After combining his herd with half of his father’s herd, Tyler Hendriks outgrew the tiestall facility and built a new freestall barn.

Instead of renovating their 51-cow tiestall barn, Amanda Lukassen and her husband, Kevin Sundborg, chose to build a new 80- to 90-cow robot barn. Using robots gives them more flexibility in their schedules and enables them to run the dairy in Ormstown, Quebec, without hiring outside help. View the slideshow below.

With no room to expand at his home farm, Roelof Meilink built a new freestall barn near Red Deer, Alberta. It originally housed heifers, but the plan was to one day add on a parlour and move in the milking herd.

In 2015, the Hammond family built a four-robot barn with 240 freestalls and sawdust bedding. The previous freestall barn is now used for heifers and dry cows, while the old parlour and holding area were renovated for calves in group pens with automated feeders. The family is looking to expand their new barn this spring with two more milking robots and a maternity area.