Skyview Dairy

About The Farm

Skyview Dairy Farm is a family owned and operated dairy that has been in continuous operation since 1968. The dairy was first started by Daryl Luthens in June of 1968 with 7 cows. The feed storage facilities consisted of one stave. In the next 27 years another stave was added along with five harvesters. At that time, the cows were milked in a flat parlour. In 1975, Daryl replaced the flat parlour with a Surge double five and in 1989 the Surge parlour was replaced with a Westafalia double nine Herringbone which is equipped with automatic detachers, electric crowd gate, and indexing stalls. In 1995 four bunkers were added and are currently used to hold one years crop of corn silage and four different crops of haylage. Cows are fed a total mixed ration one time daily Skyview dairy created a new milking facility in 2004 with a new double 40 parrell Westfalia parlour and added a 360 stall barn bringing the milking herd to 1150 cows. The farm is currently managed by the Luthens Family, Daryl and his four sons; Shane, Brandon, Justin and Garrett.

Photobucket

Currently we milk between 1100 and 1150 cows a day.

There are 19 full time employees at Skyview dairy.

We grow many crops including barley, alfalfa, corn, corn silage and beans.

Our cows produce around 75 pounds of milk a day per cow (that's a little under 9 gallons!)

The cows consume 95 pounds of feed a day, each. They also drink up to 40(yes, 40!) gallons of water a day.

Cows sleep as little as 1 hour a day. And, no, they don't sleep standing up!

A cow is pregnant for 9 months before she calves.

A cow is two years old before she starts giving milk.

It takes 10 pounds of milk to make 1 pound of cheese.

A calf is weaned from milk after only 2 months. She will then gain a pound and a half of weight a day for the next 18 months.

A cow really has only one stomach, called the Rumen, and it has four chambers.

These are a few of the many interesting things about our farm.

Mission Statement:

We aim to operate a family dairy that will be a profitable enterprise and will provide high quality dairy products. In our endeavors to become the area innovator in dairy farming, we aim to keep every cow as healthy and happy as possible. We will treat her with our undivided attention like she was the only one. We will promote the best possible dairy products for others to enjoy.