The original two free stall barns, built in 1999, were completely remodeled in 2009 and 2010. We took out every stall in those two barns that were housing 600+ milking cows and < > 80 fresh cows along with special needs animals. We converted all 10 year old mattress stalls to deep bedded sand stalls. We also made the stalls wider and longer for more cow comfort. They are now 50 inches wide and 9 feet long on the outside row and 16.5 feet long on the head to head stalls. In the south free stall barn next to the holding area and milking parlor, we made those stalls 52 inches wide for all fresh cows and special needs animals. Both barns are 6 rows with 478 stalls in the first barn and 440 in the second. We also added four, 20’ x 40’ sort pens for working cattle during the week.
The 3rd , northern free stall barn, built in 2003, was also converted to sand. We took out all mattresses and added a 4” x 6” landscaping board to the rear of the stall and filled with sand. The stalls remained in place at 48” spacing, but we then moved all our 2 year olds to that barn and put all mature cows in the middle barn with the 50” deep bedded stall. This barn also contains all dry cows and maternity pen.
Remodeling. . .
Our palpation rail had minor remodeling done to it, but we do use it exclusively for all breeding, vaccination, palpation, and general health check operations. We feel it is very user friendly for both the herd managers and the cows and just a few steps from the vet office with all supplies in it.
We built a sand separation barn with mechanical separation along with a miniature sand lane to capture approximately 90%-92% of all sand. It is then reused after a few days of draining.
Here at Majestic View we feel we have been very aggressive with improving our infrastructure to better cow health and productivity along with a worker-friendly environment.