The first-ever robotic rotary milking parlor in North America is coming to Wisconsin.
An exciting groundbreaking ceremony was held last week at Mlsna East Town Dairy in Cashton, Wis. Excavation has already begun on the site where the future 72-stall DairyProQ, GEA Farm Technologies' fully automated rotary milking parlor with robots, will sit. This type of parlor has only been used in Europe up to this point.
Mlsna East Town Dairy currently milks 900 cows in a double-12 parallel parlor. The parlor runs 24 hours per day, with the exception of two short cleaning cycles. The farm plans to expand its herd size to 2,000 cows with the installation of the new parlor.
For farm owner Nick Mlsna, labor efficiency was one motivating factor for taking the leap with this new technology. The farm plans to maintain the size of its 21-person workforce, even though they will be milking more than twice the cows they are now.
Mlsna owns and operates the farm with his wife, LeAnne, and parents, Dennis and Barbara. His great grandpa started the farm in 1903.
Also part of the building project will be a new 1,300-cow cross-ventilated, sand-bedded freestall barn and, in the future, new calf facilities. The four naturally ventilated freestall barns already on the farm will continue to be used as well.
Nick says his top priority for making this investment is cow comfort and consistency. "We want to do what's best for the cows," he said.
The parlor installation has an expected completion date of March 2015.
