TECHNOLOGY

If you’re milking with an automatic milking system (AMS), you may see your cows as robot customers. So ask yourself: “Do I have the right plan in place with detailed strategies and standard operating procedures to motivate and help my customers perform their best ... to achieve their genetic potential?”

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”This is a very popular, well-known quote and the root of its meaning is critical to a robotic milking operation.

“For years and years, we’ve all known the very best thing for a sick cow is to receive healthy rumen fluid,” says Bernie Mulder, founder of Drench-Mate.

As crops come off the fields, it will be time to start emptying manure storage and hauling the “black gold” back and forth to the fields.

“Water seems to be the last frontier for dairy,” says Simon Stelfox, Water 4 Dairy general manager.

Over the last decade, milking methods have changed substantially.

Where our grandparents were milking by hand, we now have the ability to choose between a variety of milking methods – from tiestall setting, to parlour milking and, as of more recently, robotic milking.