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ALTURA, Minn. - When Ben Verthein was thinking about upgrading his facility, he thought robots were the way to go.
"We visited robots in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. We had all the plans drawn out (to switch to robots)," Verthein said.
But the robots never came about. Now, Verthein's new retrofitted facility is a double-12 parallel parlor with rapid exit.
"Our other parlor was tired. We had to do something," said Verthein, who farms with his dad, Steve, on their 450-cow dairy near Altura, Minn.
Since milking cows for the first time in the double-12 parlor in July, Verthein said it has been a big improvement.
"The employees like it better. There's more lighting, it's brighter and there's more open space," Verthein said.
The farm employs nine part-time milkers and two other full-time people. Ben takes care of the cows as herdsman while his dad keeps up the crop end of the farm.
The new parlor has also helped cut down on milking time from seven hours per shift in the old one to six hours in the new.
"It didn't save as much time as I thought, but the milkers spend a lot more time cleaning this one than the old one," Verthein said.
The extra time gives the Vertheins options for the future such as adding more cows to milk or milking the high producing group of cows four times a day. The current three milkings each day are scheduled for 4 a.m., noon and 8 p.m.
"We'll see what happens," Verthein said.
Retrofitting the parlor into an existing barn had its challenges.
"If we would have gone from scratch, we would have made the pit bigger, but we had to deal with what we had," he said.
However, the Vertheins were able to take out part of the hay mow to raise the roof to 12 feet.
Converting from a herringbone parlor to a parallel parlor also caused confusion for the cows.
"They were used to walking right in and stopping. We had to turn every single one. The first two weeks were hell," Verthein said.
The new facility has cabinets to house the meters, which used to be exposed in the old setup.
"In the old parlor that was the main monthly repair. It was costly," Verthein said. "For what I was spending on the old parlor I could justify building a new one."
The new one replaces a parlor first built by Verthein's grandpa, Kermit, as a double-5 in 1967, and then later expanded to a double-6. Verthein returned to the farm in 2000 after graduating from Ridgewater College in Hutchinson, Minn. In 2006, he bought his uncle's share of the farm. Shortly after, Verthein started looking for ways to upgrade, which started with plans for the robots.
"Then I saw a DeLaval rotary parlor at (World Dairy) Expo and it took my idea away from the robots. But, the rotary wouldn't be available (in the United States) for a few years so we went with a new parlor," Verthein said.
At first, Verthein was trying to figure out how to fit a new parlor in the old building, even contemplating leaving one side as a herringbone and changing the other to parallel.
"Then Dad had an idea to put it in a different spot," Verthein said.
There was a portion of the barn perpendicular to the parlor that used to be housing for weaned calves; however, after building a new youngstock shed in the late 1990s, that portion of the barn sat empty.
They decided to build in that area, allowing them to use the same holding pen and milk house.
It also allowed them to build an office in the rest of the old hay mow that overlooks the new parlor. The office helps remind them of their family's earlier years of farming and even contains a small portion of the ceiling hay conveyer.
Eventually, the old parlor will be used as a hospital area and for hoof trimming.
The new setup also put them in motion to build a new manure pit, which was finished in December. The 7-million gallon pit has two stages and is separated into solids with sand and liquids.
Verthein said he is enjoying the new parlor, but still thinks about the future. If the dairy added cows, it would mean an expansion with a new barn.
"We're maxed out at capacity with our buildings," Verthein said.
And, farther down the road, the idea of a rotary is still there. For now, this new parlor is a much-needed upgrade.
"Everything is working out," Verthein said.
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