ROBOTIC FARM FEATURE - MASON DIXON FARMS

Mason Dixon Farms is located near Gettysburg, PA. The farm is named for the historic Mason-Dixon line, which actually goes through the farm. The farm is now operated by the 9^th generation of the Waybright family. Doyle Waybright is a member of the 8^th generation. Doyle has been a true pioneer in the development of large-scale robotic milking. I got to meet Doyle when he joined us as a guest on an episode of the Worldwide Robotic Milking podcast.

Doyle and his brothers became interested in robotic milking following a trip to Germany in 2000. While the first milking robots in the US were starting in Wisconsin, Mason Dixon had a vision for a much larger project. Manufacturers were not ready to commit to a large project at that time, so the farm installed a single robot so they could learn more about the technology.

By 2005, they had a manufacturer on board with their project, and they began construction

of phase 1 – a 10-unit barn for 500 cows. When phase 2 was completed in 2009, the fully guided flow barn had a total of 20 robots. The robots were in the middle of the barn, lengthwise. Pens were on opposite corners of the robot rooms, with 1 robot per pen. All of the robot rooms were connected through stairwells to a central tunnel which housed milk lines, water lines, and vacuum lines. At that time, Mason-Dixon had 1,100 cows milked with robots, and 1,500 milked in a parlor.

Efficient use of labor has driven many innovations at Mason-Dixon. Before the robots, they retrofitted their parlor with a platform that moved cows on rail tracks to load them more efficiently than standard parlors. So, saving labor was a key part of their decision to use robotic milking. Since they continued to operate the parlor, Waybrights had real-time comparisons between the robots and the parlor. Milk production was the same in both facilities, but the labor savings in the robot barn were significant. They added the robot barn, with minimal additional labor. Year in and year out, Doyle found that his cost of production for the robots was the same as the cost of production in the parlor.

Doyle commented on the successes and failures through 15 years of robotic milking. He felt that Mason-Dixon farms created a foundation, but with 1 robot and 55 cows per pen, they failed to fully adapt robotic milking for large dairies. Others have built on the foundation with more robots and more cows per pen, and he sees great potential for batch milking with large herds. Doyle’s biggest success was the labor reduction that they achieved. Not only was the labor cost lower, the robots allowed them time to place more emphasis on improving herd management.

Mason-Dixon Farms took their robots out of service in October of 2024, because they had reached the end of their useful life. The herd was reduced to 1500 cows when the robots went off line. The family is expanding again, but the next generation has chosen a rotary parlor, instead of new robots. The original robots are retired, and the parts are for sale. But Doyle still believes in the future of robots. His years of robotic milking experience, and pioneering role with large herd robotic milking, have helped shape robotic milking as we know it today. Gareth Jones commented during the podcast, “So, you really produced the blueprint really for large herds from your own experiences.”