CapitalPress.com
Friday, June 4, 2021
SPRING MACHINERY SALE
1982 John Deere 4040 with 158
loader, new tires, 3 remotes . $32,500
Oldenkamp Dairy
Joe and Ben Oldenkamp with their Lely Vector automatic feeder. The feeder measures
the components and detects how much to add to existing feed as it passes along the
feed fence.
OLDENKAMP DAIRY
New made in the USA Loader GENIE S-60, 60 ft reach, duetz air
Buckets, 6’ 7’ 8’ ...... Starting at $850 cooled diesel, 5400 hrs ......... $25,000
Putting robots to work
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
Atlas Copco Compressor 375 CFN,
MAXXUM 115, 5800 hours, 1760 JD 4.5 diesel engine, 1720 hrs ...........
Leader, 3 remotes .................. $40,000 ................................................ $14,500
* AG EQUIPMENT *
* SALVAGED
TRACTORS *
* CONSTRUCTION
EQUIPMENT *
* PARTS *
JD 915 7-Shank Ripper .......... $3,500
(Save up to 50%
buying used parts.)
Nyssa Tractor & Implement
Celebrating 31 years in the agricultural machinery business.
Our yard has 5 miles of road, with machinery on both sides.
FREE TOURS GIVEN DAILY. LOCATED NYSSA, OR
Call Toll Free: (833)372-4020
www.nyssatractor.com • sales@nyssatractor.com
S223534-1
6
TILLAMOOK, Ore. —
You might say the cows at
Oldenkamp Dairy have the
run of the place.
Joseph and Sheri Olden-
kamp purchased the farm
with Joe’s father in 1975 and
the pair now run it with their
two sons, Luke and Ben.
They continued to build
up the Oldenkamp herd and
until about three years ago
had a standard milking par-
lor and overall setup for their
420 cows.
They also farm about 350
acres of grass and corn, which
is harvested as silage to pro-
vide all the herd’s forage.
The Oldenkamps were
able to focus on management
and other tasks around the
farm until a heightened labor
shortage piled milking onto
their other duties.
They decided to enlist
robots to lighten the load and
in 2018 invested in six Lely
Astronaut A4 milking robots
and an automated feeding
system.
A couple years earlier
they had installed 400 water-
beds for the cows to cut
down on work, keep the ani-
mals cleaner, their bedding
more consistent and provide
even distribution of the cows’
weight while resting.
At that time, they also
installed an automated alley
scraper.
“We used to need to run
a scraper tractor in the barn
when we would bring cows
into the milking parlor but
that was only twice a day,”
Oldenkamp said. “The peri-
odic passes of the automatic
scraper make for a much
cleaner facility.”
Alley scrapers also help
the cows’ footing, improve
hoof health and reduce
ammonia emissions from
manure.
The robots resulted in a
free fl ow barn where cows
can get themselves milked,
feed or lie down whenever
they choose.
“They’ve got access to all
of that without going through
any gates,” Luke Oldenkamp
said. “Their collars send
information to a computer
or my cell phone and I can
pull up anything you want to
know about a cow — super
handy.”
Three robots milk the Jer-
seys and the other three milk
the red and white Holsteins.
The dairy milks two diff erent
breeds of cows because they
are paid premiums by cream-
eries for high fat and protein
components. The larger Hol-
steins provide quantity, while
the Jerseys produce higher
components.
“The Jerseys are just awe-
some with robots,” Olden-
kamp said. “They’re such
curious animals and very
food driven so the grain they
get in the robots makes them
eager to go in.”
Upon putting in the milk-
ing robots the Oldenkamps
decreased the size of their
herd from 420 to 350 to bet-
ter fi t the new layout.
The cows, once milked
twice a day in the conven-
tional parlor, are now milk-
ing themselves an average
2.8 times a day. The daily vol-
ume of milk per cow has gone
from an average of 65 pounds
to about 80 pounds.
The time and physi-
cal demands have gone way
down.
“It’s a huge lifestyle
change — more freedom and a
lot fewer physical demands,”
Oldenkamp said. “We get off a
lot earlier; the last shift is gone
by about 5:30 p.m. and the
farm gets pretty quiet.”