What kind of impact could increased efficiency have on your farm? What if you could solve your labor concerns and gain milk production with less human hours? Our customers have gained production and enhanced their quality of life with the help of our dedicated team of professionals. Learn more about their projects here.
Equipment Reliability
Josh Willson
Empire Dairy, LLC
Josh Willson is the owner of Empire Dairy LLC, which is home to three Astronaut A4 milking robots, 3 Luna brushes, and a Juno 100. They have all been running since January 2018. Before robots, Josh milked in a tie stall barn twice a day that is located right below his new facility. Not only is he the owner of his farm, but he also does nutrition work for other farmers.
“When making the choice to build a parlor or robots, the factors that led me to my decision was the availability in land and labor with cattle and employees. Someday, I’d like to have 600 cows milked by all robots. The general install of the robots was excellent, I don’t know how Seehafer’s could have done any better. The reliability of the equipment with robots is what really pushed me to robots; the equipment rarely fails. The service maintenance is easy to schedule and I have no significant downtime. The reliability of the system is second to none. After installing robots, we have half the labor and increases in production. The style of labor has shifted into more management practices to lead to the future. All the data points that come with this automation allow us to be more intense and precise with cow touches. We have learned to keep everything well maintained; the sand can be hard on equipment but we have learned what needs to be washed out everyday and kept with. We try to keep everything as clean as possible to further longevity. As far as the tags, robots, and Juno, they all work well together and complement each other. I wouldn’t want to operate without all of them working together. With the service from Seehafer’s, you won’t be dissatisfied. When there is a service call for the equipment, you don’t need a second service call to fix the first one.”
Quality Maintenance
Mitch & Max Malm family
Mitch, Max, and the rest of the Malm family live in Loyal on the family’s 115-dairy cow farm. They have two Astronaut A4 milking robots that were started up in October of 2012 with 80 Holstein cows. They also have one Vector feeding system for the last six months.
“We put milking robots in 6 years ago to help with labor and making chores easier. We used to have 2-3 people doing chores morning and night in the tie stall barn and now we can do everything with one guy. The robots have made chores easier and have provided better production. We are now able to form our chores around when it works for us. If we are in the fields or with family, we can either do chores before we leave or when we get back and don’t have to stress about how well they are getting done while we are gone. We also get faster and useable data on the cows so we can be proactive verses reactive with the cows. The cows adapt to the system quicker than in the tie stall barn. They can take care of themselves and don’t need as much of our help. They like to be left alone and we feel robots made our cows calmer.
We started the Vector up six months ago to help with labor and to give a consistent ration to the cattle. The Vector has given us the option to provide different feed sources to feed the cows that make it easier on us to harvest the feed. Having the option to use different qualities of feed has made it easier to also balance the ration. Since the Vector, we have noticed a positive impact on the health of the cow. We cut our vet bill in half, the cows are breeding sooner, and only see the vet once a month instead of twice. We have little waste of feed and are now able to provide a balanced ration to our heifers. For anyone looking to install a vector, we always encourage to tour many facilities and find the way that will work well for you. When asked if we had to choose between keeping the robots or Vector, we would choose the Vector.
The biggest challenge is maintenance but we do the best we can. We try to keep it kept up so the system works for us for a long time. The service we get from Seehafer’s is great. They answer the phone at all times of the day and show up and do the work. They dig deeper to find problems and correct them until it works properly. If Seehafer’s were here 6 years ago, we wouldn’t have had as many problems.”
Robots solve labor, expansion issues
Hockerman Bros. Dairy
Back to managing cows
The Hockerman family is enjoying a more relaxed and efficient way of dairying since transitioning to robotic milking in 2022. Brothers Greg, Tom and Jason Hockerman milk 700 cows with the help of their dad, Bud, and Greg’s wife Dawn. The family transitioned to 12 Lely A5 robots and two Juno feed pushers in December 2022. The upgrade was the result of an expansion that took place in 2018, when they grew the herd from 350 to 700 cows.
Before expanding, they were milking in a double-10 herringbone parlor that was almost 50 years old.
“We went from milking around the clock three times a day with 350 cows to just getting through two times a day with 700 cows,” Greg said.
The brothers thought they would upgrade to a rotary parlor, but size and efficiency issues were not making that possible. They turned to robots instead.
The family decided on Lely A5 robots because they were already working with a Lely dealer to service their parlor, and because of what they saw when touring various farms.
“It was very interesting to see the attitudes of the guys with Lely robots compared to the other brands,” Greg said. “The ones with Lelys seemed more relaxed. It was just smooth.”
Since making the transition, the herd has increased their average daily production to 95 pounds per cow per day, on a weekly average. This is compared to an average of 82 pounds per cow when milking twice a day in the parlor.
“The robots took care of all our issues in the milking facility,” Greg Hockerman said. “We needed to cut down on labor and we needed to find some way forward that we could increase production.”
The milking robots solved a big labor problem for the Hockerman family, and the calls from the robots are less disruptive than the calls from the employees used to be.
“You’re still tied to the phone, but getting phone calls now, it’s giving me where I go and what to look for,” Greg said.
The data obtained from the monitoring system has allowed the Hockermans to improve their reproduction program as well. Prior to the Lely monitoring system, the family defaulted to hormone injections to achieve pregnancies. Now, 80% of pregnancies are bred on heat detection alone, including first service heifers.
“It was a big change for me in the way I managed both cows and people,” Greg said. “My wife has told me I’ve become a totally different person because I’m back to dealing with cows, which is what I want to do.”
