Milking equipment manufacturer announces rotaries will now be American-made
New Zealand dairy farm describes experience with virtual fencing collars
A European-based milking equipment manufacturer recently announced that it will be moving production of its rotary parlor platforms to one of its manufacturing facilities in Galesville, Wisconsin. The company claims the move makes it the only company providing U.S.-manufactured rotary milking structures.
“There’s been a surge in rotary parlor demand as dairy farmers look to milk more cows using less labor,” says Matt Daley, president of GEA Farm Technologies, Inc. “We’re thrilled to bring manufacturing to our Wisconsin plant, where we’ve made milking equipment for over 50 years, and be able to respond faster to growing demand from our customers.”
Before this change, many of the company’s rotary parlor components came from New Zealand. Disruptions in overseas shipping and rising freight costs no longer make this sourcing viable, the company says.
The Wisconsin plant will produce the company’s popular rotary parlors, the DairyRotor T8800 and T8900. These models are available in configurations up to 120 stalls, 75- or 90-degree angled stalls and drop-down or non-drop-down take-off arms – and comes in two different platform options.
Editor’s note: This is some of the first manufacturing news we are hearing in the dairy industry about the trend toward “reshoring.” Reshoring is the bringing back of manufacturing that has been occurring overseas for the last several decades. Geopolitical economist Peter Zeihan says: “The time is ripe to bring more of the production and manufacturing of U.S.-destined goods back to the U.S.” This is a major theme of Zeihan’s most recent book The End of the World Is Just the Beginning, which I highly recommend. He has an entire section in the book devoted to how market forces will impact global agriculture in the coming decade.
Chinese researcher creates activity monitor powered by kinetic energy
Cow activity monitors and what they are capable of doing are increasing in value and quantity every year. A Chinese researcher recently announced a new iteration of a monitor that is powered by kinetic energy generated by the cow’s movements. The researcher also claims the invention can measure the physical energy exerted by the cow.
Read more here.
Robotic milking consultant explains how large-dairies are getting into milking robots
North American robotic milking consultant Jack Rodenburg of DairyLogix recently explained to an audience of Wisconsin dairy producers how he is seeing large-herd dairies adopt milking robots.
“Robotic milking is working well at satellite dairies, where a producer is milking 3,000 cows in a 70-stall rotary parlor and wants to add more cows, so he builds a cross-ventilated barn for 12 robots because there’s very little labor in a barn like that, and it’s a great way for producers with large herds to gain some robot experience.”
Read more of Rodenburg’s recent comments on robotic milking here.
New Zealand dairy farm describes experience with virtual fencing collars
A 1,500-cow dairy farm in New Zealand recently talked about its experience using a new, solar-powered virtual fencing collar. The farm has put collars on all of its cows and says it has saved three hours of work each day in moving their grazing herd.
Read more about the farm’s experience here.
World Ag Expo new product winners in the spotlight this week
Three companies were highlighted this past week at World Ag Expo for their new innovations. Read more about them here.
Market-leading dairy herd management software celebrates 40 years in business
VAS, the maker of DairyComp, recently celebrated 40 years of influencing digital dairy herd management. Over the past four decades, the herd management software provider has transformed how dairy farmers manage their herds, taking them from hand-written 4x6 paper notecards to mobile cowside data entry and accessibility.
“In 1983, VAS set out to redefine how dairy farmers maintain records with the first installation of DairyComp,” says Dale Jefferson, CEO of VAS. “Since then, we’ve worked closely with farmers, consultants and industry experts to empower data-driven management decisions for healthier herds and greater profitability.”
The company currently services digital herd management records for more than 15 million animals and has data integrations with over 40 companies – including activity and health monitoring, genomic testing, parlor integration and milk recording.
Cow mucus could help bones heal faster
Researchers in Sweden recently announced they created a synthetic bone graft material that includes molecules derived from cow mucus that could help bone defects heal faster. The researchers plan to continue to study the bioactive material they have developed with further lab testing on larger animals.
Read more here.
Dairy profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for the next 12-month for two dairy herd sizes HAVE DECREASED
in recent profit projections from ZISK.
ZISK is a profit-projection smartphone app that tracks individual dairy farm profitability based on current CME board prices. Projections for a 1,000-cow dairy producing an average of 80 pounds of milk per cow and a 2,500-cow dairy producing an average of 85 pounds of milk per cow are provided.
12-month dairy farm profit projections (as of Feb. 16, 2023):
1,000-cow dairy = $238,500 (DOWN
about $20,000 since the end of January)
2,500-cow dairy = $1.351 million (DOWN
about $55,000 since the end of January)