When it comes to robotic milking, cows need a clear, healthy routine. It improves their well-being, which in turn helps you maximize your farm’s productivity.

Here are four things that will make it easier for you and your cows to get into the swing of things.

We’re celebrating five years of Dairy Performance Awards! That’s five years that we’ve been teaming up with our Québec cooperatives to recognize the top milk producers in Québec and Eastern Ontario.

What are the Dairy Performance Awards?

They’re awards for dairy farms that do business with Sollio Agriculture. They recognize outstanding annual production results, based on fat + protein delivered to the tank.

• Holsteins: 2.55 or more

• Mixed breeds: 2.10 or more

When it comes to robotic milking systems, preventing lameness is crucial. It has a major impact on both cow well-being and productivity.

Robotic milking systems are defined by voluntary milking. But for the system to work, farmers need to know how prevalent lameness is within their herds and take a fast, responsible approach to dealing with it.

When dairy farms get so productive that they reach their 10-day limit of overproduction credits, it opens the door to a new and potentially money-saving management strategy: voluntary disposals.

What are voluntary disposals?

Voluntary disposals are when you remove the least profitable cows—ones with low milk production, SCC issues, reduced reproduction or mobility, etc.—to improve overall herd performance.

When it comes to knowing whether your dairy farm is maximizing revenue, annual feed margin per cow is one of the key indicators to watch. Luckily, Lactascan makes it easy to do just that. Here’s why tracking your annual margin per cow is so important.

 

What is annual margin per cow?

Your annual margin per cow is your daily feed margin over 365 days.

Ferme des Étangs has seen a lot of changes in recent years, but dairy farmer Samuel Grégoire has managed to keep his herd’s performance highly consistent through it all. With the help of his Uniag Cooperative agri-advisor, Kim Lamoureux, he’s keeping his eyes on the prize: profitability and work‑life balance.

“Samuel runs a tight ship,” says Kim. “He stays in control, sees things coming, and is always prepared.”

Crossbred calves sell at such a high price that it can become sorely tempting to overproduce them. Here are some things to consider if you want to make the most profitable decisions for your dairy herd.

First and foremost, it’s important to know that US dairy production is in a unique situation right now:

• Cattle numbers in the US are at their lowest in over 70 years.

Dairy farmer Alexandre Bernier can’t say enough good things about Jessica Dallaire. He considers the Nutrinor Coopérative agronomist and ruminant agri-advisor part of the family, saying her support was one of the main reasons his farm was so successful in transitioning to robotic milking.

Diligence. That’s what drives the team at Ferme 7 Terres in Saint-Sévère, Mauricie. And as the dairy farm’s co-owner, Philippe Lacerte expects no less from Mathieu Champagne, his ruminant agri-advisor at Novago Coopérative.

“I come to this farm often, and every time, I see somebody cleaning!” Mathieu says with a laugh.

At Ferme Janoel, agri-advisor Samuel Pelletier and dairy farmer Keven Malenfant are working together to get the farm up to 2 kg of butterfat per cow per day—without adding stalls. They’re sure they can do it, and they know attention to detail is key.

Ferme Janoel is a tie-stall dairy farm in Saint-Arsène in the Bas-Saint-Laurent. Keven Malenfant took it over from his father in 2013, with a modest quota of 42 kg. Many investments later, he’s proud to let the numbers speak for themselves:

• 140 kg quota