One day move for Welsh milking parlour

Agriculture

One-day move for Welsh parlour
T H White's engineers helped farm staff near Usk to achieve the impossible – to move the entire milking parlour between morning and evening milkings!

Just outside Usk, at the unusually named hamlet of Kemys Commander in Gwent, the Baker family has been dairy farming since 1942. Trading today as B B Holsteins, the business is run by brothers Bev and Lewis Baker and has followed a regime of high genetics and specialised breeding to achieve an outstanding dairy herd with 210 cows currently milking on the 160-acre farm. Like many traditional farms, this one has several older buildings which have served for a century or more. Among these were the original milking parlour, which had become seriously outdated. "The collecting yard was very small and the building was cramped," Lewis explained. "In particular the exit for cows leaving the parlour was very awkward, involving a narrow doorway and a tight turn. We decided that we needed to rebuild the parlour to provide better throughput so that cows could go straight in and straight out, at the same time making it more light and airy as well as creating a bigger collecting yard." A site for a new parlour was cleared, just yards from the existing one, and the Bakers began construction. The footings, drainage, concrete work and the structure of the

new building were all undertaken by the Bakers and their farm staff, who also erected the metalwork for the milking stalls and a framework to support the milking equipment. When it came to the parlour equipment, however, the Bakers sought assistance from T H White. George Eno, T H White's dairy service engineer from the Huntley branch, takes up the story: "The Bakers had used DeLaval milking equipment since the late 1960s. Their present installation was an Alpro system installed in the early 1990s, doubled in size up to 20/20 about five years later. They were very happy with this set-up, so rather than replace it they wanted to move it in its entirety to the new parlour. There was no particular problem about that, except for one thing... the whole job had to be carried out between morning and evening milkings!" Undaunted, the T H White team set about all the jobs that could be done in advance of the move, ensuring that all the pipe runs were complete and ready to connect. Then came the big day. "As soon as the last cow had left the parlour after morning milking, we began disconnecting," recalls Lewis. "That was about 8.45am and the crew of seven,

including three T H White fitters, made excellent progress. A couple of hours later the first side of the parlour was ready to move. "The only real surprise of the day was the weight of the equipment – with seven shoulders under the line we could only just lift it and walk it through to the new parlour. It's a good thing we had done a solid job with the new metalwork to support it!" With hard work, many cups of tea and a lot of good humour, the final joints were being tightened just before 7.30pm as the first cows were walked in for evening milking. "The cows loved it. We had walked them through the new parlour the evening before to familiarise them with the space and they all took to it very easily," Lewis added. George Eno was very pleased with the way this ultra-fast changeover had gone. "Since DeLaval closed its Hereford depot, T H White has taken over responsibility for a large territory extending from Cardiff in the south, Pyle in the west and right up to Shropshire in the north," he said. "We are doing more and more quality work in this area, so if you are considering a dairy project why not talk to us to see if we can help you to make it more cost-effective and efficient?" The next step for the Bakers will be the installation of a dedicated dump line with multiple connections that can be used with a 'holster' milking unit, followed in the medium term by a possible expansion of the milking parlour by five bays each side to cope with the enlargement of the herd. "We'll be talking to T H White about that," said Lewis! To find out more about how we can help with your dairy project, call 01452 830303 (Huntley), or 01373 465941 (Frome).