Sunny Glade Farms Up-And-Running

After a fire claimed the barn at Sunny Glade Farms near Blumenort on May 4, 2013 they have since rebuilt and are once again in production as a dairy farm.

Owner Welden Plett explains they had to work through what they wanted to do long-term and whether or not to continue as a dairy farm. He says the dairy industry is a good industry with lots of exciting new products and technology which change the job, creating a more 9-5 work environment.

Son and Manager Jeremy Plett notes they toured barns across Canada looking at different types of barns with different styles. The style they decided to proceed with created a barn layout they were able to design themselves and so started construction which went all winter long.

“It's exciting to see some of this stuff coming,” answers Plett. “Stuff we wouldn't have dreamt of even five years ago that we would get to work with. At the end of the day there's a lot of positives that can come out of something like this.”

Jeremy explains the equipment they installed is robotic and quite impressive. He says the milking robots are fairly common already, however the Lely Vector robotic feeding system is one of only three in Canada and the first of it's kind in Western Canada. He adds the robotic equipment gives them more opportunities to manage the farm with precision. Noting he's looking forward to honing on different areas to allow the herd to be the healthy herd they want to see.

“What it will do is go around the barn and drive around the feed bunks,” explains Jeremy about the Lely Vector robotic feeding system. “It will push up the feed and scan the bunk to see how much feed is there at the time. Then it will go back to it's feed kitchen where we store a whole pile of feed in silage blocks and it will load itself with the appropriate ration of what it's going to be feeding in the main barn. So once it's loaded itself it will mix it and drive it back out to the feed fence and deliver the feed to the cows there. So you're always getting fresh feed to the cows at the right time.”

Plett says the main goal right now since they're only half full is to get production up to 38-40 litres per cow, per day. He explains his number one concern is cow comfort, noting the robotic system makes for more relaxed cows, more relaxed cows means more production and more comfort means more production. Adding he feels they've built the 5-star facility for them.

“We had our first calf born on July 23rd,” says an excited Jeremy on the birth of Luna. “The first calf in a new barn is always a big thing.”

Both Plett and Jeremy thank the community for all their support. They say when the barn burnt they felt tremendous support through the entire process from cleaning up to rebuilding. Now that the building is complete they note it's been encouraging to see people from the community wanting to see what it's like.

An open house will be held on Thursday September 4th, 2014 for the public to come tour the facility and see it working.  The Plett family encourage everyone to come down for the event.