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CONSULT CORNER
Robotic Milking Resources from John Gerbitz
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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
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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
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
HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR FREE TIME?
Let’s talk a little bit about free time. I don’t mean the kind on the lake with a fishing pole or on the deck with a beer. This is Cow Corner, and I am talking about free time in milking robots.
Jun 13, 20243 min read
Jun 13, 20240 min read
RANK YOUR COWS WITH A ROBOTIC PERFORMANCE INDEX
I was a dairy farmer before synch programs, sexed semen, and using beef semen to manage heifer inventory. In those days it was not unusual to run short of replacements and buy cows to maintain herd size. I bought replacements from the best herds in the area, but they were never the best cows in my herd. My cows were not better than anyone else’s, but they had generations of selection to be better adapted to my management than anyone else’s. That’s genetic improvement through
Jun 6, 20243 min read
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME
A lot of things have changed since I milked 40 cows in a tie-stall barn in 2001. We certainly know a lot more about transition cows than we did then. We measure things we could not measure and balance things we did not know we needed to balance. And, we didn’t know anything about managing transition cows in robots. One thing that has not changed about transition cow management – it is still about getting them to eat as much as possible, as quickly as possible. We know more ab
May 23, 20243 min read
HOW MANY COWS DO YOU FETCH?
A couple of months ago I met with a farmer to prepare for a panel discussion. I asked if there were any questions he did not want me to ask. Way at the top of his do-not-ask list was, “How many cows do you fetch?” His point was, the number doesn’t mean much because different people fetch different cows for different reasons. For the record, I did not ask, but someone in the audience did. Sure, a fetch cow is a cow that you bring to the robot because she does not come when she
May 16, 20243 min read
MY NEW FAVORITE ROBOT
Last week I visited a farm where I helped start the robots almost 4 years ago. I have only been back a couple of times since the startup so we had a lot to catch up on. After comparing notes on neighbors, weather, feed tables, milking permission, cow flow, and other odds and ends, the farmer got a big smile and said, “I have to show you my new favorite robot.”
May 7, 20242 min read
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