Ehrhardts pleased with robotic milker
By Jean Caspers-Simmet
simmet@agrinews.com
Date Modified: 03/25/2011 8:26 AM
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WAUKON, Iowa —It's been four months since Sandra and Mark Ehrhardt started milking with a robotic system.
The Waukon couple said it was the right decision for them.
Their 70 cows, mostly Holsteins with some Red and Whites and Ayrshires, have adapted well to the Lely Astronaut Robotic Milker.
"It took Mark and me a lot longer," Sandra said.
On day 54, Sandra decided she and Mark could quit taking turns sleeping on the couch in the barn office and spend their nights in the house. The robot calls their telephone if there is a problem. The couple call their robot, Harold, after Sandra's father and Mark's uncle.
The robot milked the first cows on Nov. 9, but the process started long before that.
Mark and Sandra studied how to make changes in their operation nearly a year before that. Their milking parlor had been built in the 1960s by Sandra's parents. When Mark and Sandra started farming in 1981, they remodeled but little had been done since then.
"In 2009 we bought another farm and that married us to our cows for another 15 years, and we started looking at how we could improve the parlor," she said.
Sandra will turn 50 this summer and Mark is over 50. In the old parlor the cows stood 29 inches off the ground and the Ehrhardts were constantly stooping to milk them.
The couple's son-in-law Randy Wedo works for them. His wife, Melissa, and the Ehrhardts' other daughter Samantha work off the farm in ag-related jobs. Another daughter, Monica, and her husband, Brian Enyart, and their two children have a dairy farm north of Postville.
"Our daughters may want to get involved in the farming operation in the future and so we wanted to do something that would provide an opportunity for that transition," Sandra said.
The Ehrhardts own 690 acres, cropping 565. They also rent another 230 acres. In addition to the dairy herd, they have a 125-head beef cow herd. They finish out beef calves as well as dairy steers.
As the Ehrhardts evaluated their options, they realized that cost-wise building a new parlor vs. installing a robot were similar.
"But with the parlor, you still have to man it," Mark said.
Sandra went to work researching and reading every article she could find. She contacted 10 farmers who were milking with robots. Among her questions was if they had any regrets.
"They all said their only regret was that they didn't do it sooner, and now we're right on board with them," Sandra said. "It's a no-brainer."
Their free-stall barn was sound, and there was room for a robot where they had some calving pens they no longer used. They essentially built a building within a building to house an office and the robot. They turned the bulk tank and added a little bit to the milk house. A hall connects the three areas.
"It was idle space we put to good use," Sandra said.