Krahn family has fully recovered from fire on their farm

By Jack Elliott
Correspondent

Cloudy skies, showers and a chilly breeze on Friday afternoon didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of scores of well-wishers touring Rainy Acre, the Herman and Annie Krahn family farm in Dawson Municipality, just east of Rainy River. It was just over a year ago Krahn’s dairy operation was wiped out by a devastating fire, that destroyed not only the barn, but most of the herd. Today it has been replaced with a million dollar plus investment in the latest in dairy farm technology.
Herman and sons Daniel, Calvin and Bennet were busy demonstrating and explaining the technology used while Herman’s wife Annie, and the rest of the family were busy welcoming guests and preparing hotdogs and hamburgers.
From the milking machines to waste handling a great deal of thought has gone into design and construction of this ultramodern operation to provide an exceptional environment not only for the animals, but also their keepers.
The plywood used in the walls and ceiling has an exterior laminated plastic surface to ease cleaning and provide moisture proofing. The fasteners are stainless steel screws to prevent corrosion, explained Krahn.
The climate of the barn is computer-controlled with fans and ventilation channels operating in sync to keep the air fresh and comfortable. The floors are covered with 3⁄4” thick rubber matting to provide comfortable, slip-resistance footing for cattle and humans alike. The cow stalls have an additional under rubber, foam pad to provide the ultimate in comfort for those hooves. Comfortable cows produce more milk, and remain productive for more years explained Krahn.
And if you still think things are simple down on the farm, think again. The milk handling system boasts the latest in energy efficient heating and cooling. Milk coming in from the pipeline first passes though a fine filter and then a heat exchanger where it’s temperature is dropped to 10 degrees Celsius before entering the bulk storage tank. The water, already softened and now warmed is stored in conventional hot water tanks. The refrigeration compressors reduce the temperature of the milk in the bulk tank to 3 degrees Celsius, transferring the heat and further warming the water. The water is then superheated to over 75 degrees Celsius (a temperature required for sanitizing the milking equipment and pipelines) by the outdoor furnace. This attention to detail not only saves on energy costs, it helps insure top quality milk by rapidly reducing its temperature to an optimum storage state.
While computerized systems and technology help to produce the very best of farm products, it is the knowledge and the care of the farmer for his animals that is the major factor.
“We wash each cow’s udder individually, sanitize, and wipe them with these single-service, microfibre cloths. The cloths are then laundered after each use to make sure they are 100% clean,” explained Krahn.
The housing system for the livestock is divided into calf barn, dry-stock loose housing and milking cow stanchions.
“I guess I was born a tie-stall person,” laughed Krahn, explaining his choice of tie-stalls over loose housing/milking parlor combinations.
“It takes more labour this way, but we can give cows individual attention, and it allows the younger members of the family to contribute to running the operation,” said Krahn emphasizing the strong family commitment necessary for the successful operation of a dairy farm.
Krahn replaced their lost herd with two complete herds purchased in Manitoba and a number of individual and groups of cows from other producers in Manitoba as well as locally. The 76-stall barn has a complement of registered Ayrshires, red and white Holsteins, black and white Holsteins and one Jersey, a pet named Gertrude. With a 66 kg butterfat quota, the dairy pumps out over 1800 litres, close to two tones, of whole milk per day.
The herd is fed what is referred to as TMR or Total Mixed Ration, a combination of haylage, silage, grain, vitamins and minerals. All components are formulated, balanced, weighed and mixed to insure an optimum diet for a healthy, productive herd.
Livestock operations produce a lot of byproduct- manure. Nutrient management has become an integral part of modern farms. At Krahn’s, all manure and straw bedding is chopped into a slurry and along with waste water from washing operations pumped into a leak-proof lagoon where it is stored until it can be recycled onto crop land as organic fertilizer. Under Ontario regulations a 240-day storage capacity is mandated. Krahn calculates they have closer to 360 days storage, allowing them a more flexible application timetable if inclement weather delays field work.
“ We would like to apply it to our corn land, but with a wet spring like this we can wait and put it on either grassed fields or land we are going to work up for next year’s crops,” he explained.
With only about a dozen dairy farms left in the Rainy River District, down from forty in the mid 1970s, the Krahns’ investment in their new expanded operation is a substantial boost to the local agricultural community. Most District milk produced is shipped to Grunthal, MB or Thunder Bay, ON. For their beef and dairy operations, Krahns’ now farm about 2500 acres around the Town of Rainy River, up from their previous 1500.
“We would sincerely like to express our appreciation to the community for all the help, support and good wishes we have received. We were certainly blessed in the midst of a calamity,” said Krahn near the end of a busy day, acknowledging his neighbours, near and far.
The operation was destroyed on April 19, 2007, with only a portion of the loss covered through the Mennonite Mutual Aid Association. The first cow was milked in the new barn on Nov 1 last year.