I was a part of the survey. We have both an old (1933) tie stall barn, and a very new (2001) swing 20 parlor. Being a seasonal dairy, we opted to do the parlor as cheaply as possible. Curtain walls, used pipes out of Texas...I think we wound up shopping around for a significant savings over a more substantial building. So parlors can be had pretty inexpensively. Plus, one person can milk our 100 organic cows an hour in our parlor! Talk about time savings.;)

The tie stall doesn't get any use anymore, save for milking one cow over the winter for my own personal use. I have a portable milker that's as old as the tie stall that I dig out every year when it gets cold.:) doesn't make me want to milk all 100 cows in a tie stall though!
 
I know our tiny operation doesn't count, but we're freestall with a makeshift "parlor". Takes about an hour per milking, but that includes feeding, watering, applying an essential oil fly repellent, and using a 58 year old Armstrong milker. We're a Certified Organic farm, but the milkers, while managed organically, aren't - they all originally came from non-certified farms.

Though I've worked cows in other freestall/parlor operations, and in pipeline barns, and even in stantion and bucket barns, we're milking just 6.

Goats.
 

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