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Owners: Jonathan and David Reece farm in partnership with their parents
No of dairy cows: 350
Housing: Loose housing
Milking system: Two DeLaval herringbone stall 50° parlours
Number of milkings per day: Two
“DeLaval has a good product name and an excellent reputation for service...The response time from DeLaval has been brilliant!”
The Reece brothers have taken the unusual step of running two identical DeLaval parlours on two separate farm locations, within one overall operation. They also run a flying school and air charter business at Haverfordwest, in Wales – where their farms are located. The airfield is leased from the local county council along with 200 acres of land used for grass silage. The business has developed nicely and now has a fleet of 14 airplanes ranging from two to ten seaters. These include six Cessna’s and four Piper’s and microlights.
The family has two herds of 350 high yielding cows averaging 8250 kilograms annually, with four per cent butterfat and 3.5 per cent protein. Milk is supplied to Dairy Crest. The herds are kept separate to minimize disease risks and because of the farm locations.
Before the Reece Bros changed to a DeLaval parlour in May 2002, it was taking around five hours to milk a smaller herd in the old 20/20 plant. Both parlours are DeLaval Herringbones with 40 milking units and each is successfully operated by one person. Now it takes less than one hour and 45 minutes to milk 300 cows. Jonathan also reckons that one operator could handle up to 50 milking units in this parlour.
David says that the new parlour is a very nice environment to work in and Jonathan says the Hygenius automatic plant washer is “great because you are guaranteed a proper wash”.
“We are thrilled with the new plant and would not change a thing. A parlour must be reliable for 365 days of the year so having two identical plants has many advantages.”
The Reece brothers harvest grass silage and spread their own slurry while their maize silage is grown under contract.
Jonathan and David are strong believers in rewarding their staff. “Good men should be well paid and have the best of equipment. The herdsmen need the right environment to work in”. The herdsmen are responsible for milking, heat detection and AI work. Six workers are employed on the farm.
The Reece brothers have a DeLaval service contract “supplying whatever detergents and dairy hygiene products are required, and to change liners whenever necessary”. They are happy with the DeLaval contract system and believe that using original equipment parts pays dividends, even if they do cost more. Jonathan says “you benefit from all the R& D investment DeLaval has made to optimize milk production and performance. Their service engineers have excellent product knowledge and are very well trained. We are very happy with the parlour installation and have had no major problem ever since.”
“If there was not a good future in dairying we would not be spending all this money”. The brothers plan to increase herd size to 450 cows over the next year if quota is available at the right price. They also hope to increase milk yields to 9000 kilograms annually. The brothers say “the most important point is litres milked per hour and our target is 1500 to1800 litres per hour.” They believe that even with a bigger herd and higher yields, they can still “get all the cows milked within two hours and 30 minutes”.
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