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

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

HOW DO YOU MANAGE YOUR FREE TIME? (video)

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

Guest Appearance on The Dairy Podcast Show

https://www.wisenetix.com/blog/the-dairy-podcast-show-john-gerbitz-robotic-milking-revolution-ep-83

Apr 29, 20241 min read

Guest Appearance on The Dairy Show Podcast

https://thedairyshow.podbean.com/e/things-to-know-about-robotic-milking-systems/

Apr 29, 20241 min read

IF YOU GO

My local newspaper used to highlight articles about upcoming events with bullet points about the event in a box with the title, “If You Go.” It was a quick summary of the things you needed to know if you planned to attend. This is the “If you go” for those considering reducing or eliminating pellet feeding in milking robots. “Before you go” was covered in my last article. Before you go, you should have guided flow traffic, top quality forage, commitment to training, and someo

Apr 25, 20243 min read

FEED STILL BRINGS COWS TO THE ROBOT

In the real estate business, they say property value depends on 3 things - location, location and location. In robotic milking, cow flow depends on 3 things - feed, feed and feed. Has that changed now that there are farms that do not provide feed in the robots?

Apr 18, 20243 min read

A WINNING ATTITUDE

What makes a great robot cow? One dairyman told me he knows within 3 milkings whether a cow has the motivation to get to the robot frequently. He felt that behavior traits were just as important as udder conformation, teat size and milking speed. Another dairyman follows his cow families closely enough to observe differences in cow behavior in his robotic milking system. He identified the cow families in his herd that learn his robotic system quickly. I commented that this wo

Apr 11, 20242 min read

STRATEGIES FOR GROUPING COWS IN ROBOT BARNS

I read somewhere that “There are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who think there are 2 kinds of people, and those who know that nothing is really that simple.” I think there could be similar words of wisdom for how cows are grouped in robot barns. Especially the, “Nothing is really that simple,” part.

Apr 4, 20242 min read

NEW GRAPHS ADD VALUE TO COW CORNER WEEKLY REPORTS

Cow Corner has always provided subscription customers weekly information to track trends in robot feed consumption, cow performance and system performance. Starting this week, that information is much easier to use because the reports include graphs. My Dad preferred an analogue watch over a digital watch. Always a very practical mechanical engineer, he said an analogue watch is a graph. He said you don’t use your watch to tell what time it is, you use it to tell how much tim

Mar 28, 20242 min read

A NEW WAY TO COUNT GATE PASSAGES

Are you comfortable running your gas gauge to empty before you even look for a gas station or do you fill up when you get below half a tank? I use my GPS even when I know where I am going because I have this irrational need to always compare my distance to empty to my distance to destination. In robotic milking, if we compare the number of milkings per cow per day to the distance to destination, then gate passages, rejections and refusals compare to the distance to empty. Gat

Mar 21, 20243 min read

THE COW CORNER COW PERFORMANCE MONITORING REPORT

Robotic milking equipment software provides an at-a-glance summary for whole herd performance. The Cow Corner Cow Performance Report gives more detail, grouping cows by number of lactations and stage of lactation for more complete analysis. The Production Performance section is included in the weekly report provided to Cow Corner customers with a monthly subscription. Here are the questions the report can answer.

Mar 14, 20242 min read

THE COW CORNER ROBOT FEED MONITORING REPORT

For TMR feeding, nutritionists talk about the ration they calculated, the ration the feeder mixed and delivered, and the ration the cow ate. The 3 rations don’t always match. Robots are no different. The Cow Corner Feed Monitoring Report is a tool to monitor the robot settings and performance so that what the robot dispenses, and what the cow eats, are as close as possible to what the nutritionist calculated. In my years with robotic milking, I have spent more time with feed

Mar 7, 20243 min read

THE COW CORNER INVENTORY PROJECTION REPORT

Like it or not, almost every dairy herd has seasonal swings in the number of calvings, pregnancies, and milking cows. Sometimes it is intentional, to make best use of pasture or facilities. More often we are backed into it because of breeding problems in hot weather, or avoiding heifers freshening in extreme cold. In conventional barns, we can deal with inconsistent inventory by overcrowding the pen and running the parlor a little longer. In a robot barn, production per cow s

Feb 29, 20242 min read

THE COW CORNER REPRODUCTION AND HEALTH REPORT

The Cow Corner Reproduction and Health Report summarizes several reproductive key performance indicators in one place. It saves the time and trouble of looking in several places for the management information you need. It makes it easy to share information with your veterinarian, nutritionist, or AI specialist who may or may not be familiar with your milking system software. It also provides a side-by side comparison to each of the 2 previous months, the farm goal, and the in

Feb 22, 20242 min read

STRATEGICALLY MANAGING FOR CONSISTENCY IN ROBOTIC MILKING

As robotic milking technology is employed by more farms, it is inevitable that the versatility of robotic milking systems will be tested in new ways. Consistency is one of the time-honored keys to successful robotic milking but there are all sorts of things that make consistency difficult to achieve. We like to keep cow numbers consistent through the year to keep the robots full without overcrowding. We avoid pen moves so social structure is not disrupted. We anticipate ratio

Feb 15, 20243 min read

COW COMFORT AND COW FLOW IN ROBOTIC MILKING

Last week I had an hour to kill between appointments and I spent it observing cows in a top producing robot barn. I saw a lot of things done very well. What struck me most was the outstanding cow comfort. The facility was designed for comfort with cross ventilation and sand bedding, but more importantly, the cows behaved like comfortable cows. How do comfortable cows behave?

Feb 8, 20242 min read