Robotic Milkers?

[FayeFarms]

Will they be adopted in North America? Will they be financially feasible as an alternative to herringbone, Parallel, or rotary milking parlors?
Can they be used in conjunction with a grazing operation, or will they be limited to use along with a custom built freestall housing barn?

[born2run]

There was an article awhile ago in the Agri-View about a father/son operation who uses robotic milkers. They don't run that big of a herd (110+ I believe) and love them. Only thing they did mention was that they ran higher SCC than was healthy, but not extremely high, believe it sat at about 245,000. I'd think that robotic milkers would work in a grazing setting...just would make a difference where you'd put the milkers?

[FayeFarms]

The operations I've read about all have specially floor planned freestall housing with a system of one-way gates. The cow goes into milking station, her number is read electronically, grain is dispensed, the robot washes and milks her, then opens gate for her to exit, and she can only go back to freestall area to get forages. Kind of a continuous loop. The theory is that a fresh cow would go thru more times a day, a tail ender might only go thru once a day, so one would think the SCC would be good.
My reservation about setting it up for grazing would be would cows walk 1/4 mile to get grain and be milked as often as they should?
I have read that there are a large number of Robotic Milking Farms operational in Europe now. What would be the socio-economic differences that would make them feasible there?
To milk a large herd would require massive investment in Robots and milking stations, so they probably don't look like a way to go for many of the large number herds in North America.

[Sarah317]

I've heard that people either really like or really dislike them. A man from France came to see our farm on a tour and he had 2 (I think) and seemed to like them. Apparently the cows are a little nervous about using them sometimes and the average amount of times/day they do is 2.6.

What I wonder about is how it could unclog a teat with mastitis? How would you know if it did?

There's a good video about them here.

[BoumaticDuck]

i dont know about everyone else but i am not really a fan of those robots. I mean don't you think people should kind of work of their farm? I mean I know people should automate equipment and such, but I personally think a "robot" is a little over the edge. Not to mention a machine can't compare to a human around the cows. Maybe i'm, crazy but thats my opinion.

[born2run]

You could argue, BD, that some employees are virtually robots. In the case of where I work, the employer doesn't ever milk, and, although there's some of us out there that really care, there are some that couldn't care less and are only there for the money. I don't see any difference between a robotic milker and a milker who wants to milk like he's possessed because he has something to do that evening. If you have a good herd manager supervising herd health and monitoring the records that come from robotic milking, I can see it would be better, and least more consistent, than human milkers. Just my two cents.

[FayeFarms]

I would think an advantage for the cow would be it can be milked as often or not as it feels need to. Wonder if cows with an extreme will to milk would go thru frequently and produce more? Also cows would have a predictable environment with no surprize or unnecessary noises? But what about grain hogs that would just keep looping thru system to get more chow, LOL?
And could a robot milk a 3 teater?
I believe the robot tests milk for SCC on every milking, so I assume the operator overseeing the system could set the diversion valve at whatever SCC number he/she wished, thus diverting high SCC milk to waste milk pool.
Hmmm, Perhaps one could run a 3" PVC pipe off the diversion valve for waste milk, directly to a trough surrounded by a drove of thirsty feeder pigs, LOL.

Sarah thanks for movie links. Sadly, I am not computer savvy enough to make their machine talk to my machine, LOL.

[hughesdairy]

I can't see where I'd gain anything.....I don't pay my milker anything to milk....the dummy is working for free..LOL

[DaleK]

There have been about 30 of them go in here, I think roughly 10 have been pulled back out and replaced with conventional parlours but the rest seem to be going strong. I see Mason-Dixon farm just ordered 30 of them, judging by some of the ideas they've had in the past (like the subway for moving cows to the parlour that crashed through a block wall and killed a load of cows) I'd think that would make people hesitate for a while.

[milkmaid]

I'd wonder if a robot could tell when a cow had mastitis and if it could treat the cow, or would an employee need to come in and treat her?

I think I was told they won't milk a cow more than X number of times per day.

As born2run said -- I can see they'd be more consistent than a human employee which might be a decided advantage.

Hear they're pretty expensive pieces of equipment, though.

[DaleK]

They can tell if there's abnormal milk and divert it from the tank, by the conductivity of the milk. Then they flag it in the system and somebody has to check the cow.