Samuel and Keven: Better and better

At Ferme Janoel, agri-advisor Samuel Pelletier and dairy farmer Keven Malenfant are working together to get the farm up to 2 kg of butterfat per cow per day—without adding stalls. They’re sure they can do it, and they know attention to detail is key.

Ferme Janoel is a tie-stall dairy farm in Saint-Arsène in the Bas-Saint-Laurent. Keven Malenfant took it over from his father in 2013, with a modest quota of 42 kg. Many investments later, he’s proud to let the numbers speak for themselves:

• 140 kg quota

• 90 lactating cows

• 37 litres of milk delivered per cow

• 1.61 kg of butterfat produced per cow per day

• 2.84 kg of total components delivered per cow per day

   

“The business is growing fast. Production is on target and it always makes quota, even a little extra sometimes ,” explains Samuel Pelletier, ruminant agri-advisor at Centre de service du Littoral.

To increase production by 0.39 kg butterfat per cow per day, Keven plans to add an extension onto his barn for pregnant heifers and dry cows, which he currently keeps in stalls. “That’ll free up those spaces for dairy cows, so I’ll be able to get maximum production out of my 100 stalls,” he says. “In the long term, it’ll also improve everything around dry cows and calving prep.”

Attention to detail

Samuel is confident Keven will achieve his goal. “He’s a very responsive farmer,” he says. “Whenever something goes wrong or he has a question for me, I answer and he reacts right away. No nonsense. He does what needs to be done.”

For his part, Keven knows he can count on Samuel. “He takes the time to do all the math and make sure that whatever my costs, I’m making a profit. And when he says something is going to work, he makes sure it does.”

Keven says one of his current challenges is with feed. Right now, he pushes the rejects to the end of the alley for the dry cows. “Samuel has been telling me for four years now that it would be better to give the dry cows their own special ration . I know he’s right, but I’m waiting until I’ve built the extension. If we did it right now, we’d go over quota!” he says to Samuel, and the two burst out laughing.

“It’s true, I’m always bugging him about that,” says Samuel. “I try to challenge my clients and push them to do better and better, because paying attention to little details like that pays off.”

Teamwork that gets results

When Keven first took over the family farm, he wasn’t a Sollio Agriculture client. It took five years—and several farm visits from Samuel—for him to decide to switch suppliers.

“I had a feed problem that I just couldn’t figure out,” he recalls. “I asked Samuel to calculate my ration even though I wasn’t his client, he gave me advice, and it worked.” The rest is history.

Today, Keven is a regular at his local cooperative’s events, where he’s always on the lookout for ideas to improve his farm’s performance. He even proudly wears his Sollio Agriculture shirt, a gift from Samuel.