Dairy Farming

The biggest dairy farm in Latvia

10’000 kg

average annual milk yield per cow

More than
20 000 t

of milk produced annually

Dairy farming is one of the most important sub-sectors of agriculture in Latvia.

The proportion of milk in the agricultural production of Latvia is approximately 25%. High-quality milk has always been in demand. Every year we produce more than 20 000 t of milk in Tērvete, which is sold to SIA “Piena Partneri”, while a very small share is also sold at our company store “Saime” in Kroņauce. The cattle farm “Tērces” was commissioned in December 2012. It is a new farm equipped with modern technologies, where a comfortable microclimate is provided for livestock – keeping cows untethered, GEA technological planning, automatically regulated ventilation, soft beds equipped with mattresses, a sanitary block and a separate milking hall for cows – mothers who give birth to calves. The capacity of the cattle farm is up to 3300 milking cows. The milking process is ensured with an 80-seat automatic rotary milking parlour. The milking parlour is equipped with new “ADF Milking” milking machines which relieve human work. We installed this system to ensure cow hygiene and herd health, to prevent the spread of contagious mastitis, to improve the efficiency of work and reduce costs. As a result of using these machines cows are more healthy, and the milk yield has improved.

Milking process

A cow enters the milking parlour where its teats are washed with a special brush, disinfected and dried. The milker then checks the milk spurts and attaches the milking machine. The cow is milked while the parlour gently revolves. After milking, the cow’s teats are disinfected again, the machine detaches from the udder, moves down to the floor, as well as washes and disinfects itself so that the next cow has a clean machine again. The capacity of the milking system is up to 450 cows per hour.

Herd management

The cows at the farm are equipped and monitored with Afimilk sensor collars that the cows wear on their necks. Use of the sensors provides several advantages; they relieve daily human work at the farm and help to:

  1. act as an effective and accurate cow identification tool in the milking parlour and at the sorting gate;

  2. detect health issues and wellbeing – for example, poor bedding, excessive group activity, and other factors, which may interfere with animal comfort and affect production;

  3. increase the herd pregnancy rate by ensuring accurate heat detection in cows. It identifies cows for insemination and calculates the ideal insemination time;

  4. receive notifications/alerts on the start of calving to ensure the timely intervention and provision of assistance in order to prevent complications and calf mortality;

  5. feeding – regular information about the stomach performance indicators of each cow. In the case of changes, information is received about health disorders of the particular cow.