Initially, smaller farms installed robotic milking systems because they wanted improved lifestyle and labor flexibility. It also allowed them to milk more cows without hiring labor. More recently, larger farms are considering robots because of the challenge of finding hired labor. We continue to get questions about actual labor savings, expected robot lifespan and repair costs. The true experts on these topics are the robot users.

Milking systems and lighting are two major areas of energy use on dairy farms, but there are money savings to be captured by performing proper maintenance and investing in energy-efficient equipment.

There is increased pressure from consumers for dairy farmers to minimize their impact on global warming by reducing energy consumption. Even though energy use is not a large portion of the total production costs on a dairy, it only makes economic sense to make the most efficient use of energy on the farm.