6
CapitalPress.com
Friday, July 22, 2022
Dairy
Subscribe to our weekly dairy or livestock email
newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters
More dairy farms consider automation
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
A tight labor force and higher
labor costs have more dairy farm-
ers thinking about automation, but
there’s a lot to consider.
There are three main items that
have to come together and operate
in harmony — people, cows and
computers, said Richard Franta,
capital sales specialist with dairy
equipment manufacturer DeLaval.
On the people side, it’s think-
ing about who’s going to man-
age the new operation and how the
farmer or employee works with the
equipment.
Another thing to consider is
whether the automated equipment
helps lower the labor amount or
causes the farmer to invest more in
training and development, he said.
“In cows, a lot of it is the basics,”
he said during the latest “Dairy
Stream” podcast.
That means is the herd healthy
and productive, are the stalls com-
fortable and well maintained, are
the cows breeding back on time and
Capital Press File
The economics of milking cows need to be considered in determin-
ing the best system, experts say.
do they have good hoof health, he
said.
“It’s important to remember that
milking systems harvest milk, the
management of your cows is what
produces it,” he said.
The computer component is
what farmers forget about in the
equation when they start investigat-
ing automation, he said.
“They can be excellent caretak-
ers of cows and manage employees
well, but they haven’t considered
much about how this highly auto-
mated system runs and how they’re
going to have to work with that,” he
says.
He wants to ensure each farm
has plans to train employees how to
use the automation and computers
correctly and how to interpret the
data the system produces, he said.
“We also need to plan for suc-
cess by placing the robots or rotary
in attractive, well-ventilated and
-lit areas so that cows feel comfort-
able expressing their milk there,” he
said.
As for skill level, he’s had farm-
ers who have never owned a cell
phone transition to automation. A
person just needs to be able to adapt
and learn. DeLaval can work with
its computer system and herd-man-
agement platform to best identify
what the farmer wants to measure
and report that data in an easy-to-
read format, he said.
“So I don’t think you have to
be super computer savvy. We defi-
nitely have those that are and those
that aren’t, and both can be success-
ful in automation in dairy farming,”
he said.
As for maintaining equipment, a
clean machine is a happy machine,
he said.
“Keeping items free of dirt and
debris helps keep them in good
shape,” he said.
“I also think it’s really import-
ant to have a good relationship
with your equipment dealer. Many
farmers can take over maintenance
of their equipment, but they need
to buy parts and cleaning chemi-
cals. Other farmers want to have
the dealership do all the service and
maintenance work,” he said.
Both are viable, but it’s import-
ant for a farmer to understand how
much he’ll be expecting to pay for
parts, service and chemicals when
he invests in a new piece of equip-
ment, he said.
“Most people start out having the
dealership do 100% of the mainte-
nance, and then they learn and pick
pieces along the way that they can
invest their time in,” he said.
DeLaval has training classes
and online support to help farmers
learn how to maintain equipment,
he said.
“There’s a lot of support in help-
ing make sure the farmer has the
tools, resources and information
they need to be successful with
their new automation system,” he
said.
ROI, herd size will determine investment in robotics
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Installing automation on
a dairy can be a big invest-
ment, and the most import-
ant thing farmers want to
know is the expected return
on that investment, or ROI.
The best automation
when it comes to ROI is spe-
cific to each dairy, “so we do
take a lot of time to evaluate
that,” said Richard Franta, a
capital sales specialist with
DeLaval.
“You have to look at your
dairy and see what your cur-
rent gaps are and be able to
understand how big of an
investment you’re looking
to make in automation and
what sort of money payback
you’re going to get from it
over time,” he said.
DeLaval has an ROI cal-
culator that uses information
from a dairy’s current sys-
tem, production levels and
other data to compare ROI
of different automation sys-
tems, he said during the lat-
est “Dairy Stream” podcast.
“That system generates
data on what we’d expect
your performance to be in a
rotary or in robots,” he said.
The size of the herd will
also help dictate what a
farmer is willing to spend
and how he’s trying to
change his labor force, he
said.
“If you’re a medium-size
herd, you could look at get-
ting robots and be very effi-
cient. But perhaps you could
also look at getting a small
rotary that can be operated
by a single person,” he said.
Investigating both of
those options will help
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File
A cow is milked by a robot from DeLaval Dairy Service at
the Abiqua Acres Dairy near Silverton, Ore.
a farmer understand the
change in his labor force, he
said.
For a large herd, a farmer
should dive deep into how
he wants to manage those
cows, house cows and milk
cows, whether that’s in
robots or a rotary, he said.
“Once you’ve established
those items, you can bet-
ter decide which direction
we’re heading,” he said.
In addition to ROI and
labor goals, there are other
factors to consider when
transitioning to automation
from either a tie-stall stan-
chion barn or a parlor, he
said.
First off for a stanchion
barn is whether tie-stall
cows are used to moving at
all for their feed and water
or have those been brought
to them their entire life, he
said.
“We don’t simply unlock
cows one day and expect
them to start using a robot,”
he said.
Hoof health is another
thing to consider. Cows
will have to be able to com-
fortably move throughout
the barn on a healthy set of
hooves and legs,” he said.
“Having a plan for cow
flow to the robot will be an
important step in making the
transition into robotics auto-
mation,” he said.
Those cows could also
benefit from milk meters
if the farmer wants to stay
with his pipeline in the tie-
stall herd. If he’s looking to
expand, he could consider a
small rotary, he said.
For a parlor herd, those
free-stall cows are used to
moving throughout the barn
for feed, water and milking,
he said.
But it takes good plan-
ning of how a new rotary
or robot will be placed,
whether the milk house is
big enough and up to date
or whether they have to
add on to the facility, he
said.