South Gippsland farmer Rowen Foote likes his dairy shelter so much that he’s built a second one and is planning a third, according to Dairy News Australia.
Rowen built a small Dairy Shelters Australia structure in 2019 for rearing calves on automatic milking feeders, with his brother Chris and their families. Last year, the brothers added a second, larger shelter for their calving cows, and now they’re planning a third to provide protection for growing calves.
The Foote family milks 900 Holstein cows on 688 hectares, rearing their own calves and Friesian and Angus bulls. The herd produces an average 10,000 litres for 720kg MS.
The family has been farming in South Gippsland for the past 120 years, moving from the hills of Korumburra to Fish Creek about 20 years ago.
Rowen said the high rainfall of the area prompted the dairy shelter.
“Before the shelter, our biggest challenge calving in steel sheds in winter was that they stayed very wet,” Rowen said.
The first structure helped to address that. “The shelter doubled our capacity to house the cows and the pens stayed dry,” he said.
“Because it stays so warm and dry, the calves thrived in that environment. It was noticeable that they were growing better and stronger.”
Dairy Shelters Australia shelters are manufactured in Bendigo using a unique and patented clear roof, deep litter design. Read the full story here.
