Pellet feeding no longer standard for milking robot
5 dairy technologies win Nexus awards
Lely makes new commodity feeder standard on every new robot
One of the leading milking robot companies announced this week they would make a feed bin capable of feeding something other than pellets a standard feature of all robots going forward. The company calls its feed bin a ‘commodity feeder.’ It is capable of feeding barley, oats, corn or a combination of small grains. According to the company, the capability to offer certain feeds depends on the “stickiness” of the feed. The commodity feeder will also be available as an upgrade for A4 and A5 robots already installed.
Read the original release here.
Most cows milked by robots are typically fed a partial mixed ration (PMR) at the feedbunk with the balance of the diet fed as a pelleted concentrate inside the robot. These pelleted feeds can often be costly.
Another milking robot supplier has been offering a feed bin capable of feeding high-moisture corn for more than a year. High-moisture corn is a feed commonly available in the Midwest. AMS Galaxy has been honored with a Nexus Innovation Award from Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin (PDPW) and will present their new technology this week during the group’s annual meeting on the new Nexus stage. (See below for more information about Nexus Innovation Awards.)
Cow Tech Report editor will moderate PDPW’s inaugural Nexus Awards Stage this week
Walt Cooley, the editor of this report, will be on stage this week to award five companies with an innovation award from PDPW. He will moderate a Q&A after each of the companies give a 15-minute presentation. These performances will be the cross between a TED talk and a Sharktank pitch.
The innovations to be awarded include the following offerings:
An augmented reality headset for herd check
An automated fodder production system
An automated high-moisture corn feeder for milking robot boxes
An infrared manure drying, sanitizing system
A cloud-based, machine-learning digital dairy assistant
These innovations were selected from applicants by a group of dairy producers.
Register for digital attendance to the show to learn more about these technologies and the companies behind them.
Will you be onsite? Email me and let’s connect (in a social-distancing approved way, of course).
FeedX’s Carl Lippert featured by Google developer
One of the cow tech community’s prominent start-up founders who is also a dairy farmer, Carl Lippert was recently interviewed by a Google developer. The interview covers Lippert’s ideas on automating repetitive farm tasks, why technology can get us to a better farm future, the challenges of rural internet speeds and why it’s difficult for many non-farm tech developers to relate to farmers.
I highly recommend reading this interview.
2021 Precision Dairy Conference registration now open
This year’s two-day, hybrid in-person/live event includes keynote talks by Trevor DeVries, Brandon Treichler, Tim Taylor and Aidan Connolly, six end-user panels, one research session, one startup spotlight session, industry sponsor spotlights, and active audience discussions. The registration fee for the June 22-23 event is $195.
The in-person option will be limited in capacity due to physical distancing rules. Register here now to attend in person.
Inline milk sensor raises money in Series A funding round
At the beginning of the month, SomaDetect Inc. and Ag Capital Canada (ACC) announced that $6 million in venture capital financing had been raised to accelerate the company’s commercialization of an in-line sensor for milk quality, reproductive status and herd health.
The financing is led by Ag Capital Canada (ACC), a private equity fund based in Tillsonburg, Ontario, according to a news release. Also, additional new investment is being provided by Merck Animal Health Ventures, as well as by Builders VC and Wilbur Ellis’ Cavallo Ventures.
SomaDetect CEO and co-founder Bethany Deshpande says the company’s system is “deep tech for dairy.’
“We use light-scattering technology and powerful AI algorithms to discern and monitor critical dairy metrics such as somatic cell count, mastitis, reproductive status, fat, protein and other milk-quality elements. The system provides progressive dairy farms with the information they need to support better decisions, higher-quality milk and healthier herds.”
Summitholm Dairy, one of Ontario’s top-managed herds, has been an early partner in developing SomaDetect technology. Farm owner/manager Ben Loewith says they company’s technology is unique: “It won’t rely on animal behavior changes to pick up on the key things we’re looking for, such as pregnancy or pregnancy loss. The technology will detect these through changes in the milk.”
—From a Somadetect news release
Cool stuff I saw this week
While not specifically cow technology, I got to witness this automated rock-picking technology in-person this week. A northern Idaho ag tech startup will place a dozen of these automated rock-picking implements with farmers this growing season. The most unique feature of the company’s new implement is a hydraulically powered arm with a rubber belt-driven pincer that can quickly aid farmers picking rocks anywhere from 6 inches in diameter up to 28 inches.
The company hopes to add computer vision technology to the arm, and autonomous driving technology to the steering, to eventually create a "rock Roomba” for farm fields.
Profit projections from ZISK
Projected profitability for two dairy herd sizes have IMPROVED since the beginning of February in 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 March 12, 2021):
1,000-cow dairy = $301,131 (UP about $193,812 since the beginning of February)
2,500-cow dairy = $1.417 million (UP about $545,249 since the beginning of February)