Farm Overview: Doug Heintz, Heintz Badger Valley Farm, Minnesota, US

TheCattleSite article Automatic Milking: How Effective Is It? looks at the benefits of automatic milking machines. Junior editor, Charlotte Johnston interviewed Doug Heintz, a dairy farmer in the US.
calendar icon 20 October 2009
clock icon 1 minute read

Heintz Badger Valley Farm, Minnesota, US

  • Milks 120 cows
  • Yields average 27,000 pounds (approx 11,900l)/cow/year
  • 1 and half full time men
  • 2 robots
  • Averages three milkings per day
  • Achieves on average three lactations per cow
    Doug Heintz

  • When Doug Heintz lost his herdsman of six years, he decided to change his farm management and become more labour efficient. Whilst purchasing two robots, 10 months ago, he also erected a new free stall barn to house his cows indoors all year round. Since then he has been able to make use of dynamic feeding to target high yielders with protein.

    A previously high yielding and healthy herd, Mr Heintz had a five per cent cull rate and excellent foot and udder health prior to installing the robots - and has maintained this since then.

    Over the 10 months he has gradually built up his herd through on-farm replacements and the herd will be operating at full capacity when he is milking 140 cows. Mr Heintz would recommend operating the machines at slightly lower cow numbers for the first couple of months when introducing the cows to the system.

    October 2009
    © 2000 - 2024 - Global Ag Media. All Rights Reserved | No part of this site may be reproduced without permission.