Our Cows

Our Herd

Milking Cows

Nearly 1,000 Holstein cows milk themselves in 16 state-of-the-art robotic milking machines that are located throughout the barn where the cows live. The average age of our cows is 4 years old and getting older due to overall improved health since we starting milking with robots.

Approximately 400 young stock are raised at our heifer facility which is 10 miles south of the main farm with additional young stock being raised on a farm in Minnesota.

We have an average of 105 calves per month. On a busy day of calving we could have a dozen calves born in a single day! Our heifer calves are genetic tested giving us data by the time they are one month old, predicting each calf’s production potential and health traits.

The cows are fed a mixed ration that contains haylage, corn silage, ground corn, canola meal and minerals.

Robotic Milking

Each cow wears a tracking device – like a FitBit – which tells the robot who she is and alerts us if she needs any special attention as it also monitors activity levels and cud chewing.

  • Cows want to go to the robots because we feed them a treat based on their milk production that keeps them occupied while being milked. Some like the treats so much they try to come to the robot up to 40 times a day, but the robot only lets them milk a certain number of times based on their production and stage of lactation.

  • Each cow spends an average of six minutes in the robot milking per visit and produces around 11 gallons of milk a day.

  • When the cow enters the robot, up to 180 points of data are downloaded. Some of which we use to determine the well being of the cow such as amount of time ruminating, activity, time eating which can indicate whether a cow needs personal attention or not.