Footbaths - Preventing Lameness While Maintaining Cow Flow

Doyle Waybright of Mason Dixon Farms is back for a second episode. Doyle was a true pioneer, using voluntary robotic milking on his farm for 15 years, and he has put a lot of thought into batch milking. After their next expansion, his family farm will milk all of their 2500 cows in a rotary parlor. In this episode, Doyle shares his experience with robots and parlors, the potential he sees for batch milking on large dairies, and why it wasn’t a fit for Mason Dixon Farms today.

In this episode, Gareth and John visited with Doyle Waybright of Mason-Dixon farms. As Gareth said, "You really produced the blueprint for large herds from your own experiences.” Doyle told us about his barn, what worked, what didn't, why he is optimistic about robotics for large herds, and why he is not milking with robots anymore.

A footbath is an essential part of a robot barn. Too often it is an afterthought. In this episode, we discuss footbath locations and use, and the potential impact on cow traffic.

Jim Salfer from University of Minnesota Extension came back for a second episode. This time we focused on economic models he has created for profitability and labor efficiency.

Jim Salfer, from University of Minnesota Extension chatted with us about how we have gotten where we are. We talked about everything from his first robotic milking open house, through the early adapters, and the latest concepts. What drove the innovation then, and what keeps it going today?

John and Gareth talk about the unique challenges of maintaining bedding and removing manure when cows are always in the pen.

Jake joined us for a second episode. He owns a grazing dairy in South Australia. He talks about his decision to use robots, advantages he has seen, and how he monitors performance. While Jake's farm is grass based, his approach to robotic milking applies to confinement farms as well.

Jake Connor, from South Australia was our guest for 2 episodes of the Worldwide Robotic Milking podcast. In this first episode, we talked about the climate, and the dairy industry in South Australia. Jake explained his ABC grazing system with seasonal calving, and how robots are an integral part of it. He views his robots as a tool for managing cows and grass. The same mindset fits for housed systems where the robot is a tool for managing cows and stored forages.

This is the second in a 2 part series on KPI's for automatic milking systems. This one covers our goals, and on-farm observations on cow performance, including milk production, milking frequency, behavior, and more.

This episode covers the KPI's we use to plan and evaluate voluntary milking systems. We share out goals, and farm experience, with milk per robot, milkings per robot, free time, and more.