Watch: American chopper – one of the biggest dairy farms in America

T&K Red River Dairy was established in 1968 by Tom and Kathy Dugan (T&K). It all started off with 140 cows, 30 heifers and five bulls, but it was not long before Tom had expanded his operation to 300 cows in only three years, although the major turning point came in 1993 when Tom travelled to Saudi Arabia with his nutritionist to see how they operated their dairy enterprises. Tom was so impressed he got a copy of the plans and travelled home to start what was to become one of the biggest dairy farms in America.

February 1995 saw the first phase begin, which included purchasing 480 acres at a cost of $1,100 per acre. They purchased another 560 acres in 1997 and 639 acres in 1998 to include the farm previously owned by the famous actor John Wayne where the operation is based today.

Today, T&K Red River Dairy is still run by Tom and Kathy, along with their sons Tom Jr, Tony and Timmy and grandchildren Seth and Sean. The operation now consists of 14,000 cows, 14,000 heifers and steers, along with 5,000 calves. The farm comprises 3,300 owned acres and a further 14,000 to 15,000 acres rented. In total, there are now 470 people employed in T&K, which includes 10 to 12 vets and 20 mechanics.

Milking

The cows are milked three times daily in three separate parlours – a double herringbone 50, 66 and 77 – 386 cows are milked in one pass each time. The farm produces 19 truckloads of milk daily with each truck holding, on average, 6,200 gallons (23,470 litres), which equates to a total of 117,800 gallons (445,922 litres) of milk per day. They are getting, on average, $14.75 per hundred weight of milk (57.5c/litre).

Feeding

Keeping all of these animals fed is a full-time job, which requires six large stationary tub feeders set up in a feedlot making different mixes for the various sheds on the farm. Each day, they get through 907 tonnes of feed, which is spread out over five miles of feeding barriers by a small army of trucks.

The cows are housed all year round in nine gigantic sheds each half a mile long. Cold air and water is constantly sprayed over them as a mist to keep them comfortable in the hot Arizona climate. Feeding the animals requires over 200,000t of maize (12,000 acres), which is harvested in 30 days and ensiled in a single pit. There are 12,000 acres of hay, 800 acres of sorghum and 12,000 acres of alfalfa, which is harvested 13 times in the year yielding 10t/acre, on average.

Machinery

Now we get to the real reason for my stop-off in T&K Red River Dairy – the machinery. To run such a large-scale operation takes some serious kit and T&K has over 700 pieces of equipment, which are looked after by 20 full-time mechanics to keep everything running smoothly. The equipment list is something out of this world. It consists of:

To start with, the tractors are predominately Case as they are American-built, which means parts and knowledge are easily obtained when needed. The smallest tractors range from 90hp and do all the lighter work around the yard, such as yard scrapping.

A total of seven tractors do yard scrapping for 20 hours per day each, seven days a week. Also in the fleet are two large Versatile 435 and three Versatile 550 articulated tractors, which are used to push up the maize during harvest and also for land reclamation and grading all year round for hire.

As Arizona is so dry with rain only forecast three times a year, all farms rely heavily on irrigation in the form of large canals, which feed the farmland via smaller man-made streams.

Water is pumped where needed and each field can be selected separately via watertight gates.

The two Claas Lexions are only used for their own work harvesting wheat, barley and oats for feeding the animals, while the straw is left on the ground to be baled or chopped with the foragers for feeding.

12,000ac of hay

The 12 large square balers are used predominately for the hay harvest, which will see them cover over 12,000 acres in total. Keeping the feed moving requires a fleet of 28 trucks and various trailers. The trucks are used to draw the feed from the foragers and combines as well as the straw and hay bales. The ground is so hard that the trucks can easily drive on the land without any fear of getting stuck like here in Ireland.

Interestingly they do not use any mowers on the farm; instead they have 15 Mac Don swathers, which are essentially a combine cutter-bar attached to a machine, which will leave a swathe for the forager to pick up.

The swathers cut 16ft in one pass and then leave the next 16ft row beside the first, allowing the forager to pick up 32ft. All of the foragers are fitted with PU380HD heads, which are 3.8m wide. This is to allow the operator to easily pick up the two 16ft rows left by the swather. T&K has a fleet of 15 of these Mac Don swathers and changes five each year for new models. The reason for doing this is so that the swathers are constantly going all year round and are high-maintenance machines.

Keeping the animals fed is the job of the 14 Claas Jaguars. Tom chooses Claas due to its reliability and back-up service as his local dealer is only six miles away. Each day, at least two or three foragers are harvesting alfalfa or other crops, which are then brought back to the feedlot where they are mixed and fed to the animals.

They stagger the machines that they use in order to keep the working hours the same on each machine and not to let one do all the work.

The reason for 14 foragers is the maize harvest. Each year, they harvest 12,000 acres (200,000t) which, due to the weather in Arizona, has to be completed in three to four weeks once the crop is ripe.

To put that into context, the maize crop alone that is harvested is equal to 12 square miles. This calls on all foragers to be working at their full potential as with such a large volume of work and short window to do it, they cannot afford any breakdowns.

Keeping the Jaguars purring is the job of 20 mechanics, two of whom are full-time forager specialists. All of the foragers are gone through top to bottom at the start of each year and again just before the maize harvest.

T&K Red River Dairy has a workshop and parts store similar to the main dealers here in Ireland and carries over $1,000,000 in parts just for the foragers to have in stock at all times even though the main dealer is only six miles away. This is to guarantee that they have the parts when they need them and do not have to wait for deliveries.

The fleet of Jaguars consists of six older 900 models, which are used for straw-chopping and alfalfa harvesting around the farm, three new 880 models which are gradually replacing the old 900 models in the fleet and, finally, three range-topping 980 models and 2 960 models, which are used mostly for the maize harvesting.

All foragers are equipped with the HD wear parts packages and when kitted out for maize are fitted with Scherer crop processors, instead of the standard Claas version as T&K claims they have a better output to get through the work faster.

Each new Jaguar comes with a 12-month warranty after which T&K carries out all the maintenance and repair works needed and only calls on the dealer if it’s an electrical or specialist problem.

Fuel

In an operation of this scale and with so much heavy machinery in use, T&K Red River Dairy gets through quite a bit of diesel. Each year will see them get through 1.3 million gallons (4,921,034 litres) at a cost of $1.70/1.80 per gallon.

During the peak 30-day maize harvest, the Claas Jaguars and various other equipment will drink over 8,000 gallons (30,283 litres) of diesel each day.