Across the state, there are 148 robotic milking systems being used at dairy farms. The number of robotic milking systems has grown by 52 machines since 2014, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
Dan Bolin, the owner of New Day Dairy took TV9 on a tour of his dairy farm and he pointed out how they use technology to monitor the cow’s activity.
They use ankle bands on the cows (almost like a Fitbit) and a touchscreen in the milking area to help keep track of how much milk is being produced and if the cow is feeling «well that day.»
Farmers like Bolin say his cows can even pick the times they want to be milked by Rita the Robot.
“Hey this is something that cows love consistency lets program a machine to be consistent have all the sensors, all the attentiveness of a person but an even better memory because then they’ll store the data and say let’s have a machine do that,” says Bolin.
Once the milk is collected it is filtered and chilled.
New Day Dairy Farm opened back in 2015, but Dan’s family has been in the dairy business for 125 years.
His farm produces about 1,000 gallons of milk per day.
Cows also get fed a special blend of nutrition and are fed multiple times throughout the day.
The balanced-diet helps produce high-quality milk that ends up on grocery store shelves.