ROBOTIC FARM FEATURE – HEEG FAMILY DAIRY

Jay Heeg operates Heeg Family Dairy with his brothers, Mark and Gary, and nephews, Nate and Cory. They started the 8-unit guided flow barn in 2023. This dairy has drawn a lot of attention because they were the first to start a robot barn with no feed in the robots. That’s an exciting innovation, but it’s only one example of Jay’s herd management focus. You won’t listen to Jay very long before you hear him say his cows are, “Living their best life,” and he wants to “Set cows up for success.”

Living their best life

Cows do live their best life in the sand-bedded barn with 2 pens and 4 robots per pen. In the commitment pen, cows have direct access to 3 of the robots. Gates form a lane that leads

cows to the 4^th robot. The lane can be used to queue a group of cows to the robot during training. Timid cows use the lane voluntarily because it provides a secure space where a boss cow cannot push them away before they enter the robot. After milking, cows can be sorted to the separation pen which has headlocks, and plenty of space for eating and resting. Most management tasks are completed there, and every cow is introduced to the barn through the separation pen. The single slope barn is designed so that it can be flipped twice and expanded to a total of 6 pens and 24 robots.

Set up for success

Heeg’s protocol for introducing new animals to the barn sets cows up for success. Cows calve with the parlor cows and groups are moved to the robot barn on Mondays. They start

out in the separation pen where they go to the robot 3 times per day. Each cow stays in the separation pen for 6 milkings. Cows that are new to the robots are marked with the date they arrived in the barn to make sure they get the training and attention they need. Most of the training is completed by the weekend. Once cows are trained, they return to the robot barn in following lactations. Cows that don’t respond to training are sent back to the parlor to live their best life. Jay prefers to bring cows to the robots in their second lactation because they learn more quickly than heifers. He does bring 1^st lactation heifers to the robot barn as needed, to keep the barn full. Cows are moved to the parlor if treatment is required, but they can return to the robot barn when the treatment is completed.

The training protocol is a critical to success without feed in the robots. Cows need to be trained to use the sort gates and one-way gates, for frequent trips to the feed bunk, which

create opportunities for milking. Without pellets, the robot cows can be fed like the parlor cows because all of their nutrient requirements are met at the feed bunk. Higher producing cows will meet their needs with higher dry matter intake at the bunk. There is not much chance for cows to become over-conditioned because the threshold for dry-off or culling is 60 pounds per day. The variability associated with the pellet delivery system, and cow preference for pellets is eliminated.

The well-designed facility, attention to cow training, and no-feed innovation are just 3 examples of the Heeg family’s commitment to setting cows up for success and letting them live their best life. The cows have responded with top production and excellent cow flow.