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PLANS FOR THE FUTURE OF OUR OPERATION… EXPANSION
In the summer of 2000 we started to look seriously at expanding our operation. There are many reasons that we decided to expand, which include…
1. With the younger generation taking over the operation and the need to provide for three families, we needed to do something to ensure the long-term viability of our operation. We also needed to take steps to ensure that we would have continued success over the next 20-30 years while providing good incomes and standards of living for management as well as employees’ families.
2. If we plan on being in this business over the long term, we needed to update our facilities. For instance, our milking parlor is currently 30 years old and is running 24 hours a day. This parlor had 200 animals passing through it daily up until 1996 and today it has about 1000 animals passing through in a day. Maintenance has become a problem as well as animal and operator comfort. However, a new parlor is a large capital fixed cost that requires many cows to be milked through it to be economical. Great advances have been made in technologies that are used to run and manage a milking parlor. Remodeling our current parlor is not economical to take advantage of these technologies.
3. Current facilities are not maximized for cow comfort. While milk production and cow health is satisfactory, new facilities would allow us to do an even better job. For instance, cows currently stand for 6 hours a day waiting to be milked. In a new facility they would stand for only 3 hours a day giving them more time to eat, drink and lie down. All of these factors would equate to an even higher standard of cow health and production. Continued on next page...
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