Milking in a parlor is hard work. It is fixed on certain times and requires a great deal of labor. For that reason, both small farms and large farms are looking at options to automate milking.

In the difficult times we are currently facing, expansion opportunities may be on hold or even canceled, but do they need to be? Could automatic milking still be the next step for your facility?

Steven Weaver of Meadowley Farm in Morrisville, New York, milks his seasonal herd of 65 cows in his handmade retrofitted parlor. With two people milking, the cows are all back out onto pasture in one hour. But it wasn’t always that way.

Retrofitting a dairy barn has been a popular choice to make upgrades more affordable than they would be when building new, yet “retrofitting” isn’t unique to the dairy industry. Many buildings today are serving different purposes than the ones for which they were originally built – maybe even serving a different industry.

As you ponder this question, consider the following: 1) It runs every day. 2) It runs for multiple hours each day. 3) On many dairies, it runs around the clock, every day. 4) It harvests your most valuable crop.

For most dairies, profits found in 2020 will likely be used to pay back debt accrued in recent years. Financial advisers also suggest using profits to grow the business or make it more efficient. Since the milking system is the most heavily used equipment on the farm, it could be an area worthy of added investment.

Dairy farming is a constantly changing business. Farming for the long-term requires a facility that changes as well. Expansion, new technology and new enterprises may all be in every sustainable farm’s future.

Fifteen years after Fair Oaks Farms opened its doors to the public to showcase modern agriculture and innovation in the industry, the farm’s founders, Mike and Sue McCloskey, held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its latest adoption of technology – an 800-cow freestall barn with 12 milking robots.

On Nov. 14, Fair Oaks Farms held a ribbon cutting ceremony for its new automated milking facility. The barn can hold up to 840 cows with 12 robots positioned in the center of the barn.

Scalability gives a certain level of flexibility to the way a farm can grow with robots, giving the producer a clear picture of what to expect throughout the path they choose, as well as how they can cash-flow the changes. We’ll demonstrate this using the context of a large herd robotic milking facility design planned for multiple phases of future expansion.