A Saskatchewan dairy farm is using high-tech robotics and a computer program to milk the cows while the farmers sleep.

Eli Waldner, dairy boss for the McGee Hutterite Colony near Rosetown, Sask., told CBC News the system has made his life a lot easier. For starters, it has eliminated the need for him to get up at 3:00 a.m.

Instead, a computerized milking and feeding system looks after the chores, 24 hours a day.

Each cow in the herd wears a chip that communicates with a central computer.

The system begins with a cow, feeling the urge to be milked or fed, moving through a series of gates to a stall where the animal knows it will be tended to.

The computer system knows if Bessie is due for a milking or ready for more feed based on the history it has stored for each animal.

Sensors pick up the cow’s chip to provide location information, allowing the computer to open the appropriate gates to guide the animal along to either a feeding station or the milking system.

Inside the milking stall, a robot arm takes over.

It uses laser beams to check udders and direct a fine spray to wash and disinfect teats.

Then it attaches hoses and starts milking. The computer will even perform an individualized — and important — lab test.

“It can take a sample of the milk and actually do a cell test,” Phil Bourke, a veterinarian familiar with the system told CBC News. “So it can pick up blood or abnormal colour in the milk. And if it is there it can divert the milk to a waste system.”

The system costs approximately $330,000. However, Bourke said that can be paid back in one year through increased milk production.

The system is new to Canada but has been around in Europe and other parts of North America for the past 15 years. Bourke predicted that in the next 10 years, most dairy farms in Canada will have a robot.

Waldner said it has allowed him to sleep in until 6:00 a.m. and even then there is not much work for him.

“Actually I wouldn’t have to get up at that time. But I want to give hay,” he said.

Source: cbcnews.ca

The new Midway Hutterite Colony in Pondera County is not only home to 19 families who previously lived at Miller Colony, it is also home to a 60,000-square foot, climate-controlled high-tech pig barn, where colony members raise USDA-certified natural pork.

The new colony farm was created in June when Miller Colony’s membership split and 76 individuals in 19 families made the move across country to Midway, located about 10 miles northwest of the small rural community of Brady. Miller is located in Teton County, about four miles south of Bynum.

For the past three years, colony members have been preparing the family farming and ranching operation, building a 24-unit apartment complex in which each apartment has three bedrooms and basement storage, and constructing a new church, a new school, a dining hall and pig, cattle and chicken barns, a slaughter house, plus a garage, blacksmith shop, carpenter’s workshop, grain bins and other outbuildings.

The crown jewel of the operation, however, might be considered the new pig barn. Construction on the barn began in September 2005, according to the Midway pig boss, David “Shorty” Hofer, and in April 2006 the pigs moved in. Colony members have been farrowing there for two full years now, maintaining about 480 to 500 breeding sows at the barn.

Hofer said the USDA “natural pork” designation means Midway hogs are fed no antibiotics to promote growth or enhance performance. Also, no hormone or hormone-like growth enhancement drugs are used in the market pigs.

Not only are the pigs raised essentially drug free, but the entire program is designed to comply with the National Pork Board’s Swine Welfare Assurance Program, in which animal health and comfort are priorities. Hofer said he and all the men who work in the pig barn have taken the Swine Welfare Assurance Program training. He said three colony members work full-time in the barn, and others help weekly with shipping.

The Midway crew is also certified through the National Pork Board’s Pork Quality Assurance program and the shippers who handle the market pigs are certified through Transporter Quality Assurance, Hofer said.

The new barn includes a breeding and lactation area for the sows; a nursery, where sows and their piglets are kept in climate-controlled conditions; and different sections for the market pigs as they grow and require different feed rations. “We treat our sows right,” Hofer said. “We care for them individually.

In the nursery, the temperature is set at an even 80 degrees after the piglets are born, and then the temperature is gradually reduced so that by the time the piglets move into the “grower” section, they are comfortable at 75 degrees.

In the grower section, the temperature is further reduced to 72 degrees. By the time the young pigs are moved to the finish area, the temperature is an even 70 degrees. When temperatures outside start to heat up, the pigs are cooled through the use of high-pressure misting coolers.

“These pigs are never heat stressed,” Hofer said.

The young pigs are housed in large communal pens. They become accustomed to walking down alleys through a gate to get to their “food court” and then returning to their group sleeping area. The gate that they walk through is outfitted with an “auto sort” scale device. When the pigs are almost at market age, this system is used to sort the pigs by weight without stressing them.

Consuming a mix of barley, corn and soy — none of which includes chemicals, animal byproducts or preservatives — the pigs will gain about one pound of weight for every three pounds of feed they consume. When the piglets are weaned off their mothers at 20 days of age, they each weigh about 14 pounds. About 150 days later, when the young pigs have now grown to about 260 pounds, they are ready for market. Hofer said the pigs are “finished” on barley, which provides an even, firm layer of fat that is desireable in top-quality pork.

With a constant rotation of animals, the colony is able to market 200 to 230 pigs a week, year-round.

Hofer said Midway Colony is member of Salmon Creek Farms, based in Twin Falls, Idaho, an association of family farmers and a family-owned processer dedicated to natural pork production.     Midway, like other partners in Salmon Creek Farms, is audited by an outside third party who checks the pig operation for compliance with industry standards for natural pork production.

Hofer said Midway’s pork is marketed under the Falls Brand meats label and is available in Montana at IGA grocery stores, including Eagle IGA in Fairfield; at Wal-Mart in some cities; and at 2 J’s Meat and Produce in Great Falls, along with several independent grocery stores from Libby to Roundup. Rex’s Market in Choteau sometimes has Falls Brand hotdogs and ribs, Hofer said.

The majority of Salmon Creek Farms natural pork is shipped to high-end restaurants across the United States and to customers in Asia through Independent Meat Co.’s Asia Distribution Center in Taipei, Taiwan.

Hofer said Midway is among 16 farms in Montana that produce natural pork for Salmon Creek and most of those farms are operated by Hutterites. In Teton County, New Rockport Colony is a member of Salmon Creek Farms and in Pondera County three colonies (including Midway), produce for the company.

Hofer said 70 percent of the pork production in Montana goes to Salmon Creek Farms. Overall, Hutterite colonies produce about 90 percent of the pork raised in the state.

Article Source: The Choteau Achantha

We visited several times on the phone and her editors approved her coming to Montana a few Sundays back. We went to the colony where I was raised, and hence the story below was born…

This Story was written by Elizabeth Holmes of the Wall Street Journal and can be found on the front page of the Tuesday, September 4, 2007 edition.

View The Photos From The Story (Most of the people in the pictures are my family and the first little girl in the first picture (the really cute one:) is my niece ..my lil’ angel Chubba aka. Katrin)

Picture number 5 is good ole pops … My Father… and NO he had no idea he was going to be in the paper. He does not like the idea at all but ah well, there is nothing he can do about it and I apologize to him for any backlash he may have received.

I would like to add that some of the people in this story, are upset with some of the personal information that is shared…. I personally think it is no big deal but unfortunately some people have blown this whole thing out of context. WOW! Big Surprise… lol.. (I know only a select group of people will understand what I mean by that and we will leave it at that)

One more sidenote: To those people who think this story is pointless, please focus your attention on the important things in life and not petty little things like a Hutterite being featured in the Wal Street Journal... Like I told my sis, “You have accomplished something that most people can and will never do in their entire lifetime, (you were on the front page of the Wall Street Journal for Gosh Sakes:) so appreciate your 15 minutes of fame and do not let the dream-stealer’s and naysayers get to you”

——–Here is the story——–

For Montana Sect, Cellphones Send Mixed Message

Hutterite Colony Allows Technology — for Work; Elsie Asks, ‘How r u?’

By ELIZABETH HOLMES
September 4, 2007; Page A1

MARTINSDALE, Mont. — Elsie Wipf lives a simple life, picking vegetables, sewing clothes for her brothers and sisters and butchering chickens. She also goes to church every day and knits slippers in her spare time.

That is, when she isn’t sending her friends text messages, like “btw how r u 2 day.”

The 35-year-old Ms. Wipf, who got her first cellphone three months ago, is a Hutterite. The roughly 49,000 members of the Anabaptist Christian group, living in colonies in the northern U.S. plains and in Canada, are related to the Amish. They strive to live lives built on faith and family. They grow their own food, make their own clothes and shun many practices of the outside world.

But unlike the Amish, who live mostly unplugged, the Hutterites embrace technology — as long as they feel it improves their colonies. Farming equipment is allowed, for instance; TV sets and other entertaining electronic equipment aren’t.

Now that cheap cellphones have come to rural areas, the question is being asked throughout the roughly 470 Hutterite colonies: Are cellphones useful? Answers differ. A colony outside Winnipeg, Manitoba, allows just five cellphones, and they are shared by 126 people. The Warden Colony in Washington bought its combine drivers Bluetooth wireless headsets to talk while tilling the colony’s 25,000 acres.

In Martinsdale, cellphones are dividing families. Ms. Wipf says that she sent more than 150 text messages in the first two days after she got her phone — much to the consternation of her father. His opinion matters greatly: He is the head preacher of the colony. “It’s against our rules,” Ms. Wipf explains.

Hutterites, named after Jacob Hutter, who was burned as a heretic in 1536, had for years banned conventional telephones. Many homes didn’t even have indoor plumbing. But although Hutterites still speak in their own German dialect, their colonies have changed with the introduction of advances like tractors and automobiles.

Cellphones have had a different effect: The array of available devices with different accessories goes against the communal colony dynamic. Features such as cameras and Internet access — which are banned or severely restricted in nearly all colonies — open up a tantalizing window to the outside world.

“They can phone whoever they want,” says a colony elder, “and have somebody pick ‘em up and go places where they shouldn’t go.”

In this 48-year-old colony, 120 miles northwest of Billings, the 141 residents are members of the Lehrerleut branch, the most conservative of the four types of Hutterites. The neutral-colored metal buildings, including four apartment complexes, a church and barns for hogs, chickens, cows and turkeys, dot a small section of the 15,000 acres of hilly farmland. Each of the 29 families got individual land lines for the first time in November.

Cellphones began to appear here nearly a decade ago and have slowly made their way into the hand-sewn pockets of the residents. Between cellphones provided by the colony and those supplied by outsiders, a total count is hard to come by (it’s somewhere between six and 30, depending on whom you ask). Just six of the phones are paid for by the colony; the rest are spirited in by residents.

Paul Wipf, Elsie’s father, carries one of the colony-sanctioned cellphones. He uses it to do business. But Mr. Wipf, 67, says cellphones in his colony have gone “too far.” They can be a distraction and — of great concern — a link to the outside world that makes leaving the colony easier. Mr. Wipf has yet to enforce strict rules on “illegal” cellphones or discipline users, because, he concedes: “I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of them.”

The most obvious threat cellphones pose is to productivity. The sprawling farming operation turns out 19,000 pounds of milk to send every other day to Meadow Gold Dairies and tons of potatoes that it sells each year to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The fear is that more texting will mean less working.

Ms. Wipf carries her cellphone most days as she does her chores. She keeps it out of sight, tucked safely into the folds of her long skirt. Weeding a row of beets by herself in the 11-acre vegetable garden gives her a chance to get in a few text messages.

Over the course of a month, Ms. Wipf sends hundreds of text messages, occasionally exceeding her allotment of 1,000. Alltel Corp. is her service provider. She texts mostly within the colony but also sends messages to friends and family elsewhere. “She’s constantly on the cellphone and not doing what she’s supposed to be doing,” said Mary Wipf, her mother, one Sunday recently. Elsie laughed off the jab as she jumped up to get a glass of water for her brother.

Cellphones also upset a social order that blurs differences between individuals. The Hutterites’ communal lifestyle means everybody owns everything, and nobody owns anything. They wear the same garb, eat together in one dining room and live in cookie-cutter apartments. The colony elders distribute things by family, from handmade furniture to Haagen-Dazs mint chip ice cream.

To pay for cellphones not provided by the colony, Hutterites seek outside help. Ms. Wipf’s cellphone, an LG AX-490, was furnished to her by a brother who left the colony more than a decade ago. Other women tap their ex-Hutterite boyfriends who have left the colony to earn money and live on their own. The beckoning oil fields, where many of the teenage boys go, pay as much as $40 an hour, according to one Hutterite. Typically, they come back to the colony after a few years to get married. Some of their new discretionary income pays for their girlfriends’ cellphones.

The setup allows men to stay in contact with the colony and gives the women a peek at life on the outside. Rita Wipf, a colony resident, has such a boyfriend outside who pays for her cellphone. She sends more than 1,600 text messages a month, including a recent one to her best friend, Elsie Wipf (no relation), that read like a typical young person’s lament: “[It] is so boring here at home.” The 28-year-old believes cellphones are a natural addition to the colony. “As the world changes, we change, too,” she says.

Men in the colony who want cellphones use work connections with non-Hutterites to get them. Several years ago, Mike Kleinsasser, the colony’s electrician, grew tired of standing in line to use the community’s only phone, tucked inside an elder’s house. Mr. Kleinsasser asked an electric-company representative for one — and had a cellphone within a week. “If you’re a businessman, you have to have one,” he says.

For teenage boys, cellphones can be a pathway to life outside the colony. Carnie Wipf, Elsie’s 18-year-old nephew, watched many of his friends take off for the oil fields and, thanks to his cellphone, got blow-by-blow accounts of their adventures going to movies, watching TV and buying clothes. He knew he could have a job waiting for him and that he could make $22.50 an hour — more than five times his monthly allowance in the colony.

So, last April, Carnie Wipf hitched a ride into Billings with other colony members. In town, he split from the group and said he would find his way back. That night, he used his cellphone to call his mother and tell her he had left the colony, with no immediate plans to return. Would he have left without a cellphone? “The honest truth, I’m not sure,” Carnie said.

Carnie, whose late father was a blacksmith at the colony, cuts steel at a local manufacturer and delivers pizza at night. He misses calving and harvesting but finds comfort in his friends, all of whom are ex-Hutterites with cellphones. He uses his cellphone to call his mom every day. “She wants to know, ‘How is life on the outside?’ and I tell her, ‘Going real well.’ ”

But he adds: “The grass is not as green as I figured it would be.”

—————- End of story ——————–

Additional Side Note: As a side note to this story. I pay for 2 of the cells phones that SOME of my family members have. The cell phone my father has is provided by the Colony.

Update 2010: Everything is still pretty much the same.  Cell phones are still a controversial topic in the Lehrerleut Hutterite Colonies.  Why? I cannot speak for that.  Rules are rules:)