Focus on feed management with robotic milking systems

MINNEAPOLIS — An excellent feed management program is one of the keys to success for dairy operations with a robotic milking system.

“The goal of every feeding program is to meet the nutritional needs of the cow, maintain the cow health, optimize milk, labor efficiency and effective feed delivery,” said Jim Salfer, University of Minnesota Extension dairy educator.

“Like any dairy feeding program, we need excellent pre-calving management,” said Salfer during a webinar hosted by Hoard’s Dairyman.

“That’s more important in a robotic milking system than a conventional milking system, because if cows aren’t feeling the best once they calve, we are relying on them to decide to go get milked,” he said. “We want 80% to 90% freestall capacity and 30-inch bunk space for close-up cows.”

It is also important to focus on the partial mixed ration, Salfer said, since 80% to 90% of the nutrients are provided through the PMR.

“If we have really good pre-calving management and diet, that’s going to promote high post-calving intake, then we have cows that feel good and are looking for feed, which promotes high early lactation visits, and that drives high PMR intake, so it becomes a circle,” he said. “The high PMR intakes makes them feel good and that drives high milk production.”

Salfer encourages dairymen to take time for extra observations of fresh cows.

“It is important to observe rumination activity and manure,” he said. “If a cow really likes the robot feed, but is not feeling the best, what can happen is she’ll overfeed the robot feed and not eat as much PMR.”

Ideally, a cow should give 25 to 35 pounds of milk every time she is milked by a robot, Salfer said.

Research of 32 Wisconsin farms showed herds that had more PMR dry matter intake had higher income over feed costs.

“We want a really high-quality PMR,” Salfer said.

He provided an example of the importance of consistency of forages. A farm switched from alfalfa to a sorghum silage that was really high quality, but it was an abrupt change.

“In a short period of time, the milk yield dropped about 10 pounds and the milk per robot dropped about 400 pounds,” Salfer said. “It took about 30 days for the cows to recover, so if you’re going to make changes, you want it to happen really slow.”

Dairymen have come a long way over the last 10 years with feed table settings, the Extension educator said.

“Farmers went with what the dealers recommended, but now I think we’re tailoring them more from farm to farm,” Salfer said.

“Typically, guided-flow farms will feed much less robot pellets than free-flow farms,” he said. “A lot will feed one to two pounds of robot feed per visit.”

Free-flow barns are quite a bit different.

“From calving to four weeks, cows are on a dry matter intake table — for every few days in milk, they get fed so many pounds of robot pellets and that will be stepped up over a period of time,” Salfer said.

“They don’t want fresh cows to be slug fed,” he said. “Oftentimes, we keep the older cows on the days in milk table a little too long.”

After that, cows are fed based on their milk production.

“When you think your cows reach their peak, switch them to a mid-lactation diet, where they are only fed based on milk production,” Salfer said. “If you feed them on a lead factor too many days, you’re wasting a lot of feed.”

Research from many herds in Canada and Minnesota shows only 20%, when they are fed more grain, resulted in more visits to the robot.

“Only two resulted in more milk production,” Salfer said. “I think it’s a fallacy that if cows aren’t visiting like you want, ‘I’ll feed them more feed.’”

There could be a lot of reasons why cows don’t go to the robot such as lameness or the formulation needs to be changed.

“I don’t think it’s safe to say that just feeding more feed will get cows to visit,” Salfer said.

“Over the last year, we’ve had a lot of farmers in the Upper Midwest switch to meal feeding and they have saved from 30 to 40 cents per cow per day on feed,” he said.

It is important to feed a meal that flows well.

“Avoid ingredients like fat and other ingredients that limit flowability,” Salfer said. “And you must feed the amounts the cows will consume.”

Cows in a robot cannot eat meal as fast as they can eat pellets.

“Research shows cows can eat about a half a pound of meal per minute and almost one pound per minute of pellets,” Salfer said. “So, you can’t feed as much meal as pellets.”

The meal should be a consistent particle size and the robot room tends to be dustier, the Extension educator said.

“Success varies from herd to herd and make sure you calibrate the feeders often,” he said.

Meal can bridge, so dairymen should think about where the pinch points are in their system.

“Minimize the number of right-angle corners,” Salfer said. “Use vibrators to keep the feed from bridging and put them on a timer to vibrate a few seconds every 10 minutes or so.”

A training program is key to getting heifers off to a good start with robot milking systems.

“You need to practice the behavior you want the cows to achieve,” Salfer said.

“The first few days teach them about the entire pen and show them where the waterers are,” he said. “Move slow and guide them to the robot.”