CONSULT CORNER

Robotic Milking Resources from John Gerbitz

FEATURED ARTICLES

IT MATTERS MORE IN ROBOTS

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

WHAT'S HOLDING YOU BACK IN ROBOTIC MILKING?

There are 3 primary physical limitations on production in robotic milking systems. The first is milking capacity, or the number of...

EVALUATING HERD PERFORMANCE BY PARITY AND STAGE OF LACTATION

Robot herds are unique in that there are management changes built into the system for different stages of lactation. In most parlor herds, once cows leave the fresh pen, they stay in the same pen, get milked the same number of times, and eat the same ration throughout the lactation. Robotic milking systems can be set to adjust the milking frequency and pellet feeding according to milk production and stage of lactation. It makes sense to group data by lactation number and stag

ALL RESOURCES

WHICH COWS ARE EARNING THEIR TIME IN THE ROBOT?

I have spent many hours, in many different farm offices, discussing the fate of top producing cows that take too much time in the robot. Maybe they dance and kick so attachment takes longer, or maybe their teats restrict milk flow. If they take twice as long as other cows, they need to produce a lot more milk than other cows to earn their time. You can balance production, speed, and behavior, with a weighted index, much like the genetic indexes for TPI or Net Merit.

Oct 24, 20242 min read

HOW BORED ARE YOUR COWS?

Recently, customers have been asking about day-to-day and seasonal variation in their robot barns. They want to know why production, visits, and cow flow can’t be more consistent. In normal day-to-day operation, the five things most likely to change are environment, cows, feed, machines, and people. Each of those can affect how much cows eat, how much they rest, and in a robot barn, how often they are milked. The more consistent we can keep these five, the more bored our cows

Oct 17, 20243 min read

WAYS TO INCREASE MILKINGS/ROBOT

In previous articles, I suggested a general goal of 170 milkings per robot per day and an industry average of 140 milkings. What does it take to get from 140 milkings to 170 milkings?

Oct 10, 20242 min read

CURING ALLELOMIMETIC COWS

Many dairy publications will have features in the coming weeks about the new products they saw and the new things they learned at World Dairy Expo. Since Cow Corner, and the Cow Corner concept are relatively new, many of the people who stopped by my booth began by asking, “So what does Cow Corner do?” I never actually explained it this way, but Cow Corner spends a lot of time curing allelomimetic cows. I think that cure is new to Expo.

Oct 3, 20243 min read

MEASURING MILKING ROBOT PERFORMANCE

What is the most important unit of production on your dairy? You may think of production in terms of pounds of milk, dollars of sales, or...

Sep 26, 20243 min read

PREPARING YOUR TEAM FOR ROBOTIC MILKING

Cows, buildings and equipment get a lot of attention when a farm is getting ready to transition to robotic milking. It’s a big change for the cows, and milking can’t start until the roof is on the building and the robots are plumbed and wired in. With everything going on, it’s easy to forget that there are big changes in store for people too. The whole team needs to work together so everyone can adjust to new roles. Here are a few examples.

Sep 19, 20243 min read

COW BEHAVIOR IMPACTS GROUPING STRATEGIES

I once heard a story of a woman who always cut her roasts in half and cooked them in 2 pans. She never questioned the practice. It was what her mother taught her so she always did it that way. Finally, she asked her mother why she cut her roasts in half. Her mother explained that she did not have a roasting pan large enough for a whole roast. I don’t know if the story is true but it’s a good analogy. Sometimes our cow grouping strategies are like that. Maybe cows are still gr

Sep 12, 20243 min read

FEEDING CORN GLUTEN PELLETS IN ROBOTS

Some dairies are using corn gluten pellets as a lower-cost alternative to manufactured robot pellets. Are corn gluten pellets right for your dairy? It depends on your robotic milking system and what you expect your robot feed to do. Corn gluten pellets generally cost less per ton than manufactured robot pellets and palatability is usually good. On the other hand, nutrient content and pellet durability for corn gluten feed can vary, and nutrient density is often lower than man

Sep 5, 20243 min read

COW CORNER DELPRO TRAINING FAQ'S

Why is Cow Corner offering DelPro training? Cow Corner’s purpose is to help robotic milking equipment do more for the people who use it. DelPro training is part of that purpose. I worked with DelPro as a dairy farm reproduction consultant before I was a robotic milking specialist. I know how frustrating it can be to find the information you need in an unfamiliar program. I want to help others avoid that frustration.

Aug 29, 20243 min read

HOW SOON TO BREED AFTER CALVING

This week I had one conversation with someone who waits 80 days after calving to start breeding cows and another conversation with someone was considering starting 45 days after calving. That’s quite a range. Who was right? And, does the right answer have anything to do with whether or not cows are milked in robots?

Aug 22, 20243 min read

A YEAR OF COW CORNER – WHAT HAVE I LEARNED?

Earlier this week I listened to an episode of the Real Science Exchange podcast titled Lessons Learned in Research on Nutritional Management of Robotic Milked Cows . The hosts shared a lot of good information based on research and practical experience. I was amazed at how many times they used the phrase, “non-nutritional factors” in a podcast with “Nutritional Management” in the title. The phrase “non-nutritional factor” was new to me. The concept was not. Most what I have l

Aug 15, 20243 min read

KEEPING COWS COMFORTABLE AT THE ROBOT

High traffic areas like the fetch pen, the commitment pen, and the robot entrance can become crowded any time but the crowding can be a bigger problem when the weather gets hot. Keeping cows comfortable in guided flow commitment pens is important because cows can't leave. Free flow fetch pens are similar. With either guided-flow or free-flow, cows spend significant time waiting in front of the robots. Bunching in any those areas can limit access to the robot for cows that ne

Aug 8, 20243 min read

WHAT IS CHALLENGE FEEDING?

My summers in the early 1980’s were spent working on a neighbor’s dairy farm. My dad was a crop farmer, so the neighbor’s farm was where I got my start in the dairy business. One day I was sent to Brodhead, WI to pick up one of the first TMR mixers in the area – a Knight Little Auggie. That was the beginning of the end of what we called challenge feeding. On my own farm, I fed ingredients separately in a tie stall barn, so I continued challenge feeding until I sold the cows i

Aug 1, 20242 min read

ROBOT SOFTWARE OR HERD MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE?

Many dairy farmers have a love-hate relationship with the program that controls the robots. After all, they did not choose it and they can’t change it – the manufacturer told them they needed it. They may also have herd management software to track herd health, breeding programs, calvings, dry-offs and more. People ask me which is more accurate, which do you really need, and how do they work together.

Jul 25, 20243 min read

A MODULAR ROBOT ROOM

A few weeks ago, Thorp Equipment invited me to see their modular robot room. I went in a skeptic, but I was extremely impressed with the structure and the possibilities. The room is constructed of Paneltim structural-grade plastic panels. Panetim panels are about 2” thick, molded with 2 smooth sheets separated by a honeycomb core. The panels are joined with plastic welds or plastic fittings. Corners are joined with stainless steel channels and similar stainless channels ancho

Jul 18, 20242 min read

MANAGING ROBOT PELLETS ON THE FARM

Sometime ago I read a book by Susan Scott called Fierce Conversations – definitely a worthwhile read for anyone who has conversations....

Jul 10, 20242 min read

MANAGING ROBOT PELLETS ON THE FARM (video)

Jul 10, 20240 min read

As seen in Hoard's Dairyman: Can we skip feed in the robots?

Feeding pellets in the robot is the way we have always done it. Still, a few high-producing dairies have been successful without.

Jul 8, 20240 min read

MANAGING HOOF HEALTH IN ROBOTIC MILKING

It goes without saying that hoof health is critical to successful robotic milking. Thank you, captain obvious. We all understand that lame cows become fetch cows. And, some research suggests higher levels of lameness in robot barns than in parlors. Nutrition, cow comfort, lying time, heat stress, and disease all impact hoof health. Ultimately the best tools we have for managing hoof health are the trimming program and the foot bath. Most farms will need both.

Jun 27, 20242 min read

FIND YOUR BEST AND WORST ROBOT COWS

The Cow Corner Top and Bottom Cow report highlights the top ten and bottom 10 cows for various key performance indicators (KPI). It is a quick and easy way to see find the cows that need special management attention. This report goes out to subscription customers every week. Horizon and DelPro both have indexes that give weighted value to each KPI to rate the best and worst robot cows in the herd overall. Those are valuable tools for ranking

Jun 20, 20243 min read