Semiautomated milking technology captured the attention of dairy producers awarding this year’s Nexus Innovation Awards. The new technology from GEA improves upon and brings the fully automated teat preparation common in box-style milking robots to parallel parlors.

At the heart of the approach of harvesting high-quality milk is ensuring farmers have a thorough understanding of key milk quality parameters, including milk composition, somatic cell count (SCC), bacterial count and the absence of contaminants.

Are you utilizing and optimizing all you have already paid for? Is there untapped potential and ways your existing milking equipment can help you out? Many milk point manufacturers have a stimulation function on their equipment.

Recently, Tom Wegner was named the recipient of the 2023 Boehringer Ingelheim Dairy First Award. “It was pretty cool for Rebecca Gotham, my BI rep, to recognize me, our farm and my employees for all the hard work we do,” Wegner says.

The more we understand automation, the better equipped we are to make it work for us. Let's explore the top five reasons for automating the milking routine on a dairy.

Is labor a challenge? Could you be more consistent with your milking process or milk cows more efficiently?

Your best employee just left for a job in a different industry. You’ve been looking for a new parlor manager for what feels like forever and can’t find the right fit. Or maybe your kids are headed off to college, and you’re scrambling to find a replacement. Sound familiar?