subject: Fun Facts About A Dairy Farm [print this page] There are numerous things that need to be considered when you operate a dairy farm to ensure that it is running at peak efficiency. One important thing that needs to be considered, however, is the energy consumption of the farm. This is not only important to help keep your costs as low as possible but it is also going to make it possible for you to be green. This is going to be appreciated by your customers as well as those that are in your community. Here are a few suggestions that can help to keep your dairy farm working properly and operating at peak efficiency.
One important thing for you to consider is the type of lighting that you are going to use in your farm operation. This is something that has often been a problem for farmers, as they tend to have lights on for most of the day. As a matter of fact, you may find that you have your barn lights on for up to 18 hours a day and that is going to consume a massive amount of energy. If you are able to let the dairy cows out of the barn on a regular basis, however, that will help to cut down on the amount of artificial light that is necessary and it will certainly cut down on your energy consumption. It also has a secondary benefit that you may not have considered. Exposing your dairy cows to light is not only going to help you to save money on your energy costs, it will also likely produce more milk because of that additional light.
The type of compressors that you use is also going to be very important when it comes to running an energy-efficient operation. One thing that is used by many dairy farmers successfully is a water cooled plate cooler. Compressors are typically used in order to reduce milk agitation and they certainly can use a lot of electricity when they are running on a regular basis. If you change to a milking system which cools the tanks where the milk is stored to one that is operating on well water, you will find that you are saving quite a bit of money in the process. As a matter of fact, this type of system cannot only help you to save money, it is often more efficient than a cooler that runs on electricity.
One other thing that you should keep in mind is the filtration that you use within your dairy farm. Most dairy farmers are going to use membrane filtration to filter out any impurities. This ultrafiltration membrane can be a bit expensive but it is going to be more expensive if it is not regularly replaced. You need to strike a balance between the amount that you spend on filtration and how frequently you're changing that filter. This will help your machinery to operate more efficiently and it will also help to increase production in many cases, particularly if you run a fairly tight operation.
