The farm, which is competing in the Innovative Farmer 2024 competition, in the animal production category is located in Kwiatonowice, in the Gorlice district, in the Małopolska province. The herd focused on milk production has a total of 175 HF cows, but the bulls that are born are raised to slaughter weight and sold to meat plants.
They focused on the development of milk production
The owners are Franciszek Gryboś, together with his sister Małgorzata Gucwa. Five years ago, they made a key decision and focused on developing a dairy farm. – When building this barn and developing the farm, we focused on animal welfare and production automation so that the efficiency of our work was as high as possible, to ensure the profitability of this farm. The new barn was to be animal-friendly, so that welfare and optimal production efficiency went hand in hand. The implemented elements such as milking robots, herd management systems and field production, as well as supporting devices such as mokale, i.e. birth sensors, passed the test on this farm – says Franciszek Gryboś in an interview.
Franciszek Gryboś, photo by Farmer.
Milk production and beef production are the main sources of income on this farm. – Annual production is about 2 million liters of milk. We sell about 110 cattle and about 30 pregnant heifers. We farm on 290 ha. Of this, 85 ha is corn, 65 ha wheat, 20 ha alfalfa and 120 grasslands. It is worth noting that these 290 ha are spread over a total of about 700 plots. In agricultural production, the farm is supported by a system for managing orders for farm employees, precisely because of this number of plots. Agriculture is poorly developed here, so most of the machines must be present on the farm and are successfully used in agricultural production – explains Mr. Franciszek.
We visit the farm just after the harvest, when the third cut of grass is underway. Photo: Farmer
Comprehensive herd care
The care and management of the herd is provided by Mrs. Katarzyna Słowik, a zootechnician. As she tells us in the interview, she has been working on this farm for six years and always tries to introduce new innovations and improvements. The elimination of antibiotics from animal production is an undoubted success. This is partly due to the optimal climatic conditions in the barn, high hygiene in the facility, effective and quick drying of pregnant cows, but above all, calving control, which has practically eliminated inflammation and stillborn calves.
All thanks to the birth sensors, the so-called mokalas, which precisely inform the zootechnician leading the herd about the beginning of the birthing action. Proper pre- and post-partum care, thanks to direct notifications on the phone, allows for precise use of human work but also avoids unnecessary losses.
Installing the sensor. Photo: Farmer
– Every year I introduce certain changes to the farm, which I can say today have brought us success, because the average productivity is 12,260 thousand kg of milk. First of all, we start with a very important aspect, which is the procedure for calving cows and rearing calves. A few days before giving birth, we put a so-called mukal sensor on the cow. It informs us in notifications on our mobile phone when a given calf is starting to calve. Thanks to this, we are able to arrive precisely for the birth, pick up the calf on time and properly feed it with colostrum an hour after giving birth. By properly rearing the calves, we later have grown animals that are inseminated at the age of 12-13 months. The most important aspect of these heifers is the fact that we have very good animal health. Precisely because the stage from birth, then to calving, was carried out correctly. The herd has low somatics of 140-180 thousand LKS. Inflammations do occur, of course, but they are not a major problem, counted in quarters during the year – explains Ms. Katarzyna.
How to dry cows
The zootechnician also adds that antibiotics are practically not used in the drying off of cows. – This is because before drying off, we put the cows in a separate sector for about 10 days. We have a so-called separating room. During this time, they stand on hay only and thanks to this, from a milk yield of 40 kg we go down to about 8 kg during the drying off period. Thanks to this, we have the possibility of drying off without antibiotics. They calve properly, later without inflammation. In one word, the drying off period is supervised, these cows also graze during this time and stay in the barn on deep litter.
Cows go out to pasture. Photo: Farmer.
Full automation of milking
In the facility, full milking automation is provided by 3 milking robots with automatic feeding of concentrated feed. The best animals can milk themselves up to 5 times a day. Interestingly, the milk heat recovery system allows for heating water from a deep well, which is then fed to the drinkers.
The layout of the facility and the selection gates installed mean that the cows are in constant motion, which has a positive effect on their health. In practice, beds made daily with straw chaff work well, and for the care of the cows' hooves, baths are performed 3-4 times a week. Surface hygiene is also helped by robots cleaning the slats.
The layout of the facility and the selection gates force the cows to move around the barn. Photo: Farmer
Favourable maintenance conditions and excellent feeding management guarantee very good herd results, which can be seen in the average milk production from the herd, which is 12,260 kg/year. The inter-calving period lasts an average of 373 days.
Calves are raised in individual hutches and fed with a gradually introduced milk replacer. The milk taxi guarantees good food preparation and maintaining a constant temperature. Heifers and dry cows have constant access to the run.
Feeding calves from a milk taxi. Photo: Farmer
It is worth mentioning that we visit the farm just after the harvest, when the third cut of grass is underway. We could practically confront what it means to farm on 290 ha, which are located on 700 plots, and additionally in LFA areas, which are difficult to farm. It is a real challenge.
A calf that was brought to the farm as an emergency measure. Photo: Farmer