Pen Design

Essential tips to optimize cow comfort in the holding area

shaun@futurecow.com — Fri, 25 Jul 2025 00:00:00 -0400

In our operations, holding area management and the proper use of a crowd gate play a crucial role in promoting a cow’s comfort and ensuring an optimal milk harvest experience during her daily parlor visits. While these tasks may seem straightforward, they require much more than just moving cows and running them through a parlor.

Computer vision tracks calvings for just-in-time management

walt.cooley@agproud.com — Thu, 09 May 2024 00:00:00 -0400

A new computer vision skill from developer Ever.Ag aims to give more dairy producers a way to get their feet wet with computer vision technology. The company’s new product, Maternity Warden, watches cows in the maternity pen for signs of calving and sends alerts when it detects them so employees can move the cow to a calving pen for just-in-time calving.

Managing natural ventilation in your calf barn

rmcbay@canarm.ca — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

By prioritizing proper ventilation system design and operation, you can successfully house your calves indoors without compromising their health.

4 considerations for laying out your robot barn

bradley.biehl@amsgalaxyusa.com — Tue, 27 Sep 2022 06:37:30 -0400

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

Pros and cons of different robot layouts

courtney.halbach@wisc.edu — Fri, 30 Apr 2021 21:58:57 -0400

There are a variety of different ways to orient a robotic milking stall within a pen, and it can be difficult to decide which orientation is best.

5 things to include in a barn design plan

virpi.kurkela@4dbarn.com — Fri, 17 Apr 2020 13:00:01 -0400

A barn for milking cows is a complicated building that must fulfill both the needs of the cows and the people working. Lots of small details have to be coordinated to match perfectly.

Self-locking manger stall considerations

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 14:26:33 -0400

Modern dairy herd management practices have increased the frequency with which animals must be handled. Animals must be isolated and restrained for physical examination, vaccination, artificial insemination, pregnancy checks, treatment, dehorning, calving, etc. on a regular basis. Animal handling is critical because each cow in the herd may be handled 40 to 50 times per lactation.