Lely USA and its dealer center partner, Argall Dairy Systems in Belleville, WI, hosted a two-day tour of 5 dairy farms in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin that all milk their dairy herds with Lely Astronaut A3 robotic milking systems. The dairy farmers on the tour learned the intricacies of robotic dairy production...how cows are easily trained to freely visit the robot for milking. The group saw how one Lely robot can milk up to sixty cows three times each day, greatly reducing the manual labor stress on the farmer and his family.
We visited the farm of Doug and Tina Suhr in Kasson, MN; the dairy farm of Auggie Bauman and his son Mike and family in Buffalo Center, IA; Village Edge Farm owned and operated by Greg Hetrick and his brother Dennis in Nelson, WI; Doug Heintz's dairy farm in Houston, MN; and Keith Knutson's farm in Pine Island, MN.
At each stop, each farmer had similar experiences to share: 1) the short training period needed to get nearly all cows adapted to the free-traffic routine of entering the robot; 2) the quickly emerging increase in milk per cow generated by the free-cow traffic/robot method; 3) the volume of detailed data for each cow produced by the A3 that will help strengthen each farmer's management capabilities and success; and 4) the fact that it's just plain great not to have to chase cows throughout the day for manual milking. Reducing tedious milking labor was a universal treat, no matter what farm we visited.
We visited the farm of Doug and Tina Suhr in Kasson, MN; the dairy farm of Auggie Bauman and his son Mike and family in Buffalo Center, IA; Village Edge Farm owned and operated by Greg Hetrick and his brother Dennis in Nelson, WI; Doug Heintz's dairy farm in Houston, MN; and Keith Knutson's farm in Pine Island, MN.
At each stop, each farmer had similar experiences to share: 1) the short training period needed to get nearly all cows adapted to the free-traffic routine of entering the robot; 2) the quickly emerging increase in milk per cow generated by the free-cow traffic/robot method; 3) the volume of detailed data for each cow produced by the A3 that will help strengthen each farmer's management capabilities and success; and 4) the fact that it's just plain great not to have to chase cows throughout the day for manual milking. Reducing tedious milking labor was a universal treat, no matter what farm we visited.
