Four brothers could one day milk 800 cows
By Patrick Meagher
EASTON’S CORNERS — Brian Maitland has more at stake in the dairy business than most farmers can hope for.
He’s got four boys and every one of them wants to farm.
That also comes with a challenge. The 1,800-acre farm, north of Brockville, is milking 146 cows in a tiestall barn that holds 92 cows.
Raising four rough and tumble teenage boys and young men, who scatter and head for the barn when it’s time to wash dishes, Maitland and wife, Barb (nee Dangerfield), knew they had to expand.
They’ve tried to avoid one of the most common regrets that plague expansion: "Should have built it bigger."
The Maitlands built two new barns just down the road.
They built them big and they built them with options to add on new barns and one day milk up to 800 cows, which is about all the new double-16 Boumatic Excalibur 90XL milking parlour can handle.
The barns are so large that oldest son Jeff, 23, jokes with this brothers: "We can each have our own corner."
The impressive expansion attracted about 1,200 people to their open house on Oct. 31, says Jeff, observing that their guests ate about 1,740 doughnuts.
Here are some barn features:
• The main barn, with 207 free stalls in six rows, is 118 ft by 196 ft.
• A breezeway connects to a second barn with milking parlour (118 ft. by 98 ft.) and a special needs and holding area (102 ft. by 70 ft.)
• A double sort gate allows for two places to sort cattle on the way out of the parlour.
• An incline in the holding area and breezeway allows for a water flushing system.
• They installed 12 waterbeds in the old tie-stall barn five years ago and liked it so much they lined all the new freestalls with them.
• Nine large overhead fans with 12 ft. blades.