WESTERN ONTARIO: One of Canada’s top-managed herds wins with quiet, stress-free and relaxed cows

HAMILTON — Ben Loewith is a proud dairy farmer. So proud he invites city dwellers in nearby Hamilton to come and tour a clean and efficient modern dairy operation.

That pride has been reinforced with Summitholm Holsteins, his third-generation family farm placing in the top 10 of the 2020 Top Canadian Managed Herds as ranked by Lactanet (formerly CanWest DHI).

Summitholm Holsteins, is now milking about 450 Holsteins in a double-16 parallel parlour and has about 1,000 head in the whole operation. Joe Loewith established the farm in 1948 and passed it down to his sons Carl and Dave. Carl retired last year and his son Ben is now running the farm with his uncle Dave.

The farm has seen a slow, steady expansion over the years. In 1999 a new milking barn was constructed and an additional barn was added in 2014. The 800-acre farm is located in Ontario’s agricultural Green Belt but is also inside the borders of the municipality of Hamilton, so physical expansion has to conform to tight regulations.

The barns are fitted with large, sand-bed stalls. Loewith said a calm, clean barn environment pays off. The farm employs about 25 staff, mainly part-time local people, and they are trained to keep a calm demeanour when working with the herd.

“It’s just better all around. We want the cows to be as relaxed as possible. It has to be a very stress-free operation. We can’t have anybody yelling at the cows,” said Loewith. “Whenever possible we get people from the city to come out because there are so few opportunities to see how food is created,” he said.

About two years ago the farm constructed a dry-cow facility and an “all in-all out” calving facility. “That really upped our game. There was a lot less metabolic issues with the cows and a lot easier calving and higher peak milk,” said Loewith.

An additional bunker silo built about five years ago provides fermented feed through the fall and early winter. The cows get a “heavily corn-sileaged diet.”

Loewith said in the last decade the dairy industry has seen a substantial improvement in production and animal care. The two things that have most improved his operation is the dry cow/calving facility and tweaking his milking parlour settings to reduce teat-end damage and lower somatic cell counts.

Five Ontario farms made the Lactanet Top 10 list.

Rosenhill Farm Inc. in St-Albert was third overall in Canada. Andre and Judith Hildbrand, Swiss immigrants who moved to Canada in 1997, operate Rosenhill Farm milking 120 cows on three Lely robots in a barn built in 2017.

Free Ridge Farms near Chatsworth placed fourth. Heidi Farms near Cornwall placed fifth and Stewardson Dairy Inc. near Thedford was sixth. The other five farms in the top ten were in Quebec.

Ontario also had the top three best-managed robot herds in the country, with Rosenhill leading the pack.