Illinois dairyman Andy Lenkaitis converted his home farm Red Shirt Holsteins to robotic milking in 2017. He is also an environmental sales engineer and works for GEA. He assists dairy farms that are transitioning from conventional to robotic milking. In this episode, he talks about his own robotic milking transition, what he’s found is helpful to producers going through their own transitions and the biggest challenges he sees in most transitions to robots. 

 

 

Here is a breakdown of the episode:

Tell us about your dual jobs as a dairy producer and a GEA employee. [~:00]

How do you help producers transition to automation? [~1:36]

How long did it take for you to feel comfortable with your milking robots?  [~2:44]

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Tell me your ah-ha moment with milking robots. [~3:44]

The five aims of dairy automation [~5:20]

What are the toughest steps toward dairy farm automation? [~7:25]

What’s a useful tip you would share with others? [~9:19]

When/where were you when you knew for sure your robot installation was a good idea? [~10:17]

What would you change about your install? What’s next on your dairy? [~11:11]

 

Follow Trailside Holsteins online:

https://lenkaitisholsteins.com/

 

Public, online user group that Andy likes 

GEA Monobox Users

 

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