Pronk Farm - Organic Dairy and Eggs

On Friday September 14, the LEAF class at Norwell DSS went to the Pronk organic dairy and chicken farm. First we went to the chicken farm where we picked eggs, and learned about their egg production facility. They have 500 hens and 8 roosters that are 100 percent organic. They average about 450 eggs a day. They let the chickens outside on a 1 acre pasture everyday in the afternoon to allow the chickens to lay their eggs in the barn. The hens are fed mixed grains, flax, and in the winter alfalfa pellets because they don’t have access to grass.  Next, we went to the home farm where the dairy operation is. The Pronk's milk 40 cows in a double 4 parlour. They average at about 18 litres per cow a day and gets $0.70 /L plus $0.38 for being organic and another $0.10 - $0.14 for having grass fed cows. After cows have been milked they are given hay and then let back outside on pasture until the next milking. It was a good learning experience for everyone in the class, we enjoyed learning about how they run there and very thankful that they were willing to teach us more about agriculture. Jaclyn E & Karlyn K