On our second day of the trip we toured a massive dairy farm called Rosendale Dairy. This farm is located in Rosendale Wisconsin, and houses 8400 cows in two 400 ft by ¼ mile long barns. There are 80 employees, and it takes 3 TMR mixers to keep the cows fed. Each cow gets milked 3 times per day; Rosendale milks 21 hours a day using two - 80 cow rotary parlors, leaving 3 hours of cleaning time between the milking shifts. The barns have 16 sections running the length of the barn, each holding 600 cows. The barns were built in 2008 and started out with only 600 cows - in 2010 they reached capacity with 8400 cows. This farm only houses fresh, dry, and lactation cows. Calves are in the barn for about one day before being shipped to another facility to be cared for.
One of the unique things about Rosendale is the way that they have chosen to ventilate the barn. The barn roof has no vents. All the air comes through the long walls of the barn through what looks like conjugated cardboard; water is run through this material on hot, humid days to help cool the barn. The opposite wall has fans which draw the air through. Inside the barn, walls come down from the ceiling within 8 ft of the floor, forcing the air to move along the ground. All the cows are comfortable and fly free with the amount of air moving through the barn. The stalls in the barn are bedded down with course sand which is recycled, sanitized and reused.
Rosendale milks mainly Holsteins, with a few Jersey and other cross breeds. There are no holding tanks; the milk is filtered, chilled, and pumped directly into 6000 gallon tankers, which transport the milk to a local cheese factory. Rosendale fills 12 of these tankers per day. The farm does not have a full time vet but many of the herds persons are trained to do a number of many vet tasks.
Rosendale farms has 3 large lagoons where all the waste is transferred. The haylage is stock piled into huge piles covered in bunker plastic and tires (see the picture with the bus in front of one to get an idea of how big they are). Feeding starts at 4:00 am and takes until 2:30 pm to finish. On an average day they breed 100 cows, and 24 calves are born.
This farm was amazing. It was neat to see everything that they process and do in one day.
Jenn Howe
