Company makes its 5,000th robotic milker

Rotaries, parallels, and herringbones are the milking parlors of choice for dairies in the U.S., but in much of the rest of the world the story is much different.

Smaller herds, plus labor situations sometimes even more challenging than what U.S. dairies face, are increasingly making robotic systems the preferred pick for milk producers abroad.

This trend in automated milking reached a big milestone in April when DeLaval – just one of many robot equipment manufacturers around the world – announced production of its 5,000th robotic milking unit which was sold to a 33-year-old farmer in Germany.

Since their introduction in the 1990s, robotic systems have evolved almost exponentially in terms of features and sophistication. Comparing their evolution to cellular phones is a good analogy.

Modern robotic systems typically surpass human-operated parlors in terms of data collection and milk quality analysis. In addition to automatic identification and milk weight recording, robots act as challenge feeding stations for every cow in the herd. Both the amount of grain fed and number of milkings per day can be set for each individual cow. Some units measure both milk flow and somatic cell count on a quarter-by-quarter basis, and some even record body weights as cows stand in the stall.

Milking clusters are automatically rinsed between each cow, and a full washup sequence is performed at pre-set intervals. In case of equipment failure, units have a built-in paging feature to the owner or manager.

Integrated herd management programs generate a myriad of “look at these cows” lists and other reports identifying animals that suddenly drop in production, spike in SCC, or do not visit the robot their allowed times per day.