Morley family utilizes automation for farm processes – The Pioneer

MORLEY Taking care of 180 cows can take a village, and one Morley farm family does it with just a few members.

Less than four years ago, in an effort to make farm tasks easier and faster, Amanda Carey Goodfellow and her family began using automated machines around the farm.

Goodfellow grew up on her family farm at 3333 205th Ave. in Morley helping with chores around the property and with the animals, and decided to come back home and continue that work with her own family.

I always liked helping out on the farm, and I love the animals, so I knew it was something I wanted to keep doing, Goodfellow said. Im a fifth-generation farmer, so our family has been doing this for a while now.

The farm has equipment that monitors and completes various tasks throughout the day. One of them is a collar that the cows wear, which Goodfellow likened to a humans Fitbit, which monitors their activity. It also lets them into the robot that does the milking, and tracks how many times a cow has been milked, and allows them to receive grain from the machines.

Another machine the farm uses rotates and spreads hay along feeding troughs for the cows in the barns, as well as one that can monitor the gain in the farm's silos.

Goodfellow said the machines havent increased the production of the cows or the farm, but it has made the processes of getting milk and feeding the cows exponentially easier.

We havent seen an increase, but the cows are certainly happier, Goodfellows said.

The Goodfellows work with a number of people in order to manage the farm, such as a company to tend to the machines, repairmen for the tractors, a company that hauls the farms milk, and a feed nutritionist.

The farms tractors even utilize an automated steering system when working in the fields, and the farms fertilizer is based on a grid system and created by technology.

We work a lot with other companies and people for upkeep on the farm, but most of it is done by us, Goodfellow said. Were always trying to improve and looking at utilizing new technology when it becomes available.

"The machines we have right now have been incredibly beneficial for the past few years. Theyve become a regular part of our day around here, its hard to think of whats different right now.

In addition to making the work easier on Goodfellow and her family, the machines allows the cows to have some freedom to choose when they want to be milked, and does the process comfortably and efficiently.

Goodfellow said she enjoys the ease the machines bring to the farm, but her favorite part about working on the farm is the animals themselves.

I really love working with the animals themselves, thats why I took over this side of the operation from my dad, Goodfellow said. He still runs most of the cash cropping side of the farm, but I enjoy getting up in the morning and working with the cows and my dad and family. Its pretty cool to walk into a barn and see four generations of family working together.

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Morley family utilizes automation for farm processes - The Pioneer