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Family’s transition to milking robots is going well

A central Wisconsin dairy farm is finding success in the first phase of transitioning to milking with robots.

Jay Heeg with Heeg Brothers Dairy near Colby, Wisconsin says they currently milk 1,050 in their parlor and 450 in the new robot milking barn, which opened in December of 2023.  Heeg tells Brownfield they’re making the changes a little at a time. “Capital wise, it’s just too much to go from one to the other. It’s pretty hard to swallow there, so we’re just going to take it in steps.”

Heeg says the future of labor was a factor in moving to robots. “The cost of labor, you know, that’s never going to go down and availability is just becoming more of a challenge.”

Heeg says there are other advantages in their guided-flow robot barn. “You can do a lot of things with the robots. They can help you sort the cows out, and it’s just easier to manage the cows because the robot can help you do some of those things.”

And how are the cows performing? “The cows have really been performing well. We’re averaging 98 pounds with a 4.5 butterfat in the robots. The parlor is about four pounds lower. The (somatic) cell count has been lower in the robots versus in the parlor. The cows have been doing really good.”

Heeg says producers considering a move to dairy robots should do their homework, tour a lot of farms with robots, and have a good financial plan.

Heeg provided tours of his farm during the recent Ag Day hosted by Mid-State Technical College.

AUDIO: Jay Heeg discusses the farm’s early success with robotic milking with Brownfield’s Larry Lee.