Milking with robots

Tonight when I was out with some girls my friend mentioned she was going to New Zealand.  I joked about how she should be sure to notice the farms there, since they're big into dairy and were early adopters of robot milkers. 

We continued talking for a little bit and she said, "Wait ... I'm confused.  What are these robot cows?"

If only!  Of course - not even all farmers have seen robot milkers, though most everyone knows about them now.

I explained how the robots work - first, the cow enters the robot. It's like walking into a little room.  She wears a responder on her neck that communicates how much feed she’s going to get and she eats grain while she’s being milked.



I took these at our neighbor's farm.  It's always fun to take visitors there.

She steps in and stands over a grate. Not only does this space her feet correctly, but it also keeps the area clear of manure.

The brushes come in. Like a tiny car wash, the brushes go over each teat and clean them.  Since every cow’s udder is a little different, the robot scans the udder to detect each teat’s location. (It looks like little red laser beams going over it.) Then it attaches the four teat cups.



Brush, cleaning off the teats

Then milking begins! As each quarter is done, the teat cup comes off. Then the robot sprays off the udder. The gate opens, and the cow walks out. The next cow steps in.  Each robot accommodates about 80 cows each and one costs about $250,000.



Exiting the robot

So for lots of farmers, it makes sense.  This way, there aren't people physically milking the cows.  There are still lots of people jobs to do, like making sure the cattle go through and doing regular feeding. 

For lots of other farmers, it doesn't make sense.  If you have reliable, good employees, and old parlor that works just fine, and a lot of cows, then it's not an easy financial decision.

Maybe someday it'll be the way of the future and we'll look at our parlors today - where we use milking units - the same way we regard our ancestors milking by hand.

Or maybe we'll just all have robot cows by then.  Who knows what they're coming up with in New Zealand next?!

Milking a pretend cow

 

It's hard bringing a real, live cow into schools.  So dairy people - in this case, Debbie Kubacki - have built these nifty pretend cows so that kids can get an idea of what milking one is like.

 

For this event, dairy farmers Heather Wing, Evelyn Minnis, and I went to the Health and Fitness Day at Hilton Elementary School in Brighton.  We taught them all about dairy - the health aspect, about dairy products, the journey from the cow to the store, and how to milk!

 

Alex Schnabelrauch, who works for MMPA, organized it all.  We had dairy cootie catchers, cow fact sewing, free milk and Gogurts, gift bags ... one kid said it was the best day of his life.  (To be fair, he has only lived six years.)

 

The entire school had a chance to milk the cow and ask questions.  It was so much fun talking to them, as few of them had ever milked a cow or even met a farmer.

 

An udder made of a water tank and calf bottle tips

I told them to pretend they were machines or it was the olden days, since modern farmers don't milk by hand.

 



She has a map of Michigan painted into her spots too.  She was wildly popular.



Questions I was asked:

- "Are all farmers fat?"

He explained that farmers are always fat in cartoons. That was good, because he asked that right after I explained that I was a farmer. This also made me laugh because a friend recently asked me, "Are all male farmers good looking?"

- "Aren't their gutters really in the middle of their stomachs?"

He meant udders - kids commonly make that switch - and he thought that because in some cartoon drawings the udders are in the center of the cow.

- "How does the milk get to be chocolate?"

The boy was staring at his drink and just really wanted to understand how it all worked. You could almost see the gears turning in his head.

- "Do other mammals give milk? Like ... people?"

Yes. Ask your parents.