to jump to the article. Summary: This March 2011 article detailed facilities, bedding and cow cooling on four New York operations. Skip Hardie of Hardie Farms, Ryan Akin of Hemdale Farms, Dan Westfall of Aurora Ridge Farm and Mary Young of Young Farm talked about how they put cow comfort first. [Click here or on the image above right to see the full list of the Top 25 articles of 2011. Click here to see the list from 2010.]

to jump to the article. Summary: In a February e-newsletter, we reprinted an article from Dairy Farmers of America's Mideast Area Council, featuring Joe Ramsier and two recently installed Lely robots on his Rittman, Ohio, dairy. We asked Ramsier to provide some insight on his decision to make the change in his operation. We recently learned that Ramsier's dairy suffered a barn fire in July, resulting in the loss of the main barn, one of the robots, the milkhouse and office, as well as several pieces of equipment. Ramsier remains positive as his family begins to rebuild the operation. "Thankfully no animals or people were hurt or lost," he told us in an email. Because this article was so popular, we asked Ramsier and a Lely representative follow-up questions: Q: What is another example of new technology you're looking to implement?

This is the concluding segment on electrical systems. In the future, however, I will be discussing specific areas of electrical systems. The battery, starter and alternator are the three electrical team players. Without them, nothing will happen. In past columns, we have discussed the battery and the starter. Now we’ll move on to alternators. Batteries only last a certain period of time and you can only make so many starts. Not only that, when the battery starts the engine, the energy taken from the battery storage has to be replenished. The alternator is the part that restores energy back into the battery in a safe manner.