Vanderhyde Dairy

The Vanderhyde Dairy is an operation run by 3 generations. They milk 1,200 cows 3 times a day and have about 2,400 head on the farm. The cows that are milking are producing 83 lbs a piece/ day. They have a total of 11,000 lbs of milk produced per day and fill 10 trailers a week. All cows have electronic ID's that are read as they enter the parlor. The Vanderhyde's have a carousel milking system.

The weight of the cows and the concrete is 52 tons. The carousel has 36 stalls, they can milk 250 cows in one hour and the parlor runs 18-20 hours a day. There are 27 employees at the dairy and each milking cycle only requires 4 people, 3 in the parlor and 1 to get the cows up. The dairy also has a methane digester. The manure from the alleys, which is scraped every 30 minutes, flows to the holding tank for the digester by gravity. The holding tank is used for fermentation and has the same microbes as a rumen.

The manure must stay in the digester system for 30 days. The solid material is separated from the liquid and the solids make the bedding for the cows and is almost pathogen free. Once it makes it to the digester, which runs 24 hours a day, the digester turns the methane removed in the fermentation process into energy. It produces enough energy to power the entire dairy as  well as 100 other households.



The dairy sells 300,00 kWatts per month at $0.03. The digester requires 44 gallons a month and have to be changed every month. The spark plugs are changed in the machine every other month. The machine was started in 2009 and now has 26,000 hours on it. The dairy industry in the state of Virginia produces $1.2 billion every year.

This was one of the most informational tours we went on. It was nice to see someone that was self-sustained. This combines not only the animal side of agriculture but the crop side as well and the energy efficiency. Seeing how there are many new technological advances in the dairy world it would be a very satisfying job to help dairy farmers through a government agency.