Farm Story - Perry-Blumenson Sheep/Goat Farm
Farm name: Perry-Blumenson
Herd size: 600 milking ewes, 700 milking does
Type of parlor: 2X24 parallel
Details
Owners: Ico Perry and Ihiam Blumenson, Moshav Shadmot Deborah
Animal breed:
Goats: Mostly Shami (Damascus) and some Nubian goats, recently the Alpine breed has been introduced into the herd.
Sheep: Assaf
Type of parlor/equipment: 2X24 parallel with AfiFree Milk Meters, Bolus ID, ID antenna on the claw, automatic sort gates
Milkings per day: 2
Staff: 6 people handle all the daily tasks
Quote
"S.A.E. Afikim is an advanced high tech company that found the right balance between progress and technology while keeping a "family" atmosphere between the company members and the customer. This is what makes S.A.E. Afikim unique."
Farm story
Ihiam was born in Segera, in Lower galilee, on the day of the declaration of Israel's independence in 1948. His father was killed there when Ihiam was only two months old.
After the Independence War, his mother purchased a farm and moved to Moshav Sarona.
In 1964, the family moved to Shadmot Deborah and carried on the same farming activities.
In 1977 Ihiam married and bought his own farm, at first he grew flowers. When he saw that the profits from the flowers were insufficient he switched to raising milking sheep. He started with 60 sheep and slowly the dairy grew to 800 milking ewes. In the 80's he decided to diversify and milk goats as well. The beginning was modest, five goats. Ihiam learned and saw the value of milking goats and the ratio of goat to sheep changed to favor goats.
How did the relationship between the farm and S.A.E. Afikim start?
Four years ago at a barbecue at the Beer-Navat Farm, Ran Malamud, S.A.E. Afikim's Small Ruminant Sales Manager, suggested that Ihiam's farm be a Beta Site for bolus animal identification. Ihiam accepted the proposal and since then the farm has become one of the company's preferred sites for testing new products such as: multiple antenna ID, automatic sort gates which have become world-wide successes and a variety of other products not yet released to the market.
A year ago the farm upgraded to a 48 stall parallel parlor with AfiFree Milk Meters.
Israeli annual milk production averages
Goat: 420 liters per doe
Sheep: 370 liters per ewe
Herd Management
Both Ihiam and Hami constantly praise the Herd Management software and the dramatic changes that occurred in the herd since they began using it. As an immediate result of using a Herd Management system, selection was done on the herd and hundreds of low producers and "freeloaders" were culled. The overall milk yield has increased over the last three years. Goats went from 350 to 720 liters per year and sheep from 300 to 420 liters per year.
"All the decision making in the areas of feeding, lactations, treatments and selection are done with the help of the AfiGoat program."
Nutrition has advanced and all the concentrates and hay fed to the animals are handled by the farm's own feed center.
Customer Service
"We feel that S.A.E. Afikim is open minded, a company that looks at the long term and is not petty or narrow-minded."
"We have a good relationship with the people in the company, from the technical and service staff to the engineers and developers and even the marketing department."
