A standout farm in New Brunswick’s dairy capital
/by George Fullerton
Brownsville Farms sits on the side of Route 1 as you travel east into Sussex, N.B. For the past several years, the dairy operation has been distinguished by extensive rows of tube-wrapped silage extending up the hill behind the barns.
Regular travellers on the route will have noted a good deal of excavation and construction in recent years. The work involved a bunker silo expansion and construction of a 50-cow rotary parlour milking system.
Nick and Tara Brown opened their farm up on July 30 to host the first annual summer social for the New Brunswick and Nova Scotia Holstein associations.
Organizers had a packed agenda for the social, including the opportunity to ride in a hot-air balloon. Unfortunately, a brisk midday breeze cancelled the balloon rides, but the crew remained on site and seemed to enjoy chatting with guests about hot-air ballooning.
Brownsville is a multi-generational farm that Nick’s great-grandfather Emery Brown established in 1926. Emery’s son Ken eventually assumed the farm’s management and milked through until 1969 when fire destroyed the dairy barn and the milk herd was sold off. The Browns continued to produce hay, and eventually reincorporated cows into the operation when Ken’s son David, who had been living in Western Canada, returned with a trailer-load of beef cattle.
A discussion between Ken and David about opportunities in agriculture inspired David to buy a neighbouring dairy farm. He milked in that farm’s barn while he built a free-stall barn for 200 cows with a double-four milking parlour on the home farm.
David and his wife Edith expanded the free-stall capacity to 300 cows in 2003 and added a double-eight parlour. Another expansion in 2011 brought the capacity to 375 cows.
SUCCESSION PLAN
Nick graduated with a bachelor of science degree with a major in agricultural business from the former Nova Scotia Agricultural College in 2011, and returned to the family farm.
“My father had a good plan for succession,” he said. “Soon after I came to the farm full time, he told me that reproduction was completely my responsibility. He continued with that strategy, handing over responsibilities as I gained competence in each.”
The free-stall barn has a four-row setup with a centre feed bunk and was originally designed to feed round bale silage. The stall bedding consists of a silica sand base top-dressed with a mixture of shavings and agricultural lime.
“Shavings alone got tracked out of the stalls quite quickly, but mixing in the lime keeps the bedding in the stalls a lot better,” said Nick. “When we spread manure, we are also getting some lime on the land with each application. Lime also provides some anti-bacterial function, and it helps dry out hoofs, which are additional herd health benefits.”
Nick and Tara recently began milking in a new 50-cow rotary parlour. The parlour is attached to the free-stall barn by an alley. Milking times are 4 a.m., noon, and 7 p.m. The parlour is equipped with a robotic post dip feature, and milking is completed with just two people. The typical barn crew is six people, some working full time and some part time. A few extra people are hired for the harvest season.
In his welcoming remarks to guests attending the Holstein picnic, Nick underlined that their success is due in large part to the quality and commitment of their employees.
Brownsville works about 1,700 arable acres, most owned and some rented.
IN TRANSITION
“For a number of years, we have been transitioning away from bale forage silage, and incorporating ag bags, pads, and bunkers, and growing more corn,” said Nick. “We have been doing it year by year, building pads and, later on, adding walls to them as cash flow allowed. We started corn with contract harvesting, and we have just recently purchased a self-propelled harvester and silage wagon/cart. We use a 30-foot mower and have a merger for forage harvest.”
Nick works as the silo packer during harvest. He uses a wheel loader equipped with duals for packing the bunkers and silage on the pads.
“A standard payloader is not terribly efficient for silage packing, but we built an adapter, which allows us to quickly add duals and it improves the traction and stability and has good packing coverage,” he said. “We have been producing our own ear cob meal, which is a valuable feed as purchased feed costs rise. It is cheaper than kernel; requires no milling. In the past, we stored cob meal in ag bags, but this year we will ensile it in pile.”
Travellers passing Brownsville Farms in the summer often see Holstein cattle on pasture, a scene that is becoming increasingly untypical as dairy management relies more on confinement housing.
“In pasture season, we pasture pregnant heifers and far-off (relatively far from calving) dry cows,” said Nick. “It gets them off concrete, which is good for foot health. And we do realize some labour-saving efficiencies since they graze their feed and spread their own manure.”
On the subject of cow longevity, Nick said, “We have some pretty old cows milking.” He added that they’d just given a calcium injection to a cow that had just delivered her ninth calf.
More than 100 people attended the summer social at Brownsville Farms. A caterer provided burgers, sausages, and chicken, with baked potatoes, various salads, and condiments also on the menu. Nick and Tara, David and Edith, and their extended family were wonderful hosts.
