At the joint-stock company "LepelAgroService", the "Tselina" dairy farm is under construction, designed for 922 cows, of which 768 will be part of the milking herd. According to calculations, the annual gross milk yield is expected to reach 46,080 centners of milk, with 6,000 kilograms per cow. Milk sales will amount to 43,315 centners, with a commercial yield of 94 percent. A business calf output of 830 calves is projected, at 90 per 100 cows.
The farm will consist of two cow barns, a milking and milk processing unit with one installation, a calving pen with a dry cow section, a calf-rearing shed, a calf house for 380 heads, exercise yards, a temporary manure storage area, slurry collectors with capacities of 50, 75, and 100 cubic meters, silage trenches, a hay shed, a sanitary checkpoint, a disinfection barrier with a shed, two fire water reservoirs, a bulk feed bunker, a manure pit, a weighbridge with a 40-ton capacity truck scale, a bedding material storage area, a water tower, a water de-ironing station, a transformer substation, rest areas, car parking, passenger pick-up and drop-off zones, containers for waste and ash, sewage wells, treatment facilities, a sediment-sludge collector, a sludge settling tank, and a boiler room. In essence, all possible processes in livestock production operations are addressed.
Cow housing will be free-stall cubicle. Insemination will take place in special sections for animal restraint. Manure removal in this housing system will be carried out by a bulldozer to three platforms of 669 cubic meters each and one of 784 cubic meters, with regular removal to fields. The slurry collectors are equipped with grated floor hatches for collecting the liquid fraction of manure, followed by pumping by machines for applying liquid organic fertilizers, and ventilation shafts with deflectors for airing the tanks. Wastewater from the farm territory will be neutralized by a biological treatment plant.
Watering will be provided from group stainless steel waterers with a circulation pipe. Water will pass through the de-ironing station, as the farm is located on an underground deposit with iron content above the norm. For technological purposes, water will be heated by milk cooling mechanisms, and for domestic use – by water heaters. Milking pipeline flushing will be automated with heating from a device included in the milking unit.
The movement to and from the milking parlor is designed to prevent cross-traffic of animals.
For the repair of the milking herd, provision is made for
annual input of 277 calves with a live weight of 520 kilograms. Newborn calves are kept in individual pens in the prophylactic unit.
The first phase of the cow shed for 384 head, including a calf house and infrastructure communications, will be commissioned by the end of the year. The second phase will be built next year.
The general contractor for the construction is PMK-75. A calf house, a water tower, and an iron removal station have been erected.
Uladzimir SHUSHKEVICH
In the photo: general view of the calf house and cow shed.
Photo by author