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New MSU dairy features robotic milking machine

By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

HICKORY CORNERS, Mich. — Michigan State University celebrated the opening of a new state-of-the-art dairy herd facility at the Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) last month.

It now has in place a robotic milking system that, not including the substantial capital outlay, is more economically efficient than a conventional milking system. That’s according to Mat Haan, project coordinator at the new facility.

“There’s a few farms around the country that have those,” Haan said. “The robot identifies her and knows which cow it is. It’s a voluntary system where the cow essentially decides when to be milked. The robot takes care of all the milking procedure.”

The system costs $200,000, but replaces the farm laborers that would otherwise perform the tasks now handled by the robot.
The money to buy the robotic system came from a grant to MSU from the Kellogg Foundation, which is interested in finding ways to help medium-sized dairy farms stay in business, according to Kay Gross, director of the KBS.

“Either you’re very small, or you’re very big; if you’re medium-sized, those are the farms that we’re losing,” Gross said.
The robotic system at KBS is being combined with a pasture-fed system instead of the usual mix of hay and corn silage, or total mixed ration (TMR).

“They like grass just as well as TMR,” Haan said. “With a TMR you’re getting more milk out of the cow, but you’re having a higher input cost. As a rule, pasture-based systems come out a little better economically.”

In addition to the economics is the animal welfare issue. “We would assume that the robot is more animal friendly because the animal chooses when to be milked,” Haan said. “We would also assume that a pasture-based system is more animal-friendly because the cow is out walking around on pasture.”

Haan also said staff can observe the cow’s body language to see if it is stressed. Although the team is not wringing its hands over this particular issue, he said outside groups, such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, are.

It’s not easy to visualize how the milking system works. The robot is located in a particular stall that is open. When a cow decides to be milked, it goes to that stall. Perhaps from the cow’s perspective it’s all about being given a sweet treat, because that’s what happens when it goes to the milking stall and stands in the right spot to be milked.

Haan said that the first time around the cow is a little bit nervous about the procedure. There is some movement of the robotic arms and different noises, but the cow quickly adjusts. If a cow decides at the last minute not to be milked and resists after the robot has engaged the cow’s teats, the robotic arm will retract and the stall gate will open to let the cow out. Haan said that hasn’t been a problem, though.

Since the cows aren’t being taken anywhere to be milked all at once as in a conventional system, there are always some cows in the stalls. At a conventional herd facility a person will come around on a skid loader to clean the stalls of manure when the cows are out; but that would be a problem here, so automatic manure scrapers are used.

In addition, this facility uses water mattresses for the cows to sleep on. Haan said that the standard in the industry for cow bedding is what amounts to a sandbox. That would be a problem here, though, because the machinery and particles of sand don’t mix. Water mattresses are also more comfortable and better for the cows, according to Haan. It also seems to be more animal-friendly.
To see more about how this new facility works, a brief video is available at www.kbs.msu.edu

9/17/2009