Improving milk quality constant focus at Skyline

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This article was published 20/04/2023 (746 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Producing the highest quality milk in the province does not just happen and is a constant work in progress, according to this year’s Dairy Farmers of Manitoba grand champion.

David Wiens, and his brother Charles, at Skyline Dairy, received the prestigious Manitoba Milk Quality Award at an event in December for achieving an average somatic cell count of less than 57,000, and the Grunthal farm is the first robotic dairy in Manitoba to win the honour. The lower the somatic cell count, the less chance it could contain harmful bacteria.

David Wiens says all the credit for the quality of milk produced at Skyline goes to the people working with the cows. They all have the same goal of constantly improving milk quality which in turn increases production.

A lot of things go into producing quality milk, Wiens says. It all comes down to management and at Skyline that has been excellent these last few years, with the focus on cow comfort.

The less stress on cows, the better they will produce.

Flooring in the barn is rubber mats and cows rest on stall mats which are water beds. Finely chopped straw is used for bedding, as it provides much more absorption than long straw and keeps the cows much cleaner.

Milking equipment is well maintained and feed is carefully balanced as any spoilage will cause an immediate drop in the quality of milk. Any change in the milk quality of any of the 220 cows being milked will result in immediate steps to address the situation. The herdsman and his two assistants work closely with a veterinarian and nutritionist as a cow health team.

Continuous milk quality improvement is the result of their efforts. Five years ago, the somatic cell count was between 200,000 and 250,000 and today it is the best in the province at under 57,000, Wiens points out.

This milk quality is also a great benefit to the processor as high quality milk provides a longer shelf life to things like aged cheese.

Skyline Dairy’s herdsman, Doug Priest, says building the farm’s excellent reputation required a multi-pronged approach.

“We began with reducing mastitis treatment, and as that got better, so did milk quality. The new bedding system of finely chopped straw has helped improve animal health.”

Priest has been involved with dairy for most of his life. Originally from England, where his family had a dairy farm, he came to Canada when he was 12, when his dad bought a hog farm here.

In high school, Priest started working at a dairy farm, and had other jobs in the agriculture industry before coming to Skyline more than 15 years ago.

He started by helping with field work but now his role is more management, working with other full time people to help with the cows and calves.

Skyline has 2,200 acres of land in pasture, cultivated and river land. On 1,600 acres the dairy grows its own feed. The cultivated acreage allows for some cash cropping as well and is a good amount of land for manure management.

Skyline milks 220 cows with four DeLaval robots, which deliver a barley or soybean meal treat when the cows come to get milked.

Skyline is now on its second generation of DeLaval robots, installing the VMS Classic when they built a new barn in 2008. At that time, it was a major leap in production equipment for the Wiens family, which had been milking in a tie stall barn until then.

The farm now milks with four DeLaval VMS V300 units, installed in the spring of 2022.

Priest is impressed with the new units, saying the camera is lot better, as it finds the teats faster and training is less involved. After a single milking, the robot will then follow the cow all the way through lactation, monitoring changes in quality or quantity.

The DeLaval milking system allows for flexibility and helps ensure each cow is milked to her individual needs and capacity. The preferred cow flow system captures more data at each milking and keeps animal welfare as a constant priority.

“It’s amazing what they can do.” Wiens says.

David, before settling down to dairy farming, went to Europe for a year on an exchange program and then studied theology at Canadian Mennonite University for four years. He is currently a lay minister at Elim Mennonite Church in Grunthal.

He is also very involved with Dairy Farmers of Manitoba, where he has been a director for 27 years and the chairman since 2006. At the same time, he is vice-president of Dairy Farmers of Canada.

His brother Charles studied mechanics at Red River Community College and worked at Brookdale and Penner Chev before bringing his mechanical experience back to the farm.

David says his brother’s mechanical ability is most welcome because he is not nearly as hands on as Charles, and not nearly as mechanically inclined.

Skyline Dairy has been in the Wiens family for nearly a century and was started by their grandparents. Charles’ and David’s parents took over in the 1950’s.

A new barn was built in 1967, when they were milking about 20 cows.

In 1999, there was a big herd expansion when Skyline went to 180 cows. At that time, the bale shed had been converted to a free stall barn, but cows were still milked in a tie stall set-up, David Wiens explains.

“The operation was very labour intensive, with a lot of shuffling cows back and forth, rotating cows back and forth at milking time. That was to be the final major herd expansion.”

In 2008, a new dairy barn was built at Skyline with four robots to handle milking chores. Over the years, there has been more growth in production than in cow numbers, Wiens says. Now Skyline Dairy milks 220 cows and ships 15,000 litres every second day, which amounts to about 40 litres daily per cow, Wiens says. Butterfat is at 4.5, which is pretty good for a Holstein, In 1986, Skyline cows were averaging 25 litres with 3.6 butterfat.

“We have been able to grow revenue on the farm without really increasing the number of cows that much. No need to get bigger, just better at maximizing milk production as good as we can.”

At Skyline, the Wiens Brothers and their production team have come a long way towards achieving their goal. But for them, it is always a moving goal line and a constant striving to get better and better.