 Thanks for putting this together. I'm a little bit behind Frank, so I'm glad to have this opportunity to share my project. Yeah, so my name is Leah Sinkowski, and I have a very small herd of goats in Ada, Michigan, right outside Grand Rapids. So the title, Designing a Mobile Milking Parlor for Educational Goat Farms, is quite a mouthful. And I think it has lots of applications for all sorts of goat people. You can go to the next slide, I think. So my little farm is located currently at the back of my elementary school where I went as a kid, Ada Christian. So they have about 37 acres, lots of brush, lots of woods, plenty of space to graze goats all season long, or all growing season. I started out originally before they could be milked. I did a few different grazing projects throughout the county, and that had its challenges. The goats got out, etc. But we've come to a good place now at the school. Well, we got kicked out a couple of times there, too, with the escape, but we figured it out. So then we actually ended up expanding to another, this time a private middle school, and I really enjoyed working with that group of students, too, but currently are just operating as a one herd, one school farm. So as my dreams have changed, as my situation has changed, this like mobile milking parlor, mobile milking space has always sort of been in the back of my mind. Initially, because I was like I want to graze different locations and charge for my grazing projects. And so the parlor would allow me to milk my grazing goats. And then as I expanded to a different school, I thought, well, this is perfect. I could service the different goats in different locations. And then I realized I'd just be milking all day. So now kind of my newest sort of realization is that I think, similar to Frank, using it as sort of a mobile education or as an educational experience, but being able to move it to more like places that don't really have a lot of agriculture, places more inner city or more, more suburban, things like that. So I applied for a SAIR grant in 2019 and I'm slowly working through it. I still have some sharing to do yet this month. I have another talk coming at the end of the month, but it was a pretty smooth process applying and yeah, I've been really enjoying digging into the design and design and engineering of it. My grant is a little different in that it is more of a theoretical grant. It's not. I didn't actually build this thing. So we'll learn more about the plans on the next slide. So conveniently, my father owns a design studio that he just recently sold, but I worked with them to design and engineer put together a floor plan for this project and they did some renderings. I also had a really enjoyable time meeting with meeting for the first time, my local dairy inspectors. Currently, I operate as a herd share, so I don't have any inspection, but it was nice meeting them and getting to know sort of the standards in Michigan for the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, which is one of the hardest things, hardest states to get a dairy certified in. So that was kind of interesting to learn. I created a bill of materials and priced out a custom trailer from our local hallmark and did a little bit of reaching out to cheese makers to gauge sort of goat milk market in the area. Next slide. Awesome. So here are some different views you can see of what we ended up with so far. So there's actually three rooms to our trailer design. So as you can see, yeah, it has a hook up on the back so you can hook it up to your van or truck or whatnot. Yeah. So the front area there you can see with the goats. I think those are actually adapted deer, but they're supposed to be goats. They are in the parlor area. So that silhouette is kind of showing on mute. Sorry. Join audio. Did I lose something? No, you're good. Keep going. Awesome. So behind the parlor area, there's two other rooms that you can't see in this drawing. But one would be the washroom, which has the sink and some storage space on the other room is the bulk tank area, the milk house where you would cool the milk. And yeah, keep it cold back there. Yeah. So we designed it in mind to meet the pasteurized milk ordinances of Michigan. So we designed it to be clean and safe and certifiable, but also in mind that people could use it sort of in a lot of different applications. Applications. Here we go. So yeah, there's a lot of different ways that I see this parlor being utilized. Obviously for me, it would be kind of a way to diversify my income and be able to travel to places of learning, nonprofits, camps, things like that and do sort of teaching demonstrations. So I do a lot of that now, just at the school that I'm at. The school actually pays me currently to be at the school key and I go there. So it's a very sweet gig. And yeah, I could use in the future the ability to diversify that and being able to bring it to other places. But originally my dream being to do some land clearing, in addition to doing the milking, that would be one application. I could see different goat breeders. There's so many people that breed goats that I imagine it's more of a hobby, but could turn it into a business by putting on demonstrations. And different agriturism farms expanding their offerings to include milking as well. A goat hobby farmer expanding into a business. A new farmer accessing shared land, free land, grazing another farm's cover crop or doing some crop rotations on a different farm, clearing out brush for your neighbor, things like that. A school or a 4-H educator using the parlor to train their students to milk or to teach other things. Or a farmer could use the trailer as a multipurpose transport vehicle. So if you're doing a trailer anyway, and this is the kind of way to do a dual-purpose transport. Oh, I forgot to mention that I was starting to say I do a lot of milking demonstrations. And for some reason, I don't, if kids just think it's like weird or something, but I always find they're very mesmerized by the milking demo. So I think it's hitting on something. They eat a lot of dairy in their lives and experience that a lot on the eating end, on the consumer end, but getting to know sort of the farm to table, the background, the aspect of how it's produced. Kids do really seem to enjoy. Sorry, next slide. Awesome. So here are a few, a few different views you can see. The one kind on the left, the lower left is sort of what the audience would view. Really, it's viewable from three sides. So it's like a little more than 180. So maybe like 200 degrees of viewing area. So in terms of like an outdoor learning experience, COVID safe, everyone could definitely spread out and be able to see. Yeah. So it's designed so for like a bucket milker. So you can see that's that silver thing on the bottom left. So that's really the simplest milking system you can implement. Modification, of course, would be like a more sophisticated pipeline system that you could use that would be quicker and less hands on. But the buckets can fit behind the goats there or between the goats. And the way with only milking two goats at once, that works really well for the system, for educational purposes, because you can walk all the way around the goats. Of course, if you were trying to be really efficient, you could milk up to four goats. You probably need a little bit of fencing on either side to kind of keep them in. And then you would need back access. Right now, you can't really see it, but there's a ramp that comes down. So this back, the back, the view we're talking about on the left, is covered, of course, by a back. But instead of rolling up, it pulls down into a ramp. So that's how the goats access the parlor. But in another modification, they could come up the side, and then you could stand in the back and milk the goats from the ground. So that is an option. And then to the right of that, you can see the side view with the goat and the stanchion coming right out of the ground. And then the back room there, which you can see a little bit of the silhouette of a sink. And then that gray thing is like the bulk tank. I just put in a 14 gallon bulk tank, which is about the smallest you can get. I think there's a little bit smaller possibly, but depends on how frequently you sell your milk, obviously, and how many goats you have that you're milking. But you could manipulate that as you wanted. So that would be the milk house, the bulk tank cooling room. And then that iron up above, that bird's eye view there, you can see from there, you can see the drain in the floor and the parlor. That's one thing for the pasteurized milk ordinance, you need to drain. And then in the other two rooms, you can see from up above, there's a hand sink with the bulk tank, and then a two compartment sink in the top room. And that's where you would wash and store the milk can. So we priced this all out from Hallmark. So actually, within the parlor, there's like cabinets and a sink. And that's kind of where you'd keep all of your filters or cleaning solutions and stuff. And that area is built right into the trailer. So that's included in that price. You can kind of see there's some stairs, it's kind of built similar to a camper where the stairs pull out from those rooms. So you access both of those rooms from the outdoors. So after you're done milking, you'd walk around the trailer to enter either the, either the cool tank where you pour the milk into the bulk tank or walk the other way around, go up the stairs in order to wash your milk can there. So if this were to, if I were to use this parlor as a sort of demonstration parlor, the process that I would take is I would drive to, I would trailer my trailer on my truck and drive to whatever location I was teaching at. I'd have to park and stabilize the trailer, unload the goats. I didn't really mention that, but seven goats could theoretically fit across. Probably that would be like an eight and a half wide trailer. We have, I think it's like seven and seven, seven by seven feet, seven inches. So probably more like six goats tops can fit trailer in this area. Another modification would be you could have another kind of a wall that would come up so that you could bring younger goats since they tend to like lay down when they travel. So there's a little bit more room for that if needed. Of course, you could throw them in your truck, I suppose too. But anyhow, so that's kind of an option if you were to trailer, if you were to travel with your goats inside there as like a hauling area. So anyhow, you'd unload your goats. We haven't really come up with a better portable fence than like a electric net kind of fence. Those aren't great for petting zoos because they electric shock children, but that'd be something to look into. So yeah, you need to hook up water. Another pasteurized milk challenge is that you can't have a clean water tank. And so you need to have a water hookup, which for a school would not be a problem. If you were trying to access a really far outfield in the middle of nowhere to milk your goats, then that would be an issue. So there are some limitations we'll get into. But yeah, so you hook up to water, you turn on your generator, assemble your milk machine, you get your goats in position, connect the vacuum, begin the milking process. And like I said, you'd have to walk the milk around to empty it out. And then because there's water in your trailer, you'd be able to use your tankless water heater to heat that up, totally wash down anything that needed to be washed. And then to exit, you'd have to reload your goats, reconnect your trailer, and be on your way. That was a lot of information. You can move on to the next side, I think. So I got into some of these challenges already. But obviously, there's a certain cost, which I'll get to. And that would have to be recouped by grazing or education. If you were a bigger farm that already had a parlor, and this was just kind of a second one, you could, yeah, you'd have, well, we'll get into that. But you'd have to somehow recoup the cost, of course. The test of the water thing, we got into a little bit. Tanks are not allowed for a certified parlor in Michigan. So you would need to hook up directly to a source. Unless, of course, you're doing a herd share. And then you could do whatever you wanted, because you're not being inspected. Also, you need a nearby bathroom, like in order to have this normally on your farm, you'd have a bathroom somewhere nearby. That would be you could utilize. So if you're out in the middle of the field somewhere, you wouldn't have water, you wouldn't have a bathroom, obviously. So there's also a limited capacity. So like I said, six to seven goats could be transported, two or three could be milked at once with some modifications. You need a place. There's like a, it's in the front, near to the truck. There's like a space for a gray water tank. So you would need a certified spot to dump that in an approved location, like a campsite or something like that. You'd also have to get some certifications, which would you would have to get if you had a mobile or an immobile parlor as well, milkhouse as well. But you'd have to have your farm be graded certified, your parlor be graded, raw dairy certified. And then you'd also have to get like a milk hauling license because you'd probably use your trailer to haul your milk to wherever you're processing it. Also, it's hard to do a random inspection when you're moving around. So you'd have to work with your local dairy inspector to report your milking locations or submit some kind of calendar. Okay, sorry. I should have probably put the costing first, but that was asked about. So we'll get to that next, maybe. Is that the next slide? Oh, sorry. One more slide, and then we'll get to cost. So we talked about most of these modifications, I think already. But if you wanted to be more efficient, you could have a pipeline system for the milking. And you wouldn't necessarily need a bulk tank if you were herd share, because you're not certified. So you could use some kind of modified freezer system, which would be cheaper. That's one of the more expensive parts. And then, yeah, so there's actually a farm in Indiana, Greta's goats, the Winkle Bowers, and they have one of these, except for it's just a parlor. So the back two rooms don't exist. So that front parlor, they're able to drive back to their farm, their main site, and wash it down and clean it up. And then they just take their milk, and they'll bring it inside and dump it in their immobile, their permanent bulk tank. So that's another modified option, which would make it a cheaper trailer to produce. And obviously, you wouldn't need necessarily electricity or water, things like that. So actually, you need electricity, unless you're milking by hand. But you wouldn't need the water. So that's another option. And then I think we'll get to the price on the next slide. So yeah, we got a quote from Hallmark, and it's $16,795. So that's the buildout, which includes the three rooms. It includes the sink, the one sink in the parlor area, along with that kind of built-in cabinet to keep everything. You probably need to buy a couple more storage spaces in the back rooms. And then here, as you can see on the right, is the readout of all the other stuff you need. So generator, the tankles heater. You need washable walls and washable floors. The drainage, like I showed you, is built in. But you need some kind of vinyl flooring, or people use RFP panels for the walls for them to be washable. You also need good lighting in each of the rooms. So you need to make sure there's some pretty solid lights. The cooling tank, so the one I priced out was like a little over two grand. That's like the smallest one I saw. You need another hand wash sink in the other two rooms. And what else? Well, I use the kitchen sink to wash my hands in the washroom. And then I put in there a milk bucket washer, which is just to wash the tubing and the claws that hook up to the goat teats, because I think that saves a lot of time and makes things more pleasant. But you could get away without that, of course. And then if you don't already have some kind of milking system, like the milk bucket assembly, then you need that as well. And I added a filter right in there so you can just filter it in line. And then I also added the headpiece in the tray where the goats are locked in. Those that cost, you could also buy those to insert into the trailer, which of course you need to remove during travel and things. I think that covers all the pricing. So the total cost of this system would be $24,742 approximately. I have some unlisted items like the portable fence. If you were to keep your goats in a portable fence while you got ready to milk and did the demonstrations, you'd need like a hay feeder and a water trough, other things to store your goods, feed, cleaners, et cetera, in the trailer, in the cabinets. And then I didn't put in a PA system, which you'd probably want potentially if you were talking to a large group. Awesome. So I think that covers that slide. So obviously I had a hard time doing the financial feasibility because everyone's farm is so different. And this would be, this would interact differently depending on what you were doing, whether or not it's like a main source of income or a side source or you're not even caring about the milk and you're just dumping it and you're talking more about the milking demonstrations. So there's a lot of different ways this could go, but I sort of priced out, did like a sample business plan was sort of a combination of using the milking while you graze goats and then using the milking at sort of an educational service. So I kind of priced out a combination. So if you're a goat farmer, you probably know generally goat farming is somewhat of a lifestyle choice. And it pays for you spending time with goats and it pays for your farm that you live on and your phone bill, but it's not like a super, I think the median income for goat farmers is between like 25 and 47,000 a year. So, you know, yeah, depends what you're looking for. But I have seven goats and that's kind of what would fit in this system. And so I know that they pay for themselves, but they don't necessarily pay you a living wage. So this would allow you to do that theoretically. If you could operate your grazing service, grazing slash education for nine months, you probably need to take time off the grazing or education during the really cold months of Michigan at least, and also take some time for kidding next season for having your babies. So if you worked about nine months of the year, you got paid 750 a week for grazing and did that for 16 weeks a year. And then adding the educational experiences on to that the other four months of the year. I think you can make more money doing the education, but and this is kind of just based on looking and talking to people who do these things. So coming out with an annual income of 46,000 as a guess estimate. Yeah, so what did I learn? Well, my ideas have been evolving so quickly over the time that I started this grant till now. So, yeah, it's sort of sort of still continue to evolve in my learning. Even since when I started I had a different idea of what I would do with it. So I think I don't think I mentioned, but part of this whole thing was I made a website that the dairy inspector recommended that if theoretically if I was going to start a educational service out of a mobile milking parlor and sell that milk to a cheese maker, for instance, I wouldn't want to confuse that with my herd chair because of legal reasons, you just don't want to mix those things. So I started kind of a website to sort of showcase all these items and that was a big outreach point of my grant. So I'm still kind of reaching out and sharing that and sharing sharing the design of people. So I'm excited to see what I still have to learn over the next few weeks. I think we're doing questions at the end. So thanks for having me and listening to my presentation. Also, Leah, thanks. That was fantastic. I have a couple questions for you before we switch to the next presenter. Folks wanted to verify you've already built your trailer, correct? I have not. This is a design and an engineering grant. So, yeah, I think it was like a $9,000 grant and like $5,000 of that went into paying for the design and engineering. And then the other portion was for sharing the design and doing. Okay, great. And that leads into our next question was whether or not this was under a farmer rancher grant. And if so, because that's only a $9,000 grant, how did you fund the remaining balance of the project? Oh, I see. Sorry. Yeah. So I didn't build it. So that probably clears up that question is a theoretical project in which I'm sharing the floor plan, the bill of materials and sort of my research with farmers and ranchers. So, yeah, it's just a farmer rancher grant. Great. And then the last question we have for you is if the cost of the milk parlor included labor to build it, or if you were planning on doing that yourself? So the like 17 grand or whatever it was for the trailer included like includes water a place for water hookup. It doesn't include like the plumbing or like lighting. So that is correct. I did not include the cost for those things in the thing. So the basic trailer itself, water hookup, electric hookup or electric hookup for the generator. And then the yeah, the basic rooms and windows and ramp and that kind of thing all is included within that quote from Hallmark. But the other aspects would have to be added in. Yeah, that's right. Excellent. Thanks so much. That's really exciting and has so many applications to even like mob grazing when you're off site and you have to be far away from a barn. Really excited for you for sharing that with us. Thank you so much. Thank you.