Basic foods
– Robot milks cows without human intervention using 3D cameras or laser beams.
– Production, labor savings and cow comfort are three critical benefits of using newer milking systems, farmers say.
– Not all dairy farmers benefit from using robot-based technology because of the high initial cost or the way it changes the management of the operation.
Chad Keefer, a third-generation farmer from Utica, Minnesota, has five milkers for his 350-cow herd.
Milkers are squat workers, patient, persistent. They buzz around the mooing cows. It's a robot.
In an increasingly automated world, the dairy industry is keeping pace. According Michigan State Universityrobotic milkers were first introduced in the United States in 2000. Now, according to Hoard's Dairyman Magazineover 35,000 robotic milking units can be found worldwide with thousands in the US
“It's always changing. It's like your iPhone changes every six months. There's a lot of technology being researched every day,” said Dana Allen, a fourth-generation dairy farmer from Eyota, Minnesota.
Dairy technology has transformed the industry.
Decades ago, dairy farmers milked by hand. Then came bins, pipes, halls, and then halls with automatic unit removal, rotating salons and robots, according to Douglas ReinemannPh.D., researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Automation started in Europe. Company DeLaval started using an automated robot system on a farm in Sweden in 1997. Another manufacturer is Lelybased in the Netherlands.
By 2000, automation came to the U.S. The results are significant, farmers and researchers say. Cows feel less stress, farmers are able to be more efficient and save time. They also save money on labor.
There are now 500 to 1,000 businesses in the U.S. using the milking robots, Reinemann said.
Automation is not perfect. Startup costs challenge smaller producers. As with most machines, there is also the need for maintenance.
Farmers gain time to work
Automated milking systems (AMS) give farmers time to focus on other tasks and usually more time on specialized tasks. This saves labor, Reinemann said. He also noted that AMS helps farmers ergonomically as they avoid repetitive physical tasks.
Farmers using AMS appreciate the labor savings.
“Farmers have more time to clean the farm, work on crops and other chores. It may even allow a farmer to attend their child's sporting events and in turn improve their mental health,” said Mariah Busta, executive director of the Iowa State Dairy Association.
But the rate of change depends on the farmer.
“The extent to which a farmer adapts to technology and the speed at which they do so is open to their comfort level,” Allen said. “There's a huge amount of technology in agriculture, and I think that's something that the general public doesn't understand.”
Robots leave cows calmer
Robots like Kieffer's milk cows without the physical presence of a human, using a robotic arm with the help of either 3D cameras or laser beams to locate a cow's teats.
According to Animal Agriculture Alliancea non-profit organization focused on sustainable agriculture, the total time it takes to milk a cow takes an average of seven minutes with a robot.
Since installing robots, Kieffer has reduced the number of full-time dairy workers from six to three.
“The robot does the milking for you, so the cost of the robots has to be offset by the labor savings,” he said. The robots can cost more than $200,000 each.
Farmers also said cow comfort is a critical benefit. Reinemann said cows can associate people with negative interactions, such as a vet check or moving to and from different buildings.
“You let a cow do what she wants when she wants. You don't force her somewhere, and she can go milking,” Kiefer said.
Cows can voluntarily go to the area indoors to be milked, farmers said. The robot system sorts the cows to be milked based on the time elapsed between milkings. Headphones help with sorting.
In Deer Park, Wisconsin, Kristin Quist of Minglewood Dairy keeps about 500 of her herd of 1,200 cows on a milking robot. It uses a system that drives the animals into the barn.
“The cow goes through a gate to determine if it's time to be milked after reading a tag in her ear,” he said. “If it's time to milk her, she goes into the robot. If it's not, they send her to feed in a different direction.”
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Quist compares its newest robot installations to its milking.
“Cows in robot facilities are much more relaxed,” he said. “In the parlor setup, they're more likely to stand up waiting to be milked.”
Regardless of the production method, farmers are producing more milk, largely due to improved genetics and improved nutrition, the researchers said.
Reinemann said research has shown that using robots allows cows to stay in the herd longer, which can mean they produce more milk.
“We're not going to get any extra land or resources in the near future, so we have to be efficient with what we have,” Busta said. “Technology is absolutely vital to help us continue to be efficient in producing milk sustainably.”
Other farmers choose rotary platform systems
Farmers looking to upgrade have other options beyond milking robots.
Rotary milking parlors allow cows to step onto a circulation platform before farmers attach the milking units. The system continuously moves cows on and off the platform.
Allen milks her herd of about 1,750 cows on her farm, Gar-Lin Dairy, using a platform. Gar-Lin's rotary allows 50 cows to step on the platform at a time.
“Earlier, we used to milk 750 to 800 cows in about seven hours. Now we can milk 1,750 at the same time,” he said.
Allen said she was initially afraid the cows would be difficult to get onto the carousel-like platform, but quickly learned the biggest problem would be getting them off.
“There's not a lot of commotion,” he said. “They actually like riding the carousel.”
To decide what type of system a farmer should pursue, a 1,500- to 3,000-cow farm probably warrants a rotary system, while a herd of 200-300 cows may be better suited for robots, said Marcia Endres, Ph.D., teacher. in animal science at the University of Minnesota. With larger herds, a rotary system is more efficient because up to 50 cows can be loaded at once, although it still requires human intervention to bring the cows onto the platform.
One advantage of the technology is more milk. In 1925, the average Iowa cow produced 4,000 pounds of milk each year, while today's cow produces 28,000 pounds annually, according to the state dairy association.
Some farmers weigh the pros and cons of the technology.
Among them is Nick Seitzer, a recent University of Minnesota graduate and dairy farmer from St. Peter of Minnesota. He is considering adding a robot to milk his 65 cows. He predicts an increase in production of about 10% if he installs a robot in a free-stall barn.
“The robot would be huge,” Seitzer said. “Fewer people want to do what we do, so it would be nice to have robots that are always there doing the work.”
But the initial cost is high. Seitzer estimates that a robot would cost about $250,000, not including the physical infrastructure (like a possible barn extension, dairy, or other necessities) to use it.
On his farm in Utica, Minnesota, Kieffer saw robots as a smart investment. Kieffer typically spends an hour a day doing maintenance, he said.
“Your debt per cow or debt per stall gets pretty big upfront, but what I tell people is you're basically prepaying your labor for seven or eight years,” he said. “It ends up being less of a traditional herd of cows being milked in a parlor.”
With dairy technology changing rapidly, Seitzer is feeling pressure to adapt his operation.
“If we don't, we might not for much longer,” he said.
Dr. Lindsey Borst, a veterinarian who milks 230 cows with her family in Rochester, Minnesota, feels differently. Borst has been looking at robots for five to six years.
“I wouldn't say we're behind. Robots are still quite new and not extremely common yet,” he said. “Sometimes it's also good to wait because technology changes so quickly too.”
Robots are not the right choice for all farmers, said Kieffer, the farmer, and Endres, the University of Minnesota professor.
“Don't put in robots because you don't like cows. You also have to be mechanically inclined to do preventive maintenance on robots,” Kieffer said.
Reinemann, the UW professor since 1990 and director of the UW Milking Research and Teaching Laboratory, grew up in Wisconsin dairy country.
“For me as a young person, milking cows was so common. There was absolutely nothing interesting about it,” he said. “I started my career in milking technology and it was amazing. Changes in technology and the way dairy farms are managed have changed a lot.”
RELATED STORY: Technology goes beyond milking
Ethan Humble is a 2023 graduate of Simpson College, where he majored in multimedia journalism.
Suzanne Behnke contributed to this report.
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