Nutritional And Management Considerations In Robotic Milking Facilities
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By Erik Brettingen, B.S.
Robotic milking systems are becoming increasingly common in the dairy industry. Milking with robots provides benefits for both the dairy farmer and the cow. For the dairy farmer, robots take stress off a difficult labor situation and allow more flexibility of time. They allow time that would have been spent milking to be spent on potentially higher value activities like herd management tasks, making quality forage, and more time with family. For the cows, robots can improve comfort by allowing more expression of natural cow behavior. Especially in free flow systems, cows can move about the barn as they please, get milked when they want, and rarely experience time standing when they would rather be laying or eating. Like anything, along with the benefits also come a few difficulties. Feeding cows in a robotic milking system can have some challenges but a few key concepts have been proven to help create success. Exceptional forage quality, robot concentrate palatability, transition cow performance, and a rumen focused formulation strategy all contribute to sustainable and profitable production in robot herds.