FARM FEATURE - SANDHILL DAIRY'S NO-PELLET TRANSITION

One of the hottest topics in robotic milking is, “Do I really need to feed pellets to get cows to come to the robot?” A growing number of guided flow farms have demonstrated that you don’t. Some farms started their robots without feed so the cows never knew anything different. Others gradually took pellets away from cows that had been trained to expect pellets. I worked with Sandhill Dairy as we took their cows from 7 pounds per cow per day to no pellet in the robot. Here is how we did it.

Sandhill dairy is located in west central Minnesota, near Perham, which is a little over an hour from Fargo. This is the part of Minnesota that a nescient gubernatorial candidate described as “Mostly rocks and cows.” The dairy is operated by Bob Dombeck and Jeremy Lachowitzer. There are 5 robots retrofitted into a guided flow free-stall barn with 2 pens – a two-row pen with 2 robots for first lactation cows and a 3-row pen with 3 robots for the mature cows. The robots went online in December of 2022.

From the start, there were problems with inconsistent pellet intake in the robots. Bob and

Jeremy experimented with different blends of pellets and roasted soybeans. Eventually they decided that feeding less was the best way to manage the inconsistency. Initially the goal was to feed less, but not necessarily to eliminate robot feed completely. In January of 2024, the cows averaged 7 pounds of pellets per day. We began reducing the maximum pellets per visit by .1 pounds per week but soon moved to .2 pound increments. By June the maximum per visit was 1.4 pounds and the average cow got 3.6 pounds. We reduced maximum per visit instead of dispense rate. Limiting the dispense rate treats fast milking cows differently from slow milking cows. We wanted the reduction to be similar for all cows.

We maintained 3.6 pounds per cow from June of 2024 through February of 2025 because of some unrelated milk production challenges. Once those challenges were resolved, we were committed to completely eliminating feed in the robot. We continued reducing maximum per visit by .2 pounds per week for all cows. In March, 2 fresh heifers were programmed not to receive feed in the robots while the rest of the pen continued to be fed. Jeremy used those two to test whether heifers could be trained to come to the robots without pellets. He was happy with the results. From that time forward, no new heifers got pellets. About a month later, Jeremy started freshening mature cows without feed in the robots. We grew more and more confident that fresh cows and heifers would perform without feed in the robots.

Meanwhile we continued to reduce the max per visit for all cows until we reached .4 pounds per visit. The next step would be .2 pounds, and after that pellets would be completely eliminated. We decided to run a trial before we pulled the plug. We took all of the robot feed away from a randomly selected group of mid-lactation mature cows, and compared them to cows that continued to receive pellets. When they didn’t miss a beat, we let the bin run empty. Before the end of August, all the mature cows were pellet-free. It took longer to run the bin empty for the first-lactation side of the barn because so many had started without pellets. By the end of October, robot feed was completely eliminated.

There were a few factors that helped make this transition successful. First, we had excellent communication with the whole team. Monthly meetings, and weekly monitoring, with the farm team, nutritionist, and robot consultant kept everyone working together. Second, we had a lot of patience and made all of the changes in small consistent steps. Third, all of us were all in – ready and willing to pause and regroup if needed, but confident that we would make it work.

After 3 generations of dairy farming, the Sandhill herd was dispersed in January of 2026. Bob and Jeremy will continue to raise cash crops on the 2,000 acre farm. It has been a privilege to work with these families.