Designing Your Dairy

Expansion could be possible with what you already have

In the difficult times we are currently facing, expansion opportunities may be on hold or even canceled, but do they need to be? Could automatic milking still be the next step for your facility?

Reconstructing the Idea of a Retrofit

Retrofitting a dairy barn for the addition of milking robots has been a popular choice to make upgrades more affordable than they would be when building new. Coming from 20 years in the architecture and construction industry, I can tell you, retrofitting a dairy barn will require both physical and operational changes, same as many buildings in other industries.

Changing the Way Barns are Designed

Our new milking robot, the VMS™ V300, was launched mid-2018, introducing improvements in milking speed, capacity and cow health. Enhancements like these have welcomed some changes to the design of V300 barns.

Planning for Scalable, Sustainable Growth with Robotic Milking

Higher milk production and lower labor costs are among the more talked-about outcomes of robotic milking, but another important benefit is the scalability the robots enable.

Design Your Barn to be Greater Than the Sum of its Parts

Central to all robotic dairy designs are the milking robots themselves; but how do they “fit” with other technologies inside the barn?

Retrofit or Build New: 5 Factors to Help You Decide

One of the first questions we’re asked by dairy farmers interested in DeLaval VMS™ milking systems is: Can I retrofit my existing barn(s) or do I need to build new?

Designing Your Barn for the New VMS™ V300

The new DeLaval Voluntary Milking System, called Voluntary Milking System VMS™ V300, will be arriving at North American dairy farms very soon. With the enhancements and redesign for the milking system, we must consider some changes to facility and design planning. Here’s what you can expect with the new VMS robot’s anatomical changes and how they will – or won’t – impact the layout of your barn.

Largest DeLaval free-flow robotic milking barn in North America

What will soon be the largest DeLaval free flow cow traffic robotic milking farm in North America is currently under construction in Western New York.

A Closer Look at a Robotic Barn with Access to Grazing

In this month’s edition of The Navigator we are sharing a (6) VMS milk-first, bedded pack layout with grazing access. This design is quite simple in that everything is covered under one square roof yet offers automation that is easy to learn for the cows and manage for the producer.

A toll gate style retrofit

See a toll gate style retro layout prepared for a dairy producer in Wisconsin. We’ll take a closer look at two major challenges we needed to overcome: fitting four VMS robots and adding more feed bunk space to a four-row freestall layout with one feed bunk.