I used to raise my heifers on a farmstead that had an abandoned house. That was not uncommon in the ’80s and ’90s in Wisconsin. The basement of the house had no lights, a dirt floor, a loose-fitting door – and the electrical panel for the well that watered my heifers. I never wanted to go down there because I never knew what I might find, but if the heifers didn’t have water, a trip to that basement was part of the troubleshooting process. Similarly, is your robot feed bin a place you avoid until the cows stop eating? Here are some tips to help monitor and manage feed in the bin, before the cows run out of pellets or stop visiting.
Start with the assumption that quality pellets are delivered to the farm. Your feed is subject to rigorous quality control and monitoring before it ever leaves the mill. Mistakes can happen. If you have any doubt, you can ask the mill to check the retained sample from your load. The robot pellet-quality problems I have seen all started on the farm. Check conditions on the farm before you call the mill.
Pellets are one of the most stable forms of feed available. That is why we feed them in robots. But they still contain moisture, and if that moisture moves and becomes concentrated in one part of the bin, mold and buildup will result. If you have any experience with cold beer on humid days, you know how moisture condenses on cold surfaces. If the air outside the bin is colder than the feed inside the bin, like unloading warm pellets into cold bins, moisture inside the bin will move to the wall. Warm sunshine on the side of the bin can also cause moisture to move. If frost builds up inside the bin in cold weather, it will run down the sides of the bin when the weather warms. As mold grows and pellets soften and reharden, feed sticks to the inside of the bin and creates buildup. Pieces of the buildup can break off and contaminate the feed or plug the system. Pellets don’t flow across the buildup as easily as they flow across steel, so flow changes and pockets develop. Your bin is a dynamic environment. Before you know it, it can hold more surprises than the basement of that abandoned house.
Monitoring pellet quality starts at the robot. Look at the floor under the bowl. If pellets are piling up there, it indicates that cows are playing with the pellets instead of eating them. Next, look in the feed bowl. The bowl should be empty when a cow leaves the stall. There are always a few cows that don’t clean up the pellets, but they should be the exception. Watch the cows. They should eat aggressively and enthusiastically. If you find problems at the robot, follow the system to find the cause. Cows can and should eat 1/2 to 1 pound of pelleted feed per minute. If they don’t, check the pellet quality before you change feed system settings. Get your team into the habit of noticing these things every time they walk through the robot room.
At the computer, compare pellet consumption to expectations. In robots that dispense all of the accumulated feed at each milking, cows should eat more than 95% of their daily allotment. Expect them to consume 80% to 90% of the daily allotment in robots that only dispense feed when a cow’s head is in the bowl. Do the math to make sure that the number of visits, amount of feed per visit, dispense rate and milking duration allow the cow to eat what she is expected to eat. Double-check your math if you expect cows to eat more than 18 pounds per day, or get a full feed of pellets in two visits. Even with a 1-pound dispense rate, you can’t get more than 18 pounds of pellet into a cow that spends six minutes in the robot three times a day. Remember that these systems do not weigh feed – they estimate weight by counting turns of the auger. The auger still turns when the bin is empty or the auger is blocked. The cows will tell you when they aren’t being fed.
Robot feed moves from the bin to the cow through a closed system, so it is difficult to inspect. At one end, the feed in the bin is usually out of reach, and at the other end, the cow should be consuming all of her feed. It is usually not practical to open the system in the middle. Calibrate feed stations monthly so you can inspect the feed, even if the formulation has not changed. Run each calibration cycle three times to get a representative sample. The calibration sample allows you to see, touch and smell the pellets to check for mold, foreign material and fines.
Electronic bin monitoring systems are becoming more reliable and more available. Bin monitors use three-dimensional imaging and artificial intelligence to estimate the quantity of feed remaining in the bin. Internet-connected sensors send reports and images to a phone app. Bin monitors are great tools for tracking supply, planning deliveries and avoiding surprises. Some systems can detect changes in the interior shape of the bin, which indicate feed building up on the side of the bin.
The best way to keep fresh feed in the bin is to remove old feed by emptying the bin regularly. It is not easy to empty a robot pellet bin because running out of feed stops cow flow. Order turn-around time, volume discounts and distance all make it even more difficult to get the bin empty. A two-bin system makes it possible to feed one bin while holding the other in reserve on the farm. This makes it much easier to empty and inspect bins on a regular basis.
Back to that basement – I never liked going down there, and I only did it when I absolutely had to. When I had to go, a good flashlight helped me find my way and avoid surprises. Use the robots, the cows, the data and the bin to avoid surprises with your robot pellets.
