By Rachel Dutil • Photos by Jessica McCafferty
Finding farm labor is one the biggest challenges in agriculture. Two local dairy farms
recently invested in new barns with innovative technologies to help increase efficiency
and decrease labor needs.
Bilow Farms in Malone and Rusty Creek Farm in Chazy have two generations working side by
side. Over the years, each business has moved from a tiestall operation where each cow lives
in a particular stall where they eat, drink, rest, and are often milked in that spot. Today both
farms house their cows in freestall barns, where they live in pens with other cows and can movefreely and choose when to eat, rest or drink. In freestall barns, cows move from their livingspace to the parlor area to be milked.
In July of 2023 Bilow Farms began milking in their new 100-cow rotary parlor. The parlor was
part of a farm expansion and consolidation project that added two 2,000-cow freestall barns and the milking center to a green site on the property.
In February of this year, cows at Rusty Creek Farm moved into a new freestall barn with two
milking robots. Farm owner, Tony LaPierre, explained,” One of the biggest reasons we chose to invest in robotic milking technology is the labor savings. There are fewer and fewer people who want to, or know how to, milk cows,” he said.
Both farms utilize technology that allows them to collect data from each cow that helps them
monitor health and detect their heat cycle. Milk production is also recorded.
Rusty Creek Farm
LaPierre’s son, Alec, and his niece, Conner LaPierre, are the sixth generation working at Rusty Creek Farm. “Both Alec and Conner have brought necessary skill sets back to the farm, and each works well alongside our other key employees,” Tony offered.
Rusty Creek Farm milks a total of 600 cows between two barns on the same property. When aneighboring dairy farmer was looking to retire, LaPierre purchased his herd. That farm was a
member of a different milk cooperative, so milk from the two herds needed to be stored
separately and picked up by two different milk trucks.
When the decision was made to construct a new barn that would require minimal labor to
operate, the LaPierre’s opted for a barn with two robotic milkers and two robotic manure
collectors, all manufactured by Lely. The manure collectors had already been in use in their
other barn and worked well. Alec likened these collectors to “Poop Roombas.” They use GPS and ultrasound and continuously move about the barn collecting manure and dumping it into a collection area. Staff need to enter the pens infrequently, allowing the animals to behave more naturally.
The robotic barn allows the cows to manage their own time and choose when they will be
milked. They must wait a certain number of hours between milkings. If a cow arrives too early at the robot area, it will not be granted access. Sometimes cows who arrive a few minutes early will circle the robot until it gives them access.
When they enter the robotic milking unit, cows are given a ration of grain as a treat which
motivates them to utilize the milking station. Both robots shut down daily for a short period of time for a cleaning and sanitization cycle.
Conner and Alec embrace the new technologies and are grateful there is a place for them on the family farm. Alec has a mechanical engineering degree and is responsible for the
technology across the farm, along with assisting in crop work. Conner is a fresh cow specialist and oversees the needs of the herd in the robot barn.
“You have to have confidence in yourself and what you’re doing,” Alec said. “Especially with
these technologies, with the price of all these new machines. The reason they are so expensive is because they are made to work. These robots are meant to milk cows continuously so they take a beating.”
Conner cannot imagine her world without Rusty Creek Farm. “I grew up here so I’d be lost
without having access to the farm and the cows. These cows have been my whole life so I can’t imagine letting go,” she said.
Bilow Farms
Vincent Bilow’s father originally purchased a farm in Ellenburg and then later purchased part of the current Malone site where the farm operates. Vincent and his wife, Trudy, purchased the farm in 1988.
“I started milking in a tiestall and realized in about 1996 that milking 150 cows in that setup
wasn’t labor friendly. It was taking us 9-10 hours per day to milk the cows. That is when I started making plans to build a freestall and three years later we built it,” Vincent explained. “Ten years into it, I realized the parallel parlor we were using was inefficient and I started making plans to build a parlor where we can milk more cows per hour with less labor. It’s not that people don’t want to work, it’s that there are fewer people available to work. All the people my age are retiring.”
The rotary parlor “has always been my dad’s dream,” Bilow’s daughter, Jessica Kelley, said. A
photo of a rotary parlor hung on the wall in Bilow’s office for nearly ten years as a daily reminder of his goal. Kelley and her brother, Andrew, both work full time on the family farm.
Bilow Farms currently milks 4800 cows daily. The new parlor can milk between 650-700 cows
per hour, which results in a milk volume of between 2,300 and 3,000 gallons daily. Milk is
pumped directly into trucks. Six trucks of milk are shipped from the farm each day.
Bilow explained the parlor is designed for efficiency, allowing the operation to exceed the
industry standard of about 70 cows milked per employee per day. His goal is to milk over 100
cows per person within the next two years. Bilow Farms currently has 62 employees.
Assistant Herdsman Carley Premo studied Dairy Production Management at SUNY Cobleskill
and recently joined the Bilow Farms team. “These are some of the happiest cows I have ever
seen,” he said. “I grew up on a small dairy farm. Coming from that to this, I thought it would be a huge change. I expected there would be a lot of aggressive cows and problems. But it’s not like that. These cows are constantly chewing their cud. They seem comfortable and happy.”
Cows enter the slowly rotating parlor system and employees use FutureCow brushes to prep
them for milking. Two brushes are used on each cow. The first brush cleans and sanitizes the
teats and the second brush cleans and dries the teats before the milking units are attached.
“One of the exciting things we discovered with our rotary is the calmness of our cows, Bilow
said. “When they are on the rotary, they are relaxed.” Kelley noted, “and the staff is calmer and less rushed as well.”
As cows come toward the end of the parlor rotation, the milking units are automatically
removed, and a robotic system sprays a disinfectant on the teats before the cows exit the parlor.
The entire parlor rotation takes about eight minutes. With the new barn and milking center, Bilow Farms also invested in a methane digester and sand separation system. The digester breaks down the manure into biogas and solids. The solids are then put through a separation system where the sand is removed and is reused as bedding for the cows.
Farm Sustainability
Both Bilow Farms and Rusty Creek Farm have generations before them and hope to have
generations ahead of them carrying on their farming legacy.
“Each generation has had experience with new technology, and things are only moving faster now. Where it used to be a 20-year interval for new emerging technologies, it’s down to about ten, or maybe even a five-year interval. Technology is moving so fast, and we need to adapt to best move our businesses forward.” Tony LaPierre concluded.
Bilow Farms
1105 County Route 24
Malone, NY 12953
Rusty Creek Farm
787 Stetson Road
Chazy, NY 12921
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