Barns & Equipment

Three dairy producers, each operating with more than a dozen milking robots, said using robots was a big transition for their farm. They’ve been closely analyzing the data to see how it’s paying off and setting goals for the future.

The evolution of how we make feed for cows is truly amazing. Experienced farmers may remember riding with their fathers to the local mill to have feed ground, mixed, bagged and delivered to a feed room. Fast-forward to today and some farms are building feed centers, which can be thought of as on-farm feed mills.

When you build a barn, it’s like you’re putting together a complex jigsaw puzzle. Since there are many pieces in the puzzle, it pays to spend time looking at the big picture to ensure you have all the pieces and they fit together the way you want.

The saying “work smarter, not harder” dates back to the 1930s and is attributed to Allen F. Morgenstern, an industrial engineer who created a work simplification program that boosted productivity while requiring less effort.

Situation No. 1

You were blessed with a bumper crop of corn this year and had a forward contract with some pretty good pricing.

Alfalfa is a power-packed ingredient in cattle rations, especially for the dairy producer. Yet this crop can add more uncertainty to the ration than any other ingredient. That’s because alfalfa’s relative feed value (RFV) can vary drastically.