Designing Your Dairy

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.

Rolleyview Farms

We take a closer look at Rolleyview Farms, a VMS facility in Chilliwack, BC, Canada owned by the Tap family.

Free Flow or Guided? You Decide

Our featured barn is a prototype of one of DeLaval’s most popular North American robotic barn designs. Why you ask? Above all, cows in this barn have the potential to be highly productive and that all starts with cow comfort.

Large Herd Facility Design

Here at DeLaval, we are designing more large herd robotic facilities. We are rethinking everything in order to satisfy the criteria of cow comfort, cow flow, labor efficiency, flexibility of design, and future expansion. Regardless of farm size, these principles do not change. However, aspects such as herd management, milk transport, cow walking distances, manure management, and ventilation certainly do.

The Integrated Robotic Farm of the Future

As an architect, I’m often asked to envision the “barn of the future”. I reply that the future is here, considering the availability of robotic milking stalls, herd management software, cow and milk monitoring systems, along with a myriad of other solutions. The most value for dairy producers is realized, however, when those innovative tools are integrated into facilities designed with the big picture in mind.