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Dairy robots change but don’t eliminate labor

A Minnesota family that converted from a milking parlor to robotic milking says the change improved herd health and allowed them to focus on what they’re good at. 

Suzanne Vold with Dorrick Dairy near Glenwood, Minnesota tells Brownfield the decision to move from milking in a parlor to robotic milking was a combination of labor and quality of life issues. “We’re a 500-cow farm, so we’re not big enough to have a middle management layer but we’re not small enough to do all of the work ourselves through a parlor.”

Vold says the family also had to admit they were better at managing cows than people. “The work doesn’t go away with robots but it definitely changes, and we can go back to what we really love which is managing cows and raising the feed for them.”

Vold says the first few months after transitioning to milking robots was challenging. “It was harder for people to adape than the cows. The cows pretty much got it within the first couple of weeks.”

She says for her family, the biggest challenge was bad timing, as they made the investment right before the pandemic struck.

Vold spoke to Brownfield during the Professional Dairy Producers Business Conference in Madison, Wisconsin.