Daugherty Farms and Robotic Milkers

Faced with getting out of the dairy business or get more efficient the Daugherty Family visited over 20 robotic dairy farms when deciding what type of upgrades they wanted to undertake. Working with WG Dairy the family built an entirely new facility on top of a hill just above the old parlor. The family has been in the new facility since March of 2020 and have not looked back. Dale Minyo visits with Bill and Kyle Daugherty as they walk him through the farm history and their decision to install four Lely Robotic Milkers.

[@deeremandoug]

my question what is the total investment in the barn. new necessary equipment, milking system etc. looks like a very multimillion dollar amount. do u ever thing u will b out of debt. when walmart is selling milk for 1.50$ per gallon.

[@crazyhass84]

Everyone says labor labor labor but i heard the robots r 650k each?! Thats 4x the cost of a conventional parlor. Whats the pay back on this operation?

[@isaacschmitz3028]

Robots are about 200k each, and you have about 1 robot for every 60 cows. With robots, cows can get milked 3x a day so you get more milk. Getting milked more often also cuts mastitis rate. Plus with robots, you don’t have to milk every day and pay for labor.

[@elvinhoover9671]

If you have many cow put the robotic that go around a circle .daval sell they are just starting to come to america .they come in 50 to 100 cow circle and less than ten people.and it 24 hours.it can milk over 1000 cow . but it takes people with smart phone or tablet. some tractor can be driven with tablet. New gallons

[@alainlapointe7777]

De Laval