When designing a new or retrofit barn for automation, it is essential to give much thought to cow comfort, as well as the flow of cows and people in the barn.

A South Dakota dairy farm that frequently provides farm tours to industry members, farmers and consumers developed a solution to maximize visitor experience while minimizing the disturbance to cows and employees in their maternity barn. 

“You don’t mess around with winter here in Alaska,” Scott Plagerman says. “You have to have your act together.”

Bedding stalls, manure alley cleaning, footbaths and sorting are four activities that will need to be managed differently when installing robots. 

While a blanket of snow covering the landscape may be a beautiful sight for some, it can also be a warning sign on some dairies if a building’s roof is not designed to handle heavy snowfall.

Areas of the U.S. have witnessed the growing use of monoslope buildings for beef operations as feedyards expand and adapt, but this trend hasn’t established itself in all cattle-raising regions.