DAN’S PAPERS
danspapers.com
May 9, 2014 Page 25
Milking Robots A New Way to Milk Cows Sweeps the Nation but Not Yet the East End
T
here are several dairy farms in the Hamptons. One is Mecox Bay Dairy, a 100acre spread in Mecox owned by Arthur Ludlow. Another is the Ty Llwyd Farm in Northville just east of Riverhead. A third is Goodale Farms in Riverhead. I spoke to Arthur Ludlow and asked him if he’s heard of or uses these new robot milking machines that are coming into common use. He says he knows of them, but doesn’t use them. “I have a license to sell raw milk,” he said. “People come here to buy the milk and the cheese I make from it. It might make sense at dairies that pasteurize the milk, but I don’t do that. I think pasteurizing kills some of the important healthy enzymes in the milk. Also, I like to care for our cows personally. Cleanliness is important and I watch over it.” The farm has 15 Jersey cows, and including calves and heifers, a total of about 50 head on the 100 acres. At his farm, and at other dairies that operate in the old way, the farmhands get up at 6 a.m.,
round up the cows, and lead them—willingly, since they are in need of milking—into the milking parlor, which is a barn with a milking stand in it. The cows head in side-by-side at the stand and farmhands milk them by grabbing the teats and releasing the milk into tubes that flow to bulk tanks. It’s hard work. Equipment can get kicked, the farmhands kicked, there are stalls to muck. And it’s expensive. There are wages to be paid and sometimes accommodations made for bunkhouses. After the milking, the cows are led back to their stalls to be fed and then let out into the fields. Cows are milked multiple times a day. The new way to milk cows, according to a recent article in The New York Times, is with cow milking robots, which are now being purchased by farm owners in the Midwest and in New York and New England. These robots have already come into general use all over Europe. One of the best known is about four feet tall, is made of steel and looks something like robots that work on a car assembly line. It and its compatriots have
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innards that are part space technology, part Roomba (the vacuum cleaner robots), part laser and internet software, part surveillance camera and part suction devices. The cows love them. And they indicate their love when, at five in the morning and full of milk, they head happily over to the milking robot machine and line themselves up nose to tail to wait to have the robot milk them. No humans need to be there. The robots cost up to $250,000 each and so are an expensive investment. Some farmers initially feared that the cows would be scared of the milking machine. They’d pay all this money and the cows would shy away. A farmhand would show up and the cows would moo to get the milking done the old-fashioned way and come over to him. But that’s not what happened. The cows watched the robots at work and immediately caught on. This was an amazing thing to them. Now they wouldn’t have to depend on farmhands. They could feel the need to get milked—it can be painful for the cow if not done right (Continued on next page)
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By Dan Rattiner