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Volume 21, No. 23
Could parlor performance make or break a farm?
“All dairy, all the time”™
January 25, 2020
Nathes invest in robots to improve efciencies
Flores shares tips to maintain maximum milking efciency By Krista Kuzma
krista.k@dairystar.com
WELCH, Minn. – For many dairies, the parlor is the hub of the farm that needs to run in an effective manner. “When you’re talking about parlor performance, just remember that seconds become minutes, minutes become hours,” said Mario Solis Flores, technical services specialist for Form-AFeed. “It’s the difference between being on time nishing milking or if you’ll be late.” Flores presented, “Parlor Performance – What Are Your Options?” Jan. 16 during the Form-A-Feed Professional Dairy Conference in Welch. Before talking about evaluating parlor performance, Flores said it is important to acknowledge that milk quality is a top priority. He said sand facilities should try to have no more than 1% of cows with clinical mastitis per month with less than 5% culled because of mastitis. More than 85% of the herd should try to have a linear score less than three in order to achieve a bulk tank somatic cell count of 150,000. Flores then talked about the factors that affect parlor performance. The rst is parlor size. When Flores rst started working in the dairy industry in Minnesota 20 years ago, he said many farms had just expanded their parlors. “It was the No. 1 reason why they went out of business because they had big parlors and not enough cows or they didn’t know how to manage those parlors,” Flores said. “Now, how I see things with everyone having a bunch of heifers, I don’t think parlors are big enough for the heifers we have and the cows we want to milk through the system.” But Flores said not to worry. “Parlor size is important, but there are different things we can do to maximize what we can,” he said. The number of parlor operators also impacts performance. “There’s got to be a balance,” Flores said. “The parlor needs to be Turn to PARLOR | Page 5
MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR
Jeron and Brenda Nathe discuss their new facili�es, which include a cross-ven�lated barn and ve milking robots, Jan. 16 on their dairy farm in Stearns County near Meire Grove, Minnesota. The Nathes made the updates to improve efficiencies on the dairy.
Thorough planning helps family take next step By Jennifer Coyne jenn@dairystar.com
MEIRE GROVE, Minn. – For the last nine months, the Nathe family has milked a majority of their herd with ve robots. However, the process to get to this point was more than saying yes to automation and receiving nancial backing from a bank. It was a process that delved into the logistics of various milking systems and determining which would make the dairy most efcient. “In the big picture, I want to be as efcient as possible,” Jeron Nathe said. “We’re still piecing that together. What does efciency look like for me? What does it look like for the cows?” Nathe and his wife, Brenda, and their four children – Payton, 16, Kaylee, 14, Tyler, 12, and Mya, 10 – milk
MARK KLAPHAKE/DAIRY STAR
Cows lie in sawdust bedded stalls in the Nathes’ 300-stall cross-ven�lated freestall barn Jan. 16 at the farm near Meire Grove, Minnesota. 320 cows in Stearns County near Meire Grove. Within the herd, 270 cows are milked with ve Lely Astronaut ro-
bots and the remainder 50-cow herd is milked in the farm’s double-8 parallel parlor. Turn to NATHES | Page 6