The cattle housing uses a hybrid steel-concrete structure – concrete foundations/walls and steel framing – to ensure durability and ease of cleaning. Insulated wall and roof panels maintain a stable interior temperature (~21 °C) year-round despite Free State’s hot summers and chilly winters (Ventilation and cooling system | TDM | Total Dairy Management). A ridge ventilation system with high-volume fans and automatic louvers provides continuous fresh-air exchange. The ventilation and optional evaporative cooling prevent heat stress when ambient temperatures rise above the cow comfort threshold (~21 °C) (Ventilation and cooling system | TDM | Total Dairy Management). In winter, the barn’s insulation and possibly gentle heating (via warm water pipes from the biogas CHP system) keep the barn near 21 °C. This climate-controlled design supports animal welfare and productivity in local conditions.
The dairy barn is equipped with multiple GEA DairyRobot R9500 milking robots for round-the-clock milking. Each robot unit can handle ~60 cows (assuming 3 milkings per cow per day), so the number of units is scaled to the herd (for example, 8–10 robots for ~500 milking cows). The R9500 features an open, cow-friendly stall and the “In-Liner Everything” technology that cleans, stimulates, milks, and post-dips in one attachment, speeding up each milking cycle (~6 minutes per cow). These robots include integrated sensors for milk quality (conductivity, color) and cow health (activity, rumination via collar tags), feeding data, and yield per quarter. A centralized herd management software logs data from each robot, giving staff real-time insight into cow health and production (DairyRobot R9500 | Automatic Milking). The compact footprint of the R9500 (only 5.3 m² per unit) makes barn layout efficient, and multi-box setups share resources to reduce per-cow costs. An automated teat spray and CIP (clean-in-place) system ensures hygiene without manual labor.
The broiler facility consists of climate-controlled, tunnel-ventilated poultry houses optimized for high-density meat chicken production. Each barn is a steel-framed, insulated-panel building approximately 120–150 m long and 15 m wide (∼1,800–2,250 m²) (Updated control technology raised PEF by 50 points), capable of holding 40,000 broilers per cycle. The walls and ceiling panels have polyurethane insulation to stabilize temperatures, and the floor is a concrete pad for easy cleaning. Houses are oriented east-west to minimize sun exposure on sidewalls, with overhangs to shade ventilation inlets. A tunnel ventilation system is employed: large exhaust fans (e.g. 1.3 m diameter) are installed at one end of the house, and opposite end walls have automated air inlets with evaporative cooling pads. In hot weather, this system draws high volumes of air through wet pads, dropping the inlet air temperature significantly as it passes over the water-soaked pads, thus cooling the house.
To add value and avoid transport costs, the site includes on-site slaughter and processing facilities for both beef cattle and broiler chickens. These are designed as separate lines within a common complex (to share utilities like hot water, rendering, and refrigeration), while meeting sanitary standards.
At the heart of the facility is a biogas plant that converts organic wastes (manure, litter, and energy crops) into renewable biogas and bio-fertilizer, creating a circular resource loop. The system is a wet anaerobic digestion setup operating continuously to handle the farm’s constant waste stream. It is designed for high efficiency via co-digestion of multiple substrates and advanced gas upgrading technology.
The by-product of anaerobic digestion is a nutrient-rich digestate, which is processed on-site into organic fertilizer products. This avoids waste disposal and creates a revenue stream (or internal fertilizer supply) for crop production. The fertilizer plant is designed to handle the full digestate output (~100% of input waste minus biogas carbon). The system produces two main fertilizers: a solid granular fertilizer (from the separated solids) and a liquid fertilizer (from the separated liquid fraction).
The facility includes five modern greenhouses, each 1 hectare (10,000 m²) in area, to produce high- value crops year-round. These climate-controlled greenhouses leverage the outputs of the biogas plant (CO₂ and heat) to maximize crop yield and resource efficiency. The greenhouses diversify farm income and demonstrate sustainable horticulture.