Production managers Amos and Ron Wipf may finally be able to get some sleep, now that the final touches are complete on a multi-million-dollar renovation at Verdant Valley Colony, northeast of Drumheller.

The two cousins put insight gained over 17 years of raising livestock into the design and creation of updated facilities for the colony’s hog, dairy and broiler barns – with more than a little help from a friend.

They were sometimes up late into the night, working out details, with plenty of support from financial director John Wipf. There were times that they could hardly wait for the Alberta Pork office open in the morning so they could call and talk about their ideas, says program assistant Sara Parton.

“My role with Alberta Pork, one of the many things I do is I assist producers with their applications for Growing Forward. I kind of tell them how Growing Forward works, what items are eligible and how they can set themselves up for success.”

Working through the applications can be tough slogging for producers, whose goals need to align with Growing Forward 2’s eligibility criteria. Trying to get all the details lined up to meet the program’s standards is a ton of extra work for someone whose skills are needed back in the barn, says Parton.

Her skill set, learned in her former job with the Province of Alberta’s disaster assistance department, enable her to take the lion’s share of that load so producers can concentrate on getting their work done.

In the Verdant Valley application, grants from Growing Forward 2 were available for renovations that would improve bio-security, energy efficiency and animal welfare, says Parton. Alberta Agriculture and Forestry has confirmed that, in the last year, the colony has received $182,544 in funding from GF2.

Parton says it was among the more extensive applications she has processed since joining Alberta Pork. But she’s no stranger to the dangers of bureaucracy and red tape. In her previous job, she helped applicants seeking disaster assistance, including property owners who suffered from the heaving flooding in High River and Okotoks and those who were burned out by a massive wildfire in the town of Slave Lake. Working with hog producers is a similar level of detail, without the emotional stress.

One of the first tasks at Verdant Valley was to lay a bed of gravel around the entire complex, says Parton. The buffer of rocks discourages rodents from crossing out of the fields and into the buildings, she says.

The Wipf’s say the colony could not have finished their project without Parton’s help. They had gone to her a year or so earlier, shortly after she joined Alberta Pork, with lofty plans to bring a set of aging buildings up to a spanking new standard. The ideas now play out on the farm.

Flocks of broilers now run at will inside a massive shed with extra high ceilings, lots of fresh air and tightly controlled temperature and humidity, engineered to meet their changing needs as they grow to market weight. Alarms are set to alert barn workers any time the temperature or humidity inside the barn ventures too far beyond the ideal, as programmed in.

Similar principles are at play in the dairy barn, where bulls keep each other company as cows wander around inside a large pen, making regular visits to the two milking robots. Each cow bears a radio frequency tag that lets her communicate with the robot, which recognizes her as she approaches the gate and drops her a measured amount of feed while she stands for milking. A laser guides the cups to her teats as she eats and the computer keeps track of her intake as well as her output, pushing her out when she’s done so the next cow can take a turn.

The robots milk around the clock, under the watchful eye of the system and its human operators. Ventilation systems similar to that in the broiler shed keep a constant exchange of fresh air and moderate temperatures to levels that are comfortable for the animals inside. Additional innovations in the barn include an automatic scraper that takes manure out of the alleys, another machine that pushes fresh hay to the animals and hinged troughs that are timed to empty themselves every few minutes so the cows have constant access to clean water.

The last of the barns to be completed was the hog barn, which was almost ready for stocking in mid-July, when colony members fed a hot lunch to a few of their industry partners, and then took them through for a look. By the end of July, workers were painting the walls in the boar room and almost ready to start stocking the new rooms. There was never any rush to move the animals over, since all of the stock was being held in the adjacent rooms.

Like the broiler and dairy barns, the hog barn’s design and construction was performed entirely by the colony’s team of tradesman.

Verdant Valley has been loose housing its sows for a number of years. The new pens, arranged around electronic self-feeders, are set up with features developed from the lessons the production crew has learned over those years.

The gestation room is divided into two groups, with one boar in a pen at the side to watch for any sows that may start cycling. Boars are circulated from the breeding and gilt development areas to keep them fresh and interested.

Boar pens in the breeding and gilt development rooms have been designed to accommodate the boars, including very low walls on their feeders and lots of room in all directions to avoid the complications that can arise from having to work in cramped quarters.

Metal gates on each of the pens have a hinge on each side, so they can be opened left or right, depending on which direction the animal is to be moved.

Ceiling vents are arranged for maximum efficiency, with their location organized so that any mosquitoes or flies that find their way through the inlets are blown back out before they ever find a human or animal target.

Along with animal comfort and energy efficiency, bio-security is a priority in the design of the renovation, including a connecting hallway that will turn into an equipment storage and cleaning area when the oldest part of the barn is torn down.

Danish entries and showers at the front entry and between the office and barn ensure that people are properly cleaned up, but similar considerations needed to be made for any equipment to be brought in.

Feed for all the livestock is grown on the farm and mixed on the site. Verdant Valley has 13,000 acres of cropland under cultivation, including a portion dedicated to malting barley. Any barley that doesn’t make the grade for Rahr’s plant at Alix can be put back through the mill and ground into feed.

Verdant Valley also has its own trucks for shipping animals, avoiding the bio-security pitfalls that could arise from hiring commercial operators.

As the team put the wrap on their renovations, members are already looking to the future, hoping to eventually develop a raised-without-antibiotics program.

The oldest piece in the hog barn was built in 1978 after the original barn burned down. An addition was built in 1990 to meet the standards of the day, but both buildings had become out-dated over time. The section from 1978 will be torn down after the new rooms are populated.

The new renovations meet or exceed codes of practice for now, but may also become out-dated as standards evolve.

Verdant Valley Colony, currently home to 93 members, was built in 1974 on a gentle hill with a sweeping view of the surrounding coulees northeast of Drumheller. Verdant Valley had split from the Hand Hills Colony near Hanna, then split itself in 2000, to form Neu Muehl Colony, a few kilometres away.

Verdant Valley’s livestock inventory includes 20,000 broilers, 75 dairy cows, 160 beef cows, 600 sows and one horse. •

—By Brenda Kossowan