There are lots of things different about Halldale Farm, all of which will make for an interesting Maine Farm Days.

First there’s the barn. On the outside it’s a poultry house. But inside it’s all dairy.

It started life as a cage-layer house, but when the Couturiers made the move from poultry farming back to dairy farming, the structure was cleverly converted to an efficient freestall operation.

The broiler business was the going thing in the 1950s, recalls Bob Couturier, and the family got out of the dairy business then and raised broilers for the Maplewood Poultry Co. until 1974. In 1972, they built the large cage layer house on the hill across the road from the home farm. By the mid-1980s, however, it was clear that the family would have to return to dairying, and that the cage layer house would someday be a dairy barn. They began to plan the change, and to shop around for new and used barn and field equipment.

The chickens came out in May 1987, and in late August the cows went in.

At that time, Glenn Couturier, one of Bob’s sons, was in the construction business, specializing in agricultural buildings. With the assistance of his great uncle Wilfred Bryant, and some members of his construction crew, Glenn set to work on the barn.

After the final clean out, they gutted out the cage layer floor, and turned the pit into a free-stall barn with a 17-foot ceiling, which provides excellent ventilation. A cement block parlor was built right inside the barn. Along one side they installed swinging feed stalls with headlocks, while a wide alley was kept along the back wall, allowing equipment to be driven the length of the barn without having to get in with the cows.

A large garage door on the end opposite the parlor allows easy clean out.

Does it work? Glenn says if he had to do it over again, he’d do it exactly the same way.

The cows seem to like it, too. While the bred heifers are turned out to pasture in the summer, the milking stock, 75 registered holsteins, stay in all year round, getting into the yard only during cleanouts.

Each of these contented cows produces an average of 18,500 pounds of milk a year.

The family is most proud of its herd’s unusually low somatic cell count. In 1989 the herd average was less than 78,000. Glenn Couturier attributes the herd health to good breeding, good feed and good sanitation.

The cows are bred for type and production to some of the top AI sires in the country.

Most of the feeding is handled with a Surge computer system, which keeps track of how much each cow is eating and provides an early clue to health problems. Surge also supplies the milking equipment in the double-six herringbone parlor.

The cows are kept clean and dry in the freestall through use of a raised bedding system in which used tires are covered with sawdust and shavings. At milking time, one towel is used to wash, another to dry. Cows also get a post milking dip treatment.

Two other factors make Halldale Farm different from many of the farms in the area. It’s all grass and it’s all hills.

The family farms about 100 acres of grass land, and purchases as much feed as it puts up. From 12,000 to 13,000 bales are put up each year, with the rest going in as haylage. That crop is supplemented with purchased haylage, corn and — recently — barley from Aroostook County.

Purchasing feed eliminates the need for additional hired help, Glenn says. The farm hires one or two people during haying season, and has one other neighbor on call for odd jobs and milking help if needed.

Farming on the hillside requires care, but it has its advantages as well. The fields drain quickly during storms, making them easy to work, and the hillside layout of the barn and manure pit allow an all-gravity-feed manure system. Manure, milkroom waste, and wash water flow from the barn, under the road, to a pit on the other side which can handle more than 240 days of storage.

Three generations work at the farm, with some of them supplementing the family income with outside jobs.

Bob Couturier is a district director for the Farmers Home Administration, with offices in Newport. He holds degrees in animal husbandry and dairy science, and, following a hitch in the Army, worked as a fieldman for the Maine Breeding Cooperative, the forerunner of Eastern. Active in the Boy Scouts of America, he also served on the School Administration District 3 board of directors back when the district was first formed.

His first wife, Marlene Hall Couturier, the mother of his three children, died in 1988, and the family has dedicated this year’s Maine Farm Days in her memory.

Now remarried, Bob and his wife Pat live in Bangor, but he is still at the farm much of the time, where, he says modestly, “I do what I’m told.”

Glenn started Halldale Builders in 1977, a firm which specialized in agricultural construction, but has since transferred the business to his former partner and now works full time on the farm. He holds a degree in business administration, serves on the boards of DHIA and Eastern, as well as the Farm Bureau Dairy Committee. His wife, Kelli, is an RN who recently resigned from Mid-Maine Medical Center in Waterville due to increasing family and farm commitments. She and Glenn were the Agri-Mark young cooperator couple in 1988 and 1989, and represented Agri-Mark at a national meeting in Indianapolis. They have three children, Rob, 9, whose job it is to rear the calves, Bethany, 5, and Carrie, 2.

Glenn’s sister, Martha Coleman, is also a nurse. Her husband, Mark, works as a breeder for Eastern, and also works on the farm, helping with the milking, the breeding program, and field work.

Another brother, Russell Couturier, and his wife, Lynn, live in Brimfield, Mass. Russell is director of product marketing for Sequoia Computer Systems, and Lynn is an assistant professor at Springfield College. While they are not on the farm on a regular basis, they and their two children, Seth, 7, and Alyssa, 4, frequently return for family gatherings.