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November - December 2014 w w w. k y d a i r y. o r g
Milk Matters Considering Robots? Eight questions to ask yourself. Find out more on page 6 Spencer County Dairy Judging Team are National Champs More info on page 11 Kentucky Dairy Partners Annual Meeting Dates Set Find out more on page 15
Kentucky Dairy Family Making History excellence, the real priority and motivation for installing a robotic milking system was to spend more family time together for the n November 18 th 2014 Eddie Gibson, his wife Marcy Gibsons. Eddie and Marcy explained, “Maddie will only grow up once and we want to be there to and daughter Maddison enjoy it with her.” made Kentucky Dairy The vision for such an Industry history. It was on advancement of technology for this day that their cows were the Gibson’s dairy began long milked by a robotic milker! Edbefore this day for Eddie and his family. Ten years ago Eddie Mar Dairy owned and operated had the idea to install a robotic by the Gibson Family was the system but he knew it wasn’t first Kentucky dairy to install a the right time. He felt the robotic milking system. infrastructure for service and Ed-Mar Dairy, is a 50 cow support was not sufficient and Holstein farm located in Kenton the financial challenge would County, near Walton in Northern be too great with the other Kentucky. Eddie, a fourth plans they had at the time. generation dairyman, has always In 2006 the Gibsons decided strived to achieve excellence in all to build a new facility to milk areas of his operation. Providing and house their Holstein cows. optimum cow comfort is evident They constructed a free stall by the way his cows perform with barn which would use sand as a Rolling Herd Average of 26,400 bedding and designed a flush pounds. Eddie strives to produce system creating a healthy and and market the highest quality milk, Eddie Gibson, with his wife Marcy and their daughter Maddison at clean environment for the cows. evident by a consistent low Somatic their farm in Kenton County. They installed a filtration system Cell Count under 100,000. The with settling pools to recycle the sand and separate the solids and care of the environment is always a concern and Eddie is involved reuse the liquid to flush. This system allows them to recycle over in several best management practices to maintain water quality and two-thirds of the sand used for bedding. The parlor they built was soil health. They also incorporate several energy saving methods to a double six herringbone where the cows were being milked twice be more efficient and minimize their carbon footprint. Although daily. The unique feature about the new barn’s layout was Eddie everything mentioned above demonstrates Eddie’s commitment to By Jennifer Hickerson and Beth Cox
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