RENFREW — The Van Lindenberg family loves its 24-stall rotary milking parlour.

Two years after installing the DeLaval parlour, Farmers Forum asked the proverbial questions: What do you like best and least about it?"

It becomes quickly apparent there’s a lot of upside.

"The highlight is it’s a one person operation," said 21-years-old Matthijs. "We can put through 100 cows in an hour."

That means the farm family save two hours a day while milking more cows. Matthijs milks in the evening. His older brother, Barend, who turns 28 on Dec. 18, milks in the morning.

The downside? "It’s a steel platform," Matthijs said, explaining that when the hooves hit the steel, the noise can frighten. "It scares oncoming cows. It’s pretty loud."

To resolve that they’re going to install a rubber mat. "They’re selling parlours now that come with rubber floors, so they’re pre-made."

Barend agrees. They were taking 2 hours and 15 minutes to milk 85 cows in a double-five herringbone parlour until they made the switch. The savings of an hour for each milking means they can now cash crop more land and do custom work. The downside for Barend is also the clanging sound as hoof hits steel. "Some cows get nervous when they get to the steel deck," he said. "If I had to do it again, I’d go rotary, no question. That’s what I tell everyone, especially now. It’s hard to find labour. When you do find someone, most guys want to be on a tractor."

To solve that problem, they’re going through the paper work now to hire a Dutch worker for one year.

Surprisingly, their father Arie had worked on a rotary parlour 30 years ago at an agricultural college in Holland. Arie suggested they go rotary as it was the hands-down winner in time savings at the Dutch college, where the rotary parlour operated beside a herringbone parlour.

The family immigrated to Canada in 1988. They bought an internal rotary – you milk from inside of the circle-shaped parlour — because one milker can do the job.

Jeff Pietersma, north of Brockville, installed a Westfalia-Surge external 36-stall rotary parlour almost two years ago because he wanted more cows through in an hour and with a larger population base to draw from, he has hired hands. The external parlour needs two guys to work it. There’s only one thing Peitersma would do differently if he were back at the planning stage. "I would go even bigger to a 50-stall," he said, figuring the price tag would bump up the price from $500,000 to about $750,000.

"We could not be happier," he said, noting that it is a significant accomplishment to spend so much money and be so satisfied.

Pietersma gets 150 cows through the parlour in an hour. He milks 450 cows and thinks big. Within the next year-and-a-half he expects to be milking 600 cows. He has seven hired hands and four grown daughters now at university. He expects two will return to the farm to manage the business. Pietersma is 67.

His operation, Hillside Farms, at the village of Lyn (blink and you miss it), was named business of the year in Eliabethtown-Kitley Township, where "thinking outside the box" is one criterian that judges consider. His wife Noreen joked that the prize is "years of hard work."