Design a dairy that grows with you — from a single cow to a hundred thousand.
We help dairy farmers plan, design, and optimise farms of every size. Whether you're sketching your first barn or scaling a multi-site operation, this section gives you the layouts, systems, and expert support you need to build right the first time.
Pick your herd size
Each tier comes with a tailored layout, housing system, and management approach.
1 – 5 cows
A starter dairy operation focused on family consumption and small surplus sales. Capital-light, low regulatory burden, and easy to expand. Land requirement is modest (0.5 – 2 hectares per cow depending on pasture vs. zero-grazing).
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6 – 20 cows
A small commercial dairy supplying local processors or direct retail. Worth investing in a simple milking parlor, basic cooling, and a structured feed ration. Typical land: 1 – 1.5 ha per cow with rotational paddocks.
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21 – 100 cows
A professional dairy with structured employee shifts, formal records, and a production-focused barn layout. This is the sweet spot for ROI on milking automation. Plan a 5-year expansion buffer when sizing infrastructure.
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101 – 500 cows
A multi-barn campus with formal shift structure and dedicated technicians for milking, feeding, maintenance, and herd health. Regulatory compliance (CAFO-type permits in some jurisdictions) becomes a planning constraint. Site selection must consider runoff buffers and odor distances.
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501 – 5,000 cows
An industrial campus of multiple production units, central milking facility, dedicated feed center, and on-farm or contracted heifer-rearing. Engineering rigor matters: every cow path, vehicle path, and worker route should be designed to minimize crossings, contamination, and travel time.
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5,001 – 100,000 cows
At this scale, the dairy is best thought of as several large industrial farms operated as a single integrated business: shared feed mill, central laboratory, central calf-rearing facility, processing plant, and biogas/energy plant. Planning emphasizes biosecurity zones, road logistics, and redundancy of every critical service (water, power, milk-cooling).
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Our services
End-to-end design and consulting across the dairy lifecycle.
Dairy farm planning
Site selection, master-plan layout, and phasing for greenfield or expansion projects across every herd size.
Barn design
Free-stall, tie-stall, and loose-housing barns engineered for cow comfort, ventilation, and labour efficiency.
Dairy infrastructure consulting
Utilities, access roads, biosecurity, fencing, lighting, and storage — designed as one connected system.
Milking system planning
Parlor type, capacity, and layout from hand-milking up to multi-rotary installations with full automation.
Expansion planning
Add cows without operational regret: capacity audit, bottleneck analysis, and staged construction plans.
Waste management design
Manure handling, slurry storage, separation, digesters, and nutrient management plans compliant with local regulations.
Tools & directories
Calculators, vendor directory, and your saved AI designs.
Calculators
Cubicle, parlor, manure storage.
Vendor directory
Milking, robots, collars, software & more.
Plan marketplace
Ready-to-build PDF plans by herd size & climate.
Course: Designing your first dairy
6-part course from blank-page idea to build-ready plan.
Course: Healthy herd
5-part course on mastitis, hooves & disease prevention.
Course: Feeding & rations on a budget
5-part course on cheap forage & least-cost rations.
Course: The dairy as a business
5-part course on cost per litre, margins & cashflow.
Your saved designs
Revisit and download AI designs as PDF.
Talk to a consultant
Paid tiers from site review to full master plan.
Design gallery
2D and 3D layouts, barn plans, milking parlor designs, expansion concepts.
2D layouts
Barn plans
Parlor designs
Expansion concepts
Learn
Practical articles on design, milking systems, waste, and growth.
Cow comfort fundamentals every layout should respect
Why cubicle dimensions, lunge space, and bedding choice drive your barn's whole productivity envelope.
Sizing your milking parlor: cows, turns, and shift length
The simple math that decides whether you should build a 2×8 herringbone or commit to a rotary.
Manure storage: how big and how to choose
Storage months drive everything downstream — application flexibility, odor, neighbours, and capex.
Frequently asked
If you don't see your question, ask us via the consultation form.
How accurate are the AI-generated farm designs?
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Our preliminary designs are a strong starting point — they combine expert-curated content with the inputs you provide (herd size, climate, land, budget). They are NOT a substitute for licensed engineering drawings. Every design must be reviewed by a licensed civil/dairy engineer in your jurisdiction before construction begins.
What's the difference between the AI design and the consultation?
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The AI design is instant, free, and gives you a structured layout, equipment list, and phased plan — perfect for understanding scope and budget. A consultation is a paid engagement where our team produces site-specific plans, permit-ready drawings, equipment shortlists, and (optionally) project management through the build.
Can I share my AI-generated design with my vet or contractor?
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Yes. Every design saves automatically to your account. From the saved design page you can download a polished PDF — share it via email, print it, or hand it to a contractor for quoting.
What's included in a paid consultation?
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Depending on the tier: a written site review (with photos), a concept layout, a full master plan with engineering scope and vendor short-list, or full build-out project management. Pricing scales with depth — see the Services page for tiers.
Does Vache work for farms outside North America?
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Yes — the platform is built multi-tenant, multi-currency, multi-climate. We've designed it for dairies from East Africa to South America to Southeast Asia. Climate-specific guidance (tropical/temperate/cold/arid) is built in to every layout.
Do you sell equipment?
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Not directly. We provide vendor-neutral design advice and (in our directory) connect farmers with reputable equipment partners. Affiliate partnerships are listed transparently where they exist.
How long does a typical greenfield dairy build take from first design to first milking?
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For a 100-cow dairy: 12–15 months. For 1,000-cow: 24–30 months. The biggest single variable is permitting — start regulatory work the day you sign the land contract.
Is my farm data private?
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Yes. Your cows, milk records, and submitted consultations are isolated to your farm via row-level security. We never sell or share farm data. Aggregated, anonymized benchmarks may be offered as an opt-in product in the future.
What does Pro give me that Free doesn't?
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Pro unlocks unlimited AI design generations, premium engineering articles, PDF report exports, and (in Phase 2) realtime IoT integration with smart collars and milking robots. The free plan covers a single farm with up to 5 cows and 1 AI design per month — enough for hobby farms or initial planning.
Ready to start planning?
Tell us about your land, your budget, and your goals. We'll come back with a tailored layout and a phased plan.
Request consultation