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DAIRY ST R “All dairy, all the time”™
Volume 23, No. 12
August 14, 2021
A calming effect Robots provide enjoyable milking experience at Horsens Homestead By Stacey Smart
stacey.s@dairystar.com
CECIL, Wis. – When the Horsens family decided to expand in 2019, they more than doubled the size of their herd within a month and a half. They began milking with robots, which turned out to be a fitting solution for a farm wanting to expand while keeping labor in check. Maximizing cow comfort was a priority achieved through the use of a self-serve milking system. “The relaxed atmosphere robots create is what made us fall in love with this technology,” Ryan Horsens said. “After cows eat, they flock to the robots. The environment by the robots is friendly, inviting and calm. This is a cow’s fun three times a day rather than a chore.” Horsens Homestead kicked off the Professional Dairy Pro-
ducers Dairy Robotics Tour July 15 – an event which allowed dairy farmers and other industry professionals to visit three farms in Shawano County that recently installed robots. Jeff and Connie Horsens and their son, Ryan, milk 1,200 cows near Cecil and raise all youngstock onsite. Ryan is the fifth generation on the farm that was homesteaded in 1879. Robots were the answer to the Horsenses growing their herd without growing their workforce. “Our biggest stressor as a family was high employee turnover,” Horsens said. “Robots are labor efficient and helped alleviate this problem. We wanted to find more cow people rather than just fill a role. We have 15 full-time employees now and work with a passionate group of people.” In January 2020, the family
STACEY SMART/DAIRY STAR
Ryan Horsens farms with his parents, Jeff and Connie, at Horsens Homestead near Cecil, Wisconsin. The Horsens milk 1,200 cows, over half of which are milked by 12 Lely A5 robots. began milking with twelve Lely A5 robots in their new 18-row freestall barn. More than half of the cows at Horsens Homestead are milked by robots. The Horsenses did not give up parlor milking altogether and continue to milk around 500 head in a
double-8 parallel parlor. Udder confirmation and milk speed are the traits used to determine the cows selected for the robot barn. “For the longest time, we used the best A.I. bulls that money can buy to improve our
genetic base,” Horsens said. “We’re still using the same bulls, but we make sure the right one is paired with the right cow to get the type of udders we want.” Turn to HORSENS | Page 6
Two nights of Mother Nature’s wrath Wisconsin farms suffer storm damage By Danielle Nauman danielle.n@dairystar.com
Mother Nature has taken frustrations out on farmers across the country. After an extremely dry spring and early summer, nature’s fury was unleashed across parts of the Upper Midwest as a series of severe storms wreaked havoc across much of Wisconsin during the last week of July. As evening approached July 27, black clouds brewed in the sky throughout Wisconsin’s coulee region, leading up to an intense lightning storm that took place in the overnight hours. Manke Farms, located near Bangor, is operated by cousins Melissa Manke, Bryant LeJeune and Matthew Manke and is home to 190 milking cows. “There were some pretty close lightning strikes, and I kept hoping that everything was PHOTO SUBMITTED OK,” said Melissa Manke of the storm that A machine shed was destroyed by an EF-1 tornado July 28 on the Uglow family’s Horseshoe Hill Farm near Water- night. town, Wisconsin. A series of storms wreaked havoc across Wisconsin during the last week of July. Turn to STORMS | Page 6