0:05
Good morning, everybody!

0:07
Welcome to the October Badger Dairy Insight webinar.

0:12
Thank you for joining us.

0:13
The Badger Dairy Insight webinar series, if you're unfamiliar is a webinar series hosted by the University of Wisconsin Division of Extension Dairy team and it's a monthly series offered on the third Tuesday of each month.

0:29
And we provide the latest research on dairy based information regarding animal welfare, breeding, genetic selection, automation, modernization and nutrition for producers, dairy workers and managers.

0:45
And my name is Katelyn Goldsmith.

0:48
I'm a statewide dairy outreach specialist with UW Madison Extension and I'm going to be the host and moderator for our session today.

0:57
If you're not familiar, today's session is entitled AMS Ask the Experts Your Automatic Milking System Questions Answered.

1:09
And we have 3 panelists who are going to be joining us today, and they're going to be answering questions regarding automatic milking systems that have been submitted to us by farmers and producers.

1:21
But you are also encouraged to submit your questions for the panel, and you can do so using the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen.

1:31
This webinar is also being recorded, and you can find it on our dairy website in about one to two weeks.

1:37
And we will also feature it in our monthly Dairy E newsletter.

1:42
Originally, we had four panelists for this discussion.

1:46
Unfortunately, Doctor Lizzy French with the USDA Forage Research Center is unable to join us due to the current government shutdown.

1:55
So, sad that she can't join us.

1:57
But we do have three other great panelists that are going to be here today, and those are Doug Reinemann, Marcia Endres, and Nesli Akdeniz.

2:07
I'm sorry, Nesli! Akdeniz. They're going to be introducing themselves so Nesli can get her name right.

2:13
I'm very sorry.

2:15
So to start off, what I want our panelists to do today is take a couple minutes, introduce themselves to our audience and give a background on their work and their work kind of specific to the AMS world.

2:28
And just to get it started, I'll assign Doug as our first one to talk.

2:33
Well, hello everyone.

2:35
I've been at the UW for 35 years and running the UW milking research instruction lab over that period of time, and I've sort of followed automatic milking from its very start.

2:51
And my, you know, my interests, my recent interests are really, it really comes down to profitability.

2:59
It's like how can robotic milking systems compete economically with, you know, the alternatives primarily being large rotary parlors.

3:08
So that is my primary interest right at the moment.

3:11
And then there's just all sorts of really fascinating questions.

3:13
I'm an engineer by training, so, you know, robots are data collection machines.

3:20
And so I've been having a lot of fun with enormous data sets coming out of robots and, you know, asking some very, you know, questions that have been around for a long time and finally have the data sets to be able to answer some of those questions.

3:35
So that's my robot thing.

3:42
Thank you, Doug.

3:43
Marcia, would you like to go next? Marcia Endres with the University of Minnesota.

3:48
I'm a professor here in the Department of Animal Science and also an extension dairy specialist.

3:55
We've done our first surveys with robots back in 2010 I think.

3:59
So I've been involved doing some research with robotic systems for quite some time.

4:04
We've done surveys which kind of learning what the producers, you know, how they work with robots, why they decide to implement robots, and also using data like Doug just mentioned.

4:15
I've done some research with my grad students looking at the data we can get from robots and how that is maybe associated with productivity, for example. Also investigating factors that might influence production per cow, production per robot in AMS systems.

4:31
So we're seeing a change of course in the last 10-15 years.

4:37
And this being a technology that has grown.

4:41
And we felt it was important as a team here that we work on it and learn more about it.

4:48
Thank you.

4:48
And then Nesli. Hi, good morning.

4:51
I'm Nesli Akdeniz. I'm an assistant professor and extension specialist in biological systems engineering here at UW Madison.

5:00
So I do ventilation studies, ventilation design for traditional buildings, also ventilation design for AMS buildings.

5:08
One of the tools I use is I develop some computational simulations.

5:14
So if there are different options that we want to test before testing them on the site, before building them and spending our funds, we're able to test them using our simulations and we're able to say, yes, this is a promising approach or if this approach needs to be improved.

5:34
So it is my study area and I'm very glad to be here today.

5:39
Thank you.

5:40
So we have a great spread of panelists today and I wanted to kick off the conversation with kind of a general question that each of you could answer, which is when it comes to AMS, what is some of the most or the most common question you seem to get and how do you usually answer that?

6:04
I can start out.

6:05
The most common question is what does it cost?

6:08
And you know, my response to that is I think a good way of expressing the cost is, is in terms of cost of milk production.

6:20
So we've got a number of farms now that have both AMS and conventional milking systems.

6:27
So there's a number of farms that have been, you know, pretty careful economic analysis of 1 system versus the other.

6:35
And if you look across those numbers, you know, the AMS milking is currently more expensive.

6:43
This has a higher cost of production and that higher cost ranges between maybe if you're doing really well, about $0.50, a hundredweight more than.

6:54
And when I say conventional, I really mean a large rotary, it can be as high as $2.00, you know, depending on how efficiently you're running your robot system.

7:04
So you know, that to me is the the critical question for the longevity of the box style systems in the marketplaces.

7:13
Can they get the cost of production competitive with, you know, these large rotary operations?

7:20
And right now, it's not quite there yet.

7:26
I think over the years, of course, the questions kind of change, Katelyn.

7:30
But one question I've been getting a lot recently, I think, and not just from farmers but also consultants is how much feed can I feed?

7:38
You know, how much feed do I need to provide in the robot?

7:41
Can I go without feed?

7:43
And as we know, some farmers are doing that now in guided flow farms.

7:47
They are able to train their animals to come through without providing much at all or nothing.

7:55
A few farms are doing that in the robot, so that works OK for a guided flow farm, not for a free flow traffic farm.

8:02
I don't know if people are familiar with the difference.

8:04
The free flow traffic cows can access any area of the barn at any time.

8:08
Can go to the robot, can go to feed bunk, can go to the beds versus the guided flow.

8:13
We have pre-selection gates that will select the animals that need to be milked into a commitment pen and then the other animals that do not have to be milked yet.

8:21
They'll go directly to the feedbunk.

8:23
So in that case, we're already pre selecting the animals to go into the robot.

8:28
So it makes it possible to feed less feed in the robot.

8:31
So I've noticed over the years, like I said, I've been doing research for the last 15 years with robots or so, we've noticed a decrease in the amount of feed that's offered even, you know, both, I would say primarily in the guided flow, but even the free flow and the amounts are probably half what they used to be for the guided flow or less.

8:51
And then also in the free flow side, we've seen a few more farmers doing more than one feed.

8:56
In the beginning, we had just one feed, everybody fed one feed.

9:00
But in recent surveys, we found that about 30 plus percent of the farms were feeding more than one feed.

9:06
So we can have a cheaper feed that for all your cows and a more expensive feed for your high producing cows or your fresh cows, things like that.

9:13
So it's been an evolution in terms of what we feed in the robot.

9:16
And we also learned very clearly that we need to focus on that partial mixed ration and making that really good and have very good forage quality.

9:24
So cows come to the feedbunk to eat and then they go at the robot.

9:27
So the question about feeding, I get quite often too, I think maybe a little bit with my background in nutrition.

9:32
So anyway, as an example, there's all kinds of questions out there, but that's an example.

9:40
I think from my standpoint, the most common question, yes, one is cost the other one is feed.

9:46
They are the most common ones.

9:47
And then one another question is where do we put these robots inside the building?

9:54
And unfortunately we don't have a formula.

9:56
I don't think we have figured it out yet.

9:59
We have developed some suggestions, recommendations, but it really depends just like anything else in life, right?

10:06
The answer is it depends.

10:08
So if it's a brand new farm barn, I mean building, then there are more options.

10:14
If it's the retrofitted building, then our options are kind of limited.

10:18
We put them where we can put them and then what are the measures we need to take to make it work?

10:24
Then we dive into into those questions.

10:29
Perfect.

10:30
And I think all three of you kind of gave a good intro to further questions that we had people bring in including costs and feed and design.

10:40
I think one of them that I want to start with, it's a little bit more general, but it is related to cost.

10:47
We kind of hear farmers bring up afterwards, oh, I didn't know this was going to cost something or there was this hidden costs I didn't know about.

10:55
When we're thinking about robots, in your experience, what are some of those costs or considerations that people don't always think about when they're putting in robots or when they're, you know, doing their budgets for the year when it comes to their robots?

11:10
Well, there's very high initial costs, right, Katelyn.

11:13
The robots we don't think about is all the cost of repairs and maintenance and everything that goes with it.

11:18
So we talked with the, you know, sometimes the company might tell is 10,000 per robot per year, but in reality it might be 20,000, right?

11:24
So we need to be prepared for the cost of keeping them working properly.

11:28
Because if you don't put that effort and, and the cost that that takes to make it happen, we're not going to, you're not going to have robots anymore because they do require a lot of maintenance.

11:37
And, and again, there's a cost that, like Doug said, cost of robots is not just the initial, but it's the continuous cost and that it takes to do it.

11:50
And just to to follow on that, you know, there's a sort of question, does it reduce labor?

12:01
And you can ask that question a lot of different ways.

12:04
Is there more people?

12:05
Are there fewer people?

12:06
But very clearly you have a different kind of labor when you're working with robots.

12:12
So, you know, I, I hear this concern about the maintenance cost being higher, well it's a more complex machine than a conventional milking machine.

12:23
So it is going to cost more to maintain it, right.

12:26
And so one of the ways of looking at that is, you know, I can pay someone to put, you know, to attach milking units all day long, or I can pay someone to maintain my robot.

12:38
And so there's these kind of trade-offs since you have different kind of jobs, you don't have, you know, 12 people that are, you know, you're having to schedule and, you know, have repetitive stress injury and from, you know, work the process of attaching milking units.

12:53
But there are other kinds of labor.

12:56
So I think I think there's a kind of a false economy.

13:00
When people look at, for example, the maintenance bill, they say, Oh my God, it's much more expensive.

13:04
Well, it is more expensive to maintain and you're paying less for other kinds of labor.

13:10
So one of the ways I like to look at it is when you're putting in robots, you're, you're creating different kinds of jobs.

13:18
So you have to look at the kinds of jobs you're creating and you know, is that, you know, sort of dairy farm ecosystem in terms of the jobs and the quality of life and the lifestyle, you know, is that more preferable?

13:33
You know, that's, that's one of the considerations and, and I think to have a more holistic view of the costs, you know, not just to focus on maintenance because you know that tends to get people very agitated if their maintenance bill goes up.

13:49
But you know, it's a trade off.

13:51
There's and there's people on the farm you can train to, to do some of that maintenance work and you know, you don't.

13:59
So I think that's one of the, yeah, one of the, I would say, sort of misconceptions is that there is a restructuring of the dairy that takes place when you go to robots.

14:10
And in terms of the types of jobs, the whole cost structure and then the whole management philosophy is different.

14:21
Yeah, I agree with you, Doug, but you still need to be prepared to the fact that it's going to cost a little bit more than you thought initially for these things at least.

14:29
So it's the farmers tell me.

14:30
So I talk to every single farmer and they say they told me it's going to cost me X.

14:34
And reality is costing, cost me a lot more.

14:36
It's not saying that they're complaining about this, but you need to be prepared because it's a question of economics and being prepared for it and having that available to do so.

14:44
And I just absolutely agree that you train people and most of the best farms I work with, 80 percent, 85% more or more is repairs and all that done by them, you know, by themselves, by the employees, by themselves to save money, of course.

14:58
But you still need to have that person or technician from the the supplier, from the company to be around to train the people and also to be able to take care of major problems that might be happening.

15:10
And if you go into groups and you see how much people are asking about how do I fix this, how do I fix that?

15:15
I for me, like I'm not very handy.

15:17
So I would be a little bit scared, but you know, getting the right person, like you said, and train that person, you can fix these things.

15:23
Yes, absolutely.

15:24
So it kind of replacing different and most of the farms, the recent survey we did with large farms across the US, I did with UC Davis.

15:31
Most of the farms are training their own people, the same people.

15:33
They didn't have to hire new people.

15:35
They trained their own people they had on the farm to work with robots, right.

15:38
So it's possible to train them if they're handy and have them fix the robot.

15:42
So I completely agree with that.

15:44
So it's a nice way of looking at that, that it's just like you're replacing the the cost, right?

15:49
You're replacing.

15:50
So don't get too scared, but be ready to have that money available for the parts and things you need.

15:56
Marcia, I actually have a follow up on that.

15:59
You mentioned like a lot of farmers, it, it ends up costing more than maybe what they were told upfront.

16:04
Do you know of maybe a good resource or an idea of what a farmer could expect for a maintenance cost or how they could maybe estimate what that's going to look like?

16:14
Most farmers I work with are telling me around that 20,000, 15 to 25,000, let's say, per robot per year.

16:21
It's the cost that they give and there's that number they give me.

16:24
That's what they calculated.

16:26
As they start keeping track of it, of course it's going to vary a lot of related to the age of the robots.

16:32
Of course they get older, they have more expensive parts out of warranty.

16:36
So those kind of things also make a difference, right?

16:38
So it's hard to come up with a just an absolute number, I think, but that's what the farmers tell me.

16:42
I didn't collect that directly, but that's conversations with the farmers, right?

16:48
Nesli, I think your research is so interesting when it comes to ventilation because it always seems to kind of be something that we think about a little bit about robots.

16:57
So we're just concerned about getting the robots in and then ventilation comes later.

17:01
Is there, you know, do you see a lot of farms afterwards needing to spend that money to fix ventilation that maybe could have been switched up at the beginning or what?

17:14
Just some insights there would be really interesting.

17:16
Yes, so, one cost is like retrofitting those older facilities, right.

17:22
If you're going to put those one way gates, if it is our decision, then you know being able to put them and having a barn layout that will work for us, it costs right.

17:33
And then as soon as these robots come in, we will need more ventilation fans since they are kind of restriction to airflow, right?

17:43
And then OK, we will add more ventilation fans.

17:46
And then we need to think about that electricity consumption like it's not the initial, like we know the initial fan price, right?

17:54
So we can just calculate that one, that part is easy.

17:58
But once we put them, then the electricity consumption, how much it could increase our bill even we may need a new circuit system.

18:06
So it it may be a very significant cost actually for electricity consumption goes up very significantly and then having a new system to be able to run those fans it, it may make a huge difference.

18:19
So please keep in mind electricity consumption will go up and then you have the enough infrastructure to support it.

18:29
So if not, then it needs to be added to the budget.

18:36
Kind of continuing on this cost conversation, obviously to all of our attendees, if you have questions, please feel free to throw them in the chat or in the Q&A.

18:44
But for now, we'll just continue with this cost conversation.

18:48
We had mentioned it, or teased it did a little bit earlier of that when you're considering maybe AMS versus upgrading your parlor, putting in a rotary.

18:56
And Doug, you said you kind of look at that cost per milk production.

19:00
Is there, you know, some general numbers that you look at that kind of help you when you're thinking about what should I look at, look at if you're, I'm considering doing that?

19:10
Do you have any suggestions for farmers on numbers that would be good for them to look at?

19:18
Well, you know, I think with, with any kind of major investment like this, you really have to do a good cash flow analysis.

19:25
I mean, it's, it's a, it's a very broad question.

19:27
It's a very complex question.

19:29
And so the equity structure of the farm and you know, it's, it makes a big difference.

19:34
And, and you know, I have not actually seen good economic analysis done at least published.

19:47
And I, and I think, you know, I don't know whether there's, you know, financial consulting organizations like, you know, Compeer and so forth.

19:54
I don't know how they approach it, but you know, you certainly need to to do a really, you know, really in depth financial analysis to figure out if you have the capacity to, to support the, the capital expenses that that are involved 'cause they are considerable, right.

20:15
So, you know the the capital cost per cow is can be double what it is for a conventional system and.

20:22
So, you know, to, to carry that capital investment, you need to have sufficient cash flow.

20:30
And like I said, I just haven't seen a good, a good financial analysis that's actually been published.

20:38
I think probably people are doing them, but for some reason we're not seeing them in the literature.

20:43
You know, I'm, I'm sort of basing my, these sort of back of the envelope numbers on discussions with farms that have both systems.

20:52
You know, that's where that $0.50 to $2.00 a hundred weight difference comes from farms that have, you know, have both systems and are doing sort of a careful analysis.

21:05
And, and I'll just say, you know, on this feeding question, one of the selling points of robots early on and still is that you can essentially precision feeding can somehow improve, prove something, right.

21:20
So what, what does precision feeding do for us?

21:23
Well, you know, it might get us more pounds per cow.

21:27
And but really when it comes down to it, the economic advantage of precision feeding really has not materialized.

21:37
So I don't think you can count precision feeding as a a net positive economic factor for robotic milking.

21:46
And I right now I think it's negative.

21:48
It costs more in terms of dollars per hundredweight of feed cost if you're doing precision feeding.

21:54
And you know, there's all kind of reasons for that.

21:56
But you know, the, the primary one in my mind is the cows just don't have enough time in the robot to eat enough feed to balance the ration, right.

22:06
The high producers, you, you know, you'd want to feed more concentrate in the robot to kind of balance the ration.

22:12
And there's just isn't time because there's the time pressure to get the cow milked, get the cow in, get the cow out.

22:18
And there just isn't time to do a really, you know, the, the type of precision feeding that might be beneficial economically.

22:28
Marcia, I'd love to hear your take on that precision feeding with your nutrition background, right.

22:34
So basically that's I think the reason we evolved into focusing a lot more on the PMR, which is a partial mixed ration, right?

22:40
So that partial mixed ration is what's meeting most of the nutrients, nutrient requirements for those cows, even the high producing cows.

22:47
So it's becoming a little more similar, especially guided flow farms that TMR, that PMR is almost like a TMR, it's really very similar.

22:55
And in the robot, they might be feeding a little bit of corn gluten pellets or something like this just to entice the animal to enter the box.

23:03
But the farm is managed basically like a conventional farm in terms of feeding in those cases.

23:09
And even the free flow farms are using a little bit less feed in the robot than they used to in the beginning when we started using robots 10/15/20 years ago with with no difference in production.

23:21
So that cost of feeding went down.

23:24
So that cost of feeding is not as maybe as high as you might think.

23:27
And, and, and we do see some benefits.

23:29
We did a project recently where we've had a different supplement for the first 30 days of milk was actually a project.

23:36
So we had animals in the same pen fed the supplement or not fed the supplement because we're doing like a controlled study.

23:43
And we did see 7 lbs more milk for those animals that were fed this particular supplement, which was much better.

23:50
The cost benefit was about 3 to 1.

23:52
So basically cows did produce a lot more milk by feeding this third feed.

23:56
This farm was already feeding 2 feeds on that dairy.

24:00
So they had a feed that's a general feed, pelleted feed and then they were feeding energy supplements to just the high producing cows up to a little past peak and then they would stop.

24:10
And then we added this third one and I was surprised how much response we got.

24:14
To be honest.

24:15
I didn't expect to get that kind of response from the older cows.

24:19
And of course the nutritionist that was involved in this study, he's using this in every single robotic dairy he can do that has the ability to feed more than one feed because they saw a benefit to it.

24:29
So it's kind of there's no like broad strike thing.

24:34
They're gonna say it's not going to work or it's going to work.

24:36
I think it's a case by case situation where in some farms you might see a benefit.

24:41
But again, the partial mixed ration is what we need to really focus on too.

24:44
And then economic and that makes a lot of sense to me to get production.

24:49
I have dairies with guided flow just using like kind of like I said, almost like a TMR producing over 115 lbs energy corrected milk average.

24:58
So yes, you can get very good production.

25:00
And it's, it's again, each farm's a bit different.

25:04
So you need to work with your nutritionist.

25:05
You need to think about what works for your dairy.

25:08
And again, on the free flow, we do have to feed in a robot.

25:10
There's no way not to feed in a robot.

25:12
You have to, but you don't have to feed that maybe as much as we thought initially.

25:16
So that saves money and also reduces your risk of subclinical, rumen acidosis because I think we're doing a lot of that in the beginning by like cows eating too much concentrate in there and reducing pH and fat percent was low.

25:29
Now fat percentages have gone up.

25:31
If you look at the fat percentage, percentage in robots is more, a little more normal now compared to conventional.

25:36
So I think we've we're learning, Katelyn, takes time.

25:39
We're not quite limited in the end of how to best feed them, but we we're a lot better and the cows are healthier and they are even more productive to production per robot has gone up instead of down over the years.

25:50
So yeah, it's a, it's a learning process.

25:52
We're getting there.

25:53
You perfectly transitioned into another question that we had, which was related to that kind of acidosis, ketosis in fresh cows.

26:03
The question is, is that a real thing people have talked about that, you know, in robots when you're feeding, you get higher rates of acidosis or ketosis in fresh cows.

26:14
Are you seeing that that's that is really actually happening?

26:18
And if so, what, what strategies can a farm do to avoid that?

26:22
So not as much anymore based on what I just said, we changed the way we feed them.

26:26
The project that I mentioned to you earlier, we actually were measuring beta hydroxy butyrate on the cows.

26:31
We saw no ketosis whatsoever.

26:32
It was really low.

26:34
Cows were doing quite well producing at the time, I think it was 95 or 98 lbs of milk.

26:39
So high producing herds, well managed herds that are feeding correctly, we don't see as much of a problem.

26:44
I think it's just like everything and you also need to have very good transition cow program.

26:48
So focus on those pre fresh cows, make sure they're well fed, they are very comfortable and they come in ready to go if you will.

26:56
So focusing on that pre fresh stage is also very key.

26:59
And robots even more than conventional.

27:00
So they come in really good into the robotic system and they can, you know, perform well and eat well in the beginning and kind of get that going.

27:09
So they don't get ketosis like you're saying and by not feeling too much concentrate

27:12
You don't have a lot of subclinical acidosis either.

27:14
So it again, takes a little learning how to work around that, right.

27:19
And you'd said, I just want to like kind of get a little clarification.

27:21
When you say feeding well, does that mean providing them with a high quality PMR?

27:26
Is that kind of the focus?

27:27
Yes.

27:27
So it's a combination.

27:29
Focus on that PMR, very high quality forage, make sure that's attractive to the animals.

27:33
So they feel like getting up and going eat at the bunk because hunger is what moves into robot.

27:38
It's not what's in the robot.

27:39
It's not that they feel like, Oh my God, I need to be milked because I have a lot of pressure in my udder and no, they don't think that way.

27:43
They're cows, so they're hungry, they get up and then they're going to go through the robot and they're going to go to the feed bunk.

27:49
Both systems free flow and guided flow, but especially guided flow.  What brings them through the robot is being hungry and wanting to go to that feed bunk and eating that PMR.

28:00
So that's important and also your feed tables.

28:02
That's a whole.

28:04
We can spend a whole hour talking about feed tables and how they feed animals and do you feed, you know, if it's fixed amounts and then you move on to by, you know, by production pounds, etcetera.

28:13
That whole feed table is an art and that makes a big difference how you set them up.

28:18
So that's something that takes some effort.

28:20
We can do a whole other webinar on feed tables!

28:24
If somebody in the audience has a question about feed tables, please feel free to throw them in there and we'll answer them, but we don't want to bog down the whole webinar with feed tables questions.

28:33
So exactly, exactly, kind of moving away a little bit from the nutrition and maybe a little bit more focused on kind of a general question.

28:44
I think all of you have mentioned that through the years we have seen differences in how we either build robot barns or how we manage robot barns.

28:54
What are some of the biggest changes that you've kind of seen that you think have been like really impactful?

29:00
This has made a difference switching this up.

29:06
It's a thinker! I think one of the differences, they pay more attention for data use.

29:17
So before those ear tags were kind of like part of the deal, we collect this data, OK, we have the data, right?

29:25
But they kind of didn't know or didn't have the time how to manage that data, how to use that data.

29:32
But I, what I see is nowadays they're paying more attention.

29:35
They are trying to make, you know, use use that data.

29:39
Even there are like farmers, they use those AI tools, right?

29:43
There are different AI tools even they record the weather data and then enter all their information and share with each other whatever they collect using their ear tags.

29:54
So.

29:55
So they're trying to make use of that data more.

29:57
This is what I see.

30:05
Doug or Marcia, got anything to add? Otherwise.

30:06
Well, there's so many changes that we, and it's just like how to like this is more her area, but I mean how we better design these barns.

30:14
We need to really improve that cow flow.

30:16
So how we make it easy think of think like a cow.

30:18
So make it easy for her to figure out how do I get to this robot and how I move around the barn.

30:24
One thing, for example, in guided flow farm is that the toll booth system.

30:27
I know I had farmers that just swear by it's like I didn't have this before.

30:31
Now it's so much easier, cows go through, get out.

30:32
They don't get mixed as they get out and it's just intuitive.

30:36
They go in and they can actually figure it out very easily and be trained very easily.

30:40
Right.

30:41
So the whole design of the barns I think we learned a lot about and there's more to learn.

30:45
Like as he was saying, there's different ways of doing it, but I think that was something I've seen improvement on quite a bit.

30:52
And also we'd already discussed feeding.

30:53
We already discussed maybe the importance of the, the, the PMR.

30:59
And then one thing when the 1st, when the earlier studies we did, we looked at farms that had a automatic feed push up, like the robots, the feed push up robots.

31:07
And we saw 11 lbs more milk on farms that had them compared to farms that did not have them.

31:12
And at a time about only 30% of the farms had them, most recent studies we did, 72% of the farms have them now.

31:19
So we didn't see much of a difference.

31:20
But again, having that made a big difference because cows need access to feed at all times in a robot barn, right?

31:27
So something that I really think is important not only for robot barns.

31:30
I wish every farm had one of those not trying to sell robot push feeders, feed pushers, but the robot feed pushers really allow you to have that access.

31:38
And that really is important for cows for productivity, right?

31:42
Because we say, yeah, I push feed, you know, X number of times a day, but, you know, not quite, not quite enough, I think so, yeah, I've seen a lot more use of that too, the other technologies that go along with robots, if you will.

31:56
Well, I, I have to say that the, and this is kind of a rather recent thing and so it remains to be seen how it's going to work out.

32:05
But Marcia mentioned earlier that several farms have removed all feeding for the robot.

32:13
And, and another sort of adaptation of that is batch milking systems where, you know, you have a, it looks more like a conventional parlor.

32:21
We have a holding area, you bring a group in and those batch milking systems typically don't feed.

32:28
So, so both of those options are a way of reducing the cost of the robot that the capital cost of the robot, you know, the, the feeding system, it adds considerable expense.

32:39
And so you know, it's again, I haven't seen a good economic analysis of it, but I think it's a it's a strategy that can improve the economics.

32:54
And you know, again, as Marcia said, we've got TMR herds that are doing 115 lbs a day.

32:59
So you know, we, we know how to feed cows with TMR and get high production.

33:04
I mean, we've been working on that for 100 years, right?

33:07
That's a very fine-tuned system.

33:10
And so, yeah, I think that whole question of, of feeding is an interesting one.

33:15
You know, whether or not, and we used to feed in conventional parlors still doing some grazing herds, right?

33:23
And, and, but, but that's kind of really gone away because, you know, you're kind of there to milk the cows.

33:28
You're not, you know, you're trying to combine two things, feeding and milking and there's certain friction points there.

33:35
So I I think it'll be interesting to see how this, you know, whether or not just eliminating the feed in the robot will be a positive step.

33:46
I I don't know.

33:47
I I don't know.

33:49
We'll see.

33:50
I'm not willing to pronostate to place a bet on that one.

33:56
That makes sense.

33:56
Yeah, it is kind of in the stages of we are finding out, we are still looking at it, seeing how it's going to work.

34:02
But it's definitely an interesting step. that we're moving in. Only for guided flow.

34:08
However, just a disclaimer here, do not think of doing this for free flow because free flow, we do need to have something in the robot to get the cows in there.

34:16
Yeah.

34:16
So please do not if you have a free flow farm.

34:18
We're talking about guided flow here, please.

34:21
Well, in the in the batched milking systems are the ultimate guided flow, right?

34:25
So, you know, you bring the cow to the holding area.

34:28
That's really extreme guided flow if you want to think about it that way.

34:31
What would you think of cost of that?

34:33
Let's look at cost of that.

34:34
It's just like we need so many of those boxes.

34:37
Well, Im not sold on it.

34:39
I'm not sold on it yet.

34:40
I think it's one of these farms in the US as like a yeah, I think it, you know, it has the potential to have a better box use efficiency, right?

34:51
So that just in itself.

34:53
So there's two things about it that might give it, might give it an economic advantage.  Reduced, you know, cost per machine because of not feeding there.

35:03
There might be other cost reductions by going through to a batch system.

35:07
And then also the, the just the, you know, the, the number of hours per day that the box is actually milking a cow potentially is, is is higher because you've got a more controlled traffic going on.

35:23
And that's it's it's scenario, but you know, we've only got a few farms that have been brave enough to try it.

35:29
And I it's still very early to yeah, it's hard to tell how they go.

35:34
Mm Hmm.

35:35
Good point.

35:36
Marcia, you kind of introed this with, you keep introing my questions very well!

35:44
Feed pushers, we we had a question that was I think this farmer is probably in the stages of maybe thinking about implementing robots.

35:52
And the question is, are there other technologies that are smart to implement with robots?

35:57
So like you mentioned the feed pusher, are there other technologies that seem to make sense with robots?

36:02
Yeah, a lot of our farms will have automatic scrapers, right?

36:05
So you're trying to disrupt as minimum as possible going in the pen and disturbing the cows.

36:10
So a lot of those farms, even though I have a love and hate relationship with automatic scrapers, my colleague here, Gerard Cramer, always calls them the tsunami of manure as it kind of brings that manure out of the barn.

36:21
So I don't love that part of it.

36:23
But again, it's less disruption, right?

36:25
We do have some company, at least one company I work with that offer a basically a vacuum cleaner of sorts, which is a robot vacuum that gets rid of manure.

36:35
But again, there's a whole additional cost to that and also maintenance of this particular piece of equipment.

36:41
So I don't see a lot of those, but there's some farms that have that as an option.

36:45
So again, that's maybe something.

36:46
I see a lot of cow brushes. So, cow brushes are not something that has been proven that improves productivity, but it definitely improves cow comfort and cows enjoy it.

36:56
So a lot of these robotic farms will have brushes, cow brushes.

36:59
That's very typical.

37:01
Another technology I see some farms have is having a feeder in the dry pen.

37:05
So it's automatic feeder that cows go into a box to eat.

37:09
So about it's very useful to train heifers, to train animals to be unafraid of going to a box to, to, you know, to, to eat a little bit.

37:20
So that works, especially if you can have a free flow system where then cows will have to go into a box and then they know there's a little feed in there.

37:26
So they'll entice them.

37:27
So that is a nice training tool.

37:29
I've seen some farms implementing.

37:31
So those are some technologies that I commonly see.

37:33
And of course, as in the ventilation side of things, those smart fans, I really like them.

37:37
I have a farm that has those smart fans, which cools different areas of the barn appropriately based on temperature, humidity.

37:43
So again, everything adds up.

37:45
So all of a sudden, like Doug said, forget it.

37:47
It's going to be, it's way too expensive.

37:49
But if you have those, you're going to have very good cow comfort.

37:52
So again, it's there's different options out there.

37:56
Yeah, the dream farm sometimes includes things that are not in our budget, but it is the dream farm. Kind of switching a little bit to design.

38:07
When we are designing robot barns, are there maybe some key features that get overlooked a little bit?

38:16
I think a common one that maybe comes to mind is where is that foot bath going to be located?

38:22
Are there other things that come to mind that maybe get overlooked when it comes to design?

38:27
So one of the things that sometimes we overlook is not having an air inlet for ventilation fans.

38:34
So having supply fans is good.

38:38
So we recently published a study supply fans are good.

38:42
I cannot say they're not good, but they have very limited benefits, especially if you're thinking about that the airflow at the cow level, their benefit is very limited.

38:52
So instead of having those supply fans, it's not like the more the better.

38:57
Let's have many, many fans.

38:58
Let's put many fans in this barn and then make it work.

39:01
It's not how it works, right?

39:03
So having a big opening, air inlet, right?

39:08
And then getting help from Mother Nature a little bit, assuming that wind blows from West or southwest or northwest in winter, having that help a little bit and then having that natural air flow coming in, it helps a lot.

39:22
So if you have the supply fans, then you need to match the exhaust fans capacity with the supply fans capacity.

39:29
As the fans get older and dirtier, it stops matching and then you're not taking the advantage of those windy days.

39:37
You're just running those supply fans continuously.

39:41
Then the, you know, ventilation efficiency goes down significantly.

39:45
This is what we figured out in our recent study. Marcia or Doug, do you have any design features that maybe you would urge farmers?

39:59
Make sure you remember these.

40:03
Yeah, I agree with her.

40:03
Ventilation is a key one, right.

40:05
So it's good that we're doing more research on that nicely.

40:07
Thank you to figure it out. What's the best and looks in economics of it. And also the placement you mentioned earlier already and as the placement of the robot where it goes, you know the distance cows have to walk.

40:17
So that's something we also learn about the design.

40:19
Is it L shape?

40:20
Is it toll booth an option or whatever?

40:23
And there's different ways of doing it.

40:24
So I'm not saying there's just one way, but those are things that still kind of, I don't know if we know the best option yet.

40:31
We've been changing over the years.

40:32
And also one thing that's very important I think is to have sort pens.

40:36
So new, new builds, we can have a sort pens.

40:39
So those are cows that get selected out of the robot to be doing something with them.

40:43
And what producers tell me over and over and over is that I should have them making them bigger.

40:47
I should have more space here.

40:49
I should have had more.

40:51
So I think that's one thing they learned.

40:54
Make them big enough so that we can, especially as dairies get larger, you need to have enough of those pens and make them make, make sure that is enough stalls enough, you know, eating spaces and all that.

41:05
So that's one thing I hear over and over.

41:07
Do those farms ever tell you if they were to build them bigger, how big they would.  They would double.

41:13
A lot of times they tell I would have double instead of, you know, 20 stalls, I would have 40.

41:16
If instead of 10 I would have 20 or whatever.

41:19
Usually they tell me I probably would have double the number of stalls because they use that a lot for management, you know, even to train their heifers.

41:26
So you put them in there in the beginning so they can actually still access the robot, but you have them in a smaller space.

41:31
So you can train them for 40 years, whatever, before they go into the general population.

41:36
So that really helps with labor.

41:37
So it can back to labor efficiency, right.

41:39
So that really helps how you approach the training.

41:44
For example, having a space for them with the sort pens, for example.

41:48
So sort pens can be really helpful.

41:50
Yes, yeah, Marcia mentioned it.

41:53
Nesli mentioned it as well.

41:55
Placement of robots, especially when it comes to ventilation.

41:58
Nesli, I read your recent article, very interesting what came out of that.

42:03
Could you kind of share maybe what you've learned in that article or just in your other work as well when it comes to that placement and ventilation?

42:11
Is, is there a best placement or any ideas on that?

42:17
Yes, there is a best placement, but it doesn't work for all farms, right?

42:21
Not really. So if we have a tunnel.

42:23
So in that study what we did, we compared the tunnel ventilated building to a cross ventilated building.

42:30
And in a tunnel ventilated building, there isn't a lot of options, right?

42:35
In that building, in that specific design, they put the robots in front of the air inlet, actually in front of the supply fans where the air was coming in.

42:44
And then they added a lot of circulation fans with the hope that that improves the situation.

42:50
Circulation fans help, but since the robots were kind of placed perpendicular to the airflow, they block.

42:58
So our simulations like this is simulation, right?

43:01
What we can do is we can do any kind of academic exercise.

43:05
What we did, we removed the robots and then look at the temperature distribution.

43:11
We put back the robots and then look at the temperature distribution, and they do affect the temperature distribution.

43:17
So temperature increases since they're blocking the air flow.

43:21
Then the other barn was a cross ventilated barn.

43:25
But in a cross ventilated barn, there's a little bit more space, right?

43:29
Maybe it's not a fair comparison, but it was a cross ventilated barn.

43:33
So they put those robots by the wall, so on the side, so they are kind of parallel to the air flow, but they are not in front of the air inlet.

43:43
So even if we remove the robots or put them back, temperature distribution didn't change.

43:49
Yes, there is a formula but it doesn't apply to all the buildings, right?

43:54
If it's a tunnel ventilated building, it's a long rectangle building, then there is nothing else we can do.

44:00
But like whatever we put inside the building, if we are thinking from ventilation standpoint, please make sure it's parallel to the airflow.

44:08
It doesn't have to be a robot.

44:10
Whatever we are, even we are putting a hay bale, it needs to be parallel to the airflow so it doesn't block the airflow.

44:19
Based on what you just said, is that you're suggesting maybe that a cross vent would be more appropriate or preferable if you will for robot barns?

44:27
I'm a little bit afraid to say that. OK. It can still work, we will plan cross ventilation, but I do understand it doesn't work like that all the time, right?

44:37
But if you could build new, that would be a recommendation maybe.

44:40
So I'm asking. OK. In general, cross ventilation works better than yeah, I see more of those than I see tunnel actually, at least here in the Midwest.

44:47
So which is good.

44:48
So they're doing right hopefully by doing cross vent.

44:55
So sorry, go ahead, Doug.

44:56
Well, I, I would say one of the intriguing questions to me, it has to do with group size and you know, pen size, number of AMS per pen and you know, it has grown as experience with AMS has grown more cows, more AMS per pen.

45:15
And I, I think it's an, an interesting question.

45:20
I, you know, there are certain advantages in smaller group size because you can formulate groups that, you know, for manage management groups that you can do more precision management.

45:34
On the other hand, the, the farms typically like to have large group size that I'm, you know, people talking about, you know, 4-5 AMS per pen with, you know, 300, 400 hundred cows.

45:49
And it's like I, you know, I think there's an upper limit and, and one of the real problems you get into when you get a lot of AMS per pen is the traffic flow.

46:01
So, you know, it's really hard to get cows in to a whole bunch of robots and get them back out without crossing each other.

46:11
And it's a very difficult geometric, you know, configuration to make the cow traffic work when you get multiple AMS per pen.

46:21
So, you know, I think, I think there's clear advantages like two AMS per pen is seems to work fine.

46:28
Three, I don't know, you know, I, you know, I don't know if there's a where the advantage point is.

46:35
But I think the other, the other thing, if you think about creating pens, there's also certain advantages from a management perspective on having different size pens.

46:48
So, you know, I think there's a a point of having one pen with one AMS, It's going to be a smaller group, right?

46:54
You got another pen with two AMS and you might have another, you know, pens with three or four.

46:59
And so I think that that's makes sense from a management perspective.

47:04
I don't see people doing it that much.

47:07
Usually when you go to a barn and they're all the same, the pen size are all the same and the number of AMS per pen are all the same.

47:13
But I think, you know, there's reason to think about different size pens.

47:18
And then when you get into these bigger pen sizes is, is there really, you know, what's the real advantage in that?

47:25
Because there's a clear disadvantage at this point in terms of cow traffic when you have, you know, 3-4 AMS per pen.

47:36
And that kind of led into a question that was asked, well, flip it a little bit.

47:41
So you're talking about AMS per pen, I think I, I hear more grumblings about how, how overstocked do we do this pen in terms of cows per laying stall.

47:54
Is there any idea?

47:56
I mean, it's kind of a new concept, people really overstocking these stalls.

47:59
So do we know anything yet about how it affects efficiency or performance?

48:06
I've been amazed at some of the extreme overstocking situations that work extremely well.

48:13
I mean, I'm, I'm really surprised.

48:15
I would never have recommended overstocking like, you know, 50, 60%.

48:19
But there are farms that are doing it and, and it seems to be working well for them.

48:24
So I think it's another one of those big questions.

48:27
I think, you know, it requires a higher level of management intensity in order to be able to do that.

48:32
So I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but but clearly there, there are farms that are, that are overstocking the stalls by considerable amount in it.

48:42
It it makes sense because you know, in a, in a robot barn with voluntary cow traffic, a certain percentage of the cows are always up, right?

48:52
And you kind of want a certain percentage of the cows up all the time.

48:56
So it, it kind of facilitates cow traffic in a way.

49:00
But it, but I think it takes really careful.

49:03
You got to really monitor those systems carefully and and it, you know, there are some potential problems with it.

49:13
But yeah, I agree with Doug.

49:15
So surprising, right, Doug?

49:16
I have a farmer that's following for me.

49:18
He has the sensors and he's looking at lameness and he's looking at everything.

49:21
And I was like, how is it so far?

49:23
A year and a half later?

49:24
Whatever.

49:24
Yeah, so good.

49:25
I was like, oh, and they put in an extra robot.

49:28
So they actually have an extra robot.

49:29
They buy an older robot.

49:30
They put them on the robot so they have more robots.

49:33
So the robot is only instead of 60, 70 cows, it's like 50 or less.

49:36
So there's enough space, enough time for cows to be milked, but I always, as cow comfort is my other area of specialty, I got nervous about what is the long term implications of these animals not having space enough space to lie down enough space to eat.

49:50
I I don't know, I got nervous.

49:51
Doug, I'm not sure, but you're right.

49:53
They're making it work somehow.

49:54
The best managers.

49:55
Yes, things that Wisconsin likes to invent.

49:58
This is one invented by one of your dealers over there, which is interesting.

50:02
Well, that's, I know that's one thing I've heard through the years.

50:06
There's lots of very, very clever people out there and, you know, all kinds of things, you know, dairy producers and, and their consultants and there's equipment people.

50:16
I mean, it's, it's a constant innovation.

50:20
You know, you got to give credit to people who are willing to take a risk and try something and and, you know, that's kind of the the ultimate acid test of whether or not it's going to work.

50:31
And right, there's Wisconsin, yes.

50:35
Even like the dealer in Wisconsin that has, you know, the angled toll booth that came from Wisconsin too, and seems to be working well for those farms.

50:42
So yeah, innovation, I guess.

50:44
Yeah, they need to keep an eye on these things, right.

50:46
There's not a lot of research, unfortunately, it's really hard to do research on this, but we just observations.

50:52
Yeah.

50:52
Well, that's why being an extension specialist is the greatest job in the world because you never have to sit around and think about a research question.

51:01
All you have to do is walk out the door and go into a farm and it's like, wow, I know, wow, look at all what's going on out here.

51:08
And you know, there's just questions sort of pouring out.

51:11
So it's been this fascinating ride in in that respect.

51:15
Yep.

51:16
People don't just learn from us.

51:18
We learn a ton from other people.

51:20
Yes, we do.

51:21
And especially from the farmers.

51:22
It's amazing what they come up with.

51:24
Yes, OK, as we get towards the end here, I'm going to have kind of a closing question for you all to answer.

51:32
And it's focused on that really high achieving robot herds that you have visited, talked to, learn from.

51:40
What is one thing that you see those herds are doing that you think is really helping them be that really successful herd that other farms could, you know, implement that on their farm to help them out?

51:56
Now I can go first.

51:57
So commitment to management since it's like explained at the very beginning.

52:04
So the initial idea is this robots will reduce the labor needs, right?

52:09
But by time we learn that labor needs change and it's kind of we have to adopt that once the commitment to management from my standpoint, from my research standpoint, good ventilation this time.

52:22
And I will say those two.  Kind of impossible, one thing, but I agree with our management transition cow programs are really good focusing forage quality and good quality forage and the whole feeding, how you manage that and the combination of feeding, you know, the feed tables, milk permission settings has to be really done right.

52:51
There's just one.

52:52
It's not, it's hard to say, Katelyn, one thing because it's really a very interdependent system and you need to do everything right.

52:58
And you need to do even better than a conventional system because a lot of parts going on here.

53:02
So focus on management, but management everything out the cows, pre-fresh, post-fresh, training, feeding.

53:09
I mean, it's a lot of things Katelyn,  cannot narrow down to one thing.

53:12
If you just do one thing, you're not going to be successful.

53:13
You have to do a lot of things right and comes to the holistic approach.

53:18
So farmers, I have a very holistic approach and look at all the different aspects of this are the ones that are successful.

53:24
It's been my experience.

53:27
Well, I'm just reflecting on way back in, in ancient times when we were monitoring, my lab did a, we monitored all the robot farms in the US for a period of three years.

53:42
So we'd watch them, you know, before robots, after robots, looking at all sorts of things, right.

53:47
And, and one of the things that popped out that study is that like, for example, milk predicts, milk production in a per cow didn't change much.

54:02
Somatic cell count didn't change much.

54:05
So farms that were good at producing milk before robots were really good at producing milk after robots.

54:12
And the farms that were good at mastitis management and animal health care before robots were still really good at that after robots.

54:21
So I think, you know, to kind of underscore what Marcia and Nesli said is, you know, this is a technology because of the the capital cost and the economic risk associated with that.

54:35
It's really, it's a technology for superior management.

54:40
You have to already understand how to get milk out of cows and how to keep cows healthy and how to you know, keep cows the repro system.

54:50
So I think and just from a, you know, from my lens, from a milking management standpoint, high producing cows with no mastitis are a lot easier to milk.

55:01
It's just a lot easier to manage a herd of really high producing cows and lows, you know, mastitis rate.

55:08
So you know, it just makes you know, it's just really the fundamentals.

55:15
I guess you you got to you got to understand cows, you got to understand nutrition, you got to understand the animal health.

55:21
You got to understand all that.

55:23
It's not for everyone.

55:25
You have to be that really good manager.

55:27
Good point, Doug, yes.

55:29
And it, it perpetually amazes me to be a a successful dairy operator, how many things you have to be good at.

55:37
I think that really makes that job unique, right.

55:40
I'm, I'm a a little professor here and is like, I'm good at one thing, but a dairy farmer, like has to be good at 20 things.

55:48
It's really huge system.

55:50
Yeah, yeah.

55:51
Very, very complex.

55:54
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of things we've learned today.

55:57
I think just in general, we know there's a lot of things that go into managing AMS.

56:03
And a question that came in that I can answer real quick right now is where do I go For more information about managing AMS?

56:09
Well, the great thing is Extension.

56:10
Both us and University of Minnesota has some great extension resources as well about managing AMS herds and starting in those basics and what does that look like.

56:21
So if you're looking for some more information, you can go ahead and check out those websites.

56:27
I would love to thank our panelists that we had today.

56:30
It was a great conversation.

56:31
I appreciate you guys taking the time out of your day to join us and I will quickly give a preview of what our webinar for next month will be.

56:44
So if you enjoyed this conversation, we have another panel that will be happening in the next month.

56:51
The date will be November 18th and the title is, Hay There, Let's talk feed centers and inventory.

56:57
So myself and my colleague, Jackie McCarville will be introducing a inventory spreadsheet tool that people can access on our website.

57:05
But then we'll also have a panel joining us of Grant Grinstead of VirClair Farms, Jake Paisig of JTP Farms.

57:12
And Ryan Schultz of the Pagal family businesses and they're going to be sharing and how they have designed and fine-tuned their feed centers for efficiency and performance.

57:22
So if you'd like to attend that, we encourage you to join us.

57:25
You can register on our website if you haven't already.

57:29
The link is the center link here on the screen.

57:33
And if you're looking for more information such as those AMS resources, you can find those on our dairy website, which is this first link as well.

57:43
You can check us out on Facebook and this webinar will be recorded and posted on our website in about a week or two.

57:51
And with that, I'm going to close our panel for today.

57:55
We appreciate all of our attendees and our panelists.

57:57
It was a great time.

57:58
Thank you, everybody.

57:59
Thank you for having me.

58:01
Thank you for having us.

58:03
All right, bye.

58:03
Bye.