WHAT TO LOOK FOR WHEN YOU TOUR A ROBOTIC DAIRY

In my experience, if you ask to 10 farmers with robots how they decided what they needed in their barn, at least 9 of them will say, “Tour a lot of barns.” I don’t think there are very many questions I could ask and expect such a high level of agreement. It’s clear that seeing the barn, and talking to the people that work there, can help to visualize what would be the best fit for your goals and management style. You will make the best use of your time, and your host's time, if you begin with a clear list of questions you want to answer. The list may change over time. In the beginning, you don’t know what you don’t know. Later in the process, you will have some clear preferences, and focus on specific details that are still taking shape.

Begin with a clear picture of your management strengths and weaknesses. Know your

personal, production, and business goals. If you have struggled with transition management in the past, think about ways that your new facility can improve that. If embryos are an important part of your genetic and reproductive management program, focus on handling for donors and recipients. Are management tasks and cattle handling done by adults, or will younger family members be included. What do you want to do better than you were able to do it in your old facility?

Cow Traffic

You may come into the design process with a strong bias towards either free flow, or guided flow traffic. I have seen guided flow barns converted to free flow, and free flow barns converted to guided flow. Even if your mind is already made up, tour both, to make sure you understand both. Be very cautious about designs that don’t fit either description. Watch cows move through each system. Ask the owners why the chose their traffic, and what they like and dislike.

Cattle Handling

You may spend more time on this than on anything else. Look for designs that allow 1 person to move cows anywhere they need to go. Recognize that there are management tasks that two people can do better than one. Take note of the foot bath location and ask about how effective it is, and how often it is used. Find out where inseminations are performed, and vaccines and synch shots are given, and think about how it will work for the people who will be working in your barn. Ask where dry treatments are done. Learn about any special facilities or protocols for training new animals.

Environment

Scrapers and robots are the most common ways to automate manure removal. Tour both, and find out which areas require hand scraping, which areas never get clean, and what compromises were made for each system. Likewise, look at barns with different types of bedding. Ask how often bedding is added, what grooming is necessary, how cows are handled when fresh bedding is added. Find out how the manure storage and handling affected the bedding choice. Pay close attention to the area around the robots. Robot rooms can interfere with air flow. Rooms can be positioned to minimize the interference, or fans can be added to correct it. Ask how temperature is controlled in robot rooms. If you visit on a hot day, be sure to ask about a cold day. If you visit on a dry day, ask what happens when it rains.

Every barn is an intersection between cows, equipment, and people. Consider the impact on each of them as you observe different features, in different barns. Cow Corner can help. I can provide a herd management assessment to help you identify areas to capitalize on, or improve in the new facility. I can help you create a list of things to observe, and develop a list of farms to visit. I can even tour with you.