Editor’s Note: Back in June, Scott Stephenson, a reporter with The Citizen, our sister publication, visited the Hallahan dairy farm near Blyth to learn about dairy farming and celebrate National Dairy Month. You’ll quickly realize he didn’t grow up on a farm but how he saw modern dairy farming was funny, appreciative and informative. This story stands on its own but can also encourage all modern farmers to open their doors to non-farming friends and neighbours so they can experience it too.

To properly ring in the 87th edition of National Dairy Month, The Citizen decided to finally shake off the persistent, antiquated notions about milk production cobbled together from the half-remembered cartoons of youth and replace them with cold hard facts that might just finally solve the mystery of how milk really makes its way from cow to consumer in the 21st century. 

Finding a farm willing to give us a guided tour was easy — there are over 3,000 dairy farms in Ontario alone — and one of them is located near Blyth. A quick car ride later and we were at Hallahan’s Dairy Farm, greeted by not one but two generations of the Hallahan family —proprietors Steve and Arletta Hallahan, and their daughters, Grace and Sarah. All four of them were excited to divest us of the opaque weight of our unpasteurized ignorance.

Steve Hallahan, the latest in a long line of farming Hallahans, led us straight through the industrial-chic milking barn, right to a room in the middle of the action. Inside was the Lely Astronaut — an intuitive, automatic milking machine designed with a cow’s comfort in mind. “This is the whole heart of the operation,” he said with just the slightest hint of reverence. “This is... The Robot.”

Any and all childish notions one might have of a sluggish farmer moving from one reluctant ungulate to the next as he fills a galvanized bucket with the day’s milk were dashed to pieces forever the moment The Robot started doing its thing. The cows weren’t remotely reluctant. In fact, more than a few of the farm’s 65 Holsteins had gathered around the milker, seemingly waiting patiently for a turn.

As it turns out, these thoroughly modern dairy cows have been liberated from the shackles of the farmer’s schedule — each black and white beauty gets to decide when they want to be milked, and how often. And some of these ladies get milked a lot.

 “A fresh cow might come in here every six hours,” he explained, “but a cow that’s at the end of her lactation might come in every 12 to 14 hours to get milked. They set their own time for whenever they want to come in.” Each cow that ventures into the milking area is also rewarded with a tasty snack. “There’s a wee bit of grain in that manger there - that’s what keeps them coming back to The Robot,” he confided.

In 1942, Simon Hallahan was milking cows by hand, as hydro was not available. The purchase of a gas-powered milking machine successfully sped up production for a time, before it burned down the barn. After the family went into debt to rebuild it, the barn burned down again - this time in 1966.

When a cow enters the milking booth, a pair of whirling brushes leaps forward, gently washes the lucky lady’s udder and returns to its original position, where it is automatically sterilized. Udders are just like snowflakes - no two are exactly alike, which is one of the reasons why The Robot uses lasers to pinpoint the location of each individual teat, so each piebald bovine can enjoy the comfort and luxury of a custom fit, every time the milkers move themselves into position. The machine also responds to the cow’s every movement, moving along with it to prevent unnecessary pain and stress during the milking process. As far as they know, the Hallahans were the first dairy farmers in the area to take a chance on this cutting edge, costly machine, but the gamble paid off, and they’ve never looked back.

Various sensors also record each individual cow’s temperature and files it away, along with 200 other bits of useful data that give Steve an overview of that animal’s well being. Each member of the herd is equipped with a cool collar that allows the computer to correctly identify her.

Younger daughter Sarah believes that this modern, automated approach to dairy farming provides her with significantly more free time to focus on her true passion: dairy farming! “Another great thing with technology is not spending four hours a day just milking alone. Now we’re spending that time vaccinating, cleaning and doing other things to make our herd better. It had a positive effect, in a way, because now we can do all these other things that we didn’t have enough time in the day for. It makes it easier to grow our herd, and improve it.” In addition to The Robot, there are two other helper-bots on site that clear loose feed off the floor and muck out the barn on a regular basis. While the robots do the dirty work, Sarah spends a little extra time with her favourite cow, the one she raised in her 4-H Club. “She’s just extra friendly. And some cows are just outgoing. Some just chill and do their own thing. And some cows are just trouble!” she exclaimed, before becoming a bit reflective. “I think 4-H is definitely a good thing to get involved with. And there’s so many different clubs, not just, like, the livestock. There’s lifestyle clubs and a lot of great leaders.”

Steve, who grew up milking cows the old-fashioned way, also appreciates the freedom the family robots afford them. “At our old barn, it would have been three of us in the barn all day, doing chores. Now, one person runs everything here.” Arletta, a self-proclaimed “town girl”, may not spend much time working in the barn, but she still has high praise for the milking machine. “Steve was in the barn 24/7 until we got The Robot. It can also call Steve’s phone if something’s wrong with it. We’ve been away before and it called, so we just FaceTimed the neighbours and had them reset it.”

Steve’s father, Frank, is the only one not singing The Robot’s praises. He still likes to help out around the farm, but he prefers the hands-on approach to farming that he’s always used. He can tell a lot about how an animal is feeling through simple observation. “He’d just come here and watch cattle,” Arletta recalled. “Watch them and just know which ones were in heat.”

Spending his childhood working alongside Frank made Steve sure he wanted to be a farmer at an early age. “Dad and I have always been in the barn together… I’ve had rubber boots on since I was five years old.” After a 25-year succession plan that included partnering with his parents, the farm is finally Steve and Arletta’s. “You could almost say I’m a new farmer for getting the farm, but I’ve been here for 30 years.”

All the cows that are too young to breed, in heat or newly pregnant are housed in the breeding barn — their vitals are monitored remotely, from the office. “We’ve been in this barn for 16 years now,” Steve recalled.” It’s kind of a funny story. The carpenters were here putting those doors on, they wanted me to help, and I said ‘I can’t, I gotta get [Arletta] to the hospital’, and then [Sarah] was born.” That’s how we remember the exact day the doors went on.”

In 1856, Dennis Hallahan and his family left their home in Ireland, made the perilous journey across the Atlantic Ocean, and built a new life in Wawanosh, Ontario, with the hope that the fertile earth would allow their family to flourish. And flourish they have! In the 168 years since arriving in Huron County, members of the Hallahan clan have worked to enrich rural lives time and again, be it running for township council, joining the Plowmen’s Association, or the Knights of Columbus, or the Blyth Fire Board, or, in the case of local legend and founder of the Huron Pioneer Threshers and Hobby Association, Simon Hallahan, all of the above.

Now that the 25-year succession plan with his parents has come to an end, it’s just about time to start crafting a succession plan that works for their own children. Grace and Sarah both want to continue being involved with agriculture but are approaching the situation from two very different, but complementary angles. Sarah wants to take on the mantle of running the family farm as soon as she’s done school, while Grace is considering various career paths as she pursues a degree in Political Science at Guelph. “I always liked public speaking,” she said. “I thought it would be very interesting to work for the county, or become an MP. But looking now, there’s so much more opportunity out there. I still want to live in the country, and have a couple of horses and animals and stuff. I think it would be cool to be a keynote speaker. Who knows? I’ve still got three more years.”

Right at the end of The Citizen’s tour of Hallahan’s Dairy, Sarah offered up one last astute observation. “A thing I’ve seen about how the generations have grown, is, like, before my Grandpa took over, you worked on that farm so you could eat, and live off that farm, and you’d have a pig, and one cow. Now, we farm to feed others. It’s not just us, it’s Ontario.” ◊