CONSULT CORNER

True stories about robotic milking startups with tips for future startups.

Here are some things to consider when using sprinklers in the robots to cool dairy cows.

Fresh pens can allow more robot time for fresh cows. They can also improve labor efficiency by concentrating the training and monitoring of fresh cows in one place.

Paul Windemuller and I visited about robotic milking on his Agculture podcast. We covered everything from feeding to fetching, and from...

Paul Windemuller and I talked about Cow Corner and the relationship between dairy management and robotic milking on his AgCulture...

A few years ago, a farmer told me they liked their robots but they weren’t sure robots were the best way to milk heifers. They were...

It’s been a little more than a year since robotic dairies began having serious conversations about taking away all of the feed in the...

In fully guided flow robotic milking, cows receive access to the robot through a commitment pen, where they are held until a robot is...

According to Dairy Records Management System (DRMS), US herds average 177 days in milk (DIM). Average DIM depends on when cows become...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the title of a 1966 Clint Eastwood western. I must admit that I have never seen the film. The title is...

Every dairy producer likes to look at peak production numbers, especially with the availability of that metric in robotic milking...

Is hoof care different in robotic milking, as compared to parlor barns? I asked that question of Brett Illies. Bret was a professional...

Your robotic milking system can be micromanaged by assigning special milk access, feed, and milking settings to individual cows or small gro

What if you have unused robot capacity? Can less restrictive milking permission improve cow flow and decrease free time or idle time? The short answer is, no.

In February of 2025 Minnesota and Wisconsin University Extension hosted workshops titled “Milking Robots: Are they the future?”. The...

Part 2 suggested 2 similar rules of thumb for balancing the bunk and the pellet in free flow barns. One suggestion was to balance the...

Part 1 covered the roles of PMR and pellet in meeting the energy needs of the cow and making the barn flow. Part 2, covers balancing...

We give up a lot of control when we stop taking cows out of the pen for milking and expect them to come to the robot on their own...

I spent much of my week at the Dairy Challenge Midwest Regional contest in Brookings, South Dakota. I caught up with old friends, made...

What matters more in robots? In some respects, almost everything. Some robot farmers complain that they cannot maintain the consistent...