Nature's
Harmony Organic Dairy reaches top 10 for milk quality of all
Horizon Dairies producers in the USA with Dairymaster
parlour.
Nature's Harmony Organic Dairy LLC
is a partnership between Sean Mallett and John Reitsma (Sean's
step-dad). They farm in Twin Falls, Idaho in the USA. They built a
new dairy from scratch for organic milk production. They purchased
a 750 acre farm, and converted it to organic over a 3-year period.
Milking organic cows in Nature's Harmony Organic Dairy LLC started
in January of 2008. Sean commented "We went organic due to
philosophical reasons and a secure milk contract. We are heavy
grazers and have 650 acres devoted to pasture."
Sean is currently milking 1,000 cows through his 26 unit
Dairymaster Swiftflo Swingover in approx. 7 hours. Prior to
converting to organic Sean used to milk over 4,000 cattle through
an 80 unit rotary parlour with his step-dad John Reitsma.
On his Swing 26 he went with heavy duty stallwork, Swing over
arms, Automatic Cluster Remover's and Weighall Milk Meter control
boxes to allow for future expansion for Weighall Milk Meters and
for Auto ID. According to Sean "the Dairymaster system is low
maintenance, it milks out well contributing to low Somatic Cell
counts, and cleans really well". Throughout the last number of
years Sean has milked in a lot of different parlours, the main
differences between Dairymaster and the others that Sean has
identified is lack of slippage, complete milk out and improved milk
quality. Currently, Sean is in the top 10 for milk quality in the
USA out of 500 dairies that Horizon Organic purchases milk from. To
reach the top 10 for milk quality Sean has had to have had
consistently low SCC and low bacteria counts which include both raw
counts measured in relation to cleanliness of the cows and PI
measured in relation to cleanliness of the equipment.
Sean first heard of Dairymaster at the World AG expo in Tulare,
and his interest was piqued, Dairymaster's scientific facts which
come from our research and development emphasis and our performance
focus was of great interest to him. Dairymaster vigorously test
their products through scientific trials in order to achieve peak
performance capabilities.
Further to that he then talked to some other customers of
Dairymaster and from their recommendations decided to go ahead with
the system. He also advised that the value for money that he got
with the Dairymaster system was great.
The system has met all of Sean's expectations and he is 100%
satisfied with it. He commented that it washes very well and it is
easy to maintain and repair. Sean has not installed the Dairymaster
Milk Manager parlour information management system as of yet but he
has advised that he will do in the future.
Sean commented "I've already suggested to other dairymen to take a
serious look at Dairymaster. The installation process and the speed
of it was impressive, the Dairymaster people weren't here for more
than 2 weeks. If I build another parlour, it will definitely
be a Dairymaster parlour again. I wouldn't do it any other
way".