Heeg says when they built their robotic barn in late 2023, they had decided to go with a guided-flow free stall setup.  Heeg says before the barn had its first cows, they met with a consultant in Colorado who was successfully getting cows to use the machines without feeding pellets. “We gathered our nutrition team and talked about it and had conference calls with her and, you know, said we could maybe probably do this in here with this guided flow. We’re able to do it that way, so we started with no pellets in the robots and that’s what we’re continuing to do.”

Heeg says the family grows and harvests their own forage, and not using pellets takes a little more feed, but they’re still saving money. “You still have your cost of forage, so that replaces the pellets, so it’s not as big as you might think but it is a savings, and then working on the system or managing that, or keeping track of inventory, we don’t have to worry about any of that.”

Heeg Brothers Dairy currently milks 1,050 in their parlor and 450 in the new robot milking barn.  He says the cows in the robot barn average 98 pounds of milk with a 4.5 butterfat and are doing very well.