Cheers to six months in the new barn!

What a ride the last six months have been. This week we celebrate six months of being up and going in the new robotic milking barn. Sitting here today, it feels really, really good to have gotten through start up. It’s been a tremendous amount of hard work, learning curves, long nights, tag teaming jobs – but we’ve really started to reap the benefits.

After surviving the first few months of start up which included around the clock training of the cows; learning an entirely new routine, taking on completely new jobs and roles within our farm and creamery we are so incredibly happy with our decision to do this and know it was the right fit for our family and our cows.

For the cows:

They really are the most comfortable cows.

We didn’t realize how much more comfort we could provide our cows until we put in the new barn with, cow mattresses, cow brushes, a footbath, fans, etc. All of those items complete with the two robotic milkers and we’ve really achieved optimal freedom for our cows to go about their day with calm and ease. In our barn, our cows get to eat, drink, relax, or be milked whenever they choose. It’s like we always say: happy healthy cows give the best milk.

For our family:

We’ve got flexibility like never before.

We’ve always been very tied to the farm. Someone had to be here in the morning and evening at the same time every day, seven days a week milking the cows. While we still have to be here daily we have much more flexibility. Having the creamery this has really allowed us to accommodate running both businesses a little bit easier. We’ve also realized this Spring how nice it is to be able to have more time to spend in the fields versus stuck in the parlor milking each time. Knowing that the robots are doing their thing and the cows are still able to access the things they need to be comfortable while we plant and harvest has been so wonderful and will lead to higher quality crops for our cows come this fall.