Robotic Milking : Rewill Farm's recipe for success

To make one of the top robotic dairy farms in Québec in terms of kilograms of fat produced per day, you’ll need a ton of hard work, a generous helping of support and just a dash of thinking outside the box. That’s exactly the recipe for success at Ferme Rewill in Alma, Québec, where the farmers have been supported for over 10 years by Mélanie Dufour, Agri-advisor, Ruminants and Crops at Nutrinor Coopérative .

“Jimmy Harvey, one of the owners, is a pretty outstanding person,” says Mélanie. “He made the transition to robotic milking just four years ago, but he’s been a forward-thinker for a very long time.”

As is often the case when farms make the leap to robotic milking, the transition has been “hell for leather,” according to Mélanie. Jimmy had to keep milking his cows in the same building where the new equipment was being installed. “Since Jimmy decided to keep both Holsteins and Jerseys, he needed different stalls for the different breeds,” says Mélanie. “This made the installation more complex.”

During the installation work, Mélanie recommended adding a stress reliever to the cows’ ration to reduce the impact of the noise. This is the kind of small, precise but worthwhile adjustment that agri-advisors can make thanks to their constant presence in the field. Recently, Mélanie also suggested adding floor mats to improve comfort in the dry-cow dome currently under construction.

“It’s easy to fall into a routine and lose sight of the small details,” says Jimmy. “Mélanie makes us think carefully about everything by asking us the right questions.” The agri-advisor follows up closely with her farmers, even monitoring robotic milker performance remotely. “I recently noticed a drop in milk yield,” she says. “That worried me, so I went over there.” When Mélanie and Jimmy went to check on the hay, they realized that a farm employee had been feeding the cows the wrong ration. The necessary adjustments were made, and milk production quickly bounced back.

Helping farmers achieve their goals

Mélanie has been helping farmers optimize their production for 24 years. She always approaches her work with the same purpose: to help farmers achieve their goals. “At Ferme Rewill, it’s simple. Everything we do is designed to improve the kilograms of fat produced per day,” she says.

She works with Jimmy to prepare the partial mixed ratio and feed troughs. Then, when placing his orders, he sends her a text message to make sure that he is always ordering optimal feed for his herd.

Mélanie also worked with Jimmy to incorporate an Oleo mix of Rewill barley, wheat and peas into the herd’s , in combination with grain corn. Jimmy saw this as an opportunity to reduce the cost of feeding his cows.

“I could see that Jimmy really wanted to try it out,” says Mélanie. She did some research and asked her colleagues in the network a lot of questions. After several trials, the home-made mix was successfully incorporated into the ration.

“Mélanie is a good listener who doesn’t talk nonsense and just tells it like it is,” says Jimmy. “She always guides us well in our decisions.”

At Rewill, Mélanie’s guidance and what Jimmy affectionately calls her “therapy sessions” are key ingredients in the recipe for success. It’s no coincidence that Rewill is one of the top-performing robotic dairy farms in the province. Producing over 100 kilograms of fat per day on a yearly basis, it recently hit a record production level of 120 kilograms of fat per day!