FAD OR FUTURE? : AUTOMATIC MILKING SYSTEMS
Picture this: Cows moving freely and independently between milking, feeding, and resting all within their own pen. This is called a free cow traffic system and is the most common barn design containing an automatic milking system (AMS). This system seems optimal because cows can perform natural behaviors and choose their schedule and farmers can sit back and watch…right?
The first commercial automatic milking system was installed on a farm in the Netherlands in 1992 and featured a robotic milking arm and controlled grain dispenser (Goldsmith, 2025). Robotic milking was used to produce 6 percent of U.S. milk in 2021, and adoption has been steadily increasing since the 2000s (McFadden & Raff, 2026). According to a Dairy AMS Survey conducted in 2023 by The University of Wisconsin River Falls Survey Research Center, reducing the reliability on employees is the main reason why a dairy farmer may adopt an AMS (Burney & Pena-Levano, 2023). Of course, no one expects these systems to completely replace employees, although installation of an AMS has been shown to reduce milking labor by roughly 75%. Each robotic milker can milk 55-60 cows three times a day and since they are running 24 hours a day there will always need to be someone on call to respond to robot malfunctions. Not to mention the fact that, inevitably, there will be some cows that will need to be guided to the AMS every day (Brady, 2017).
The upfront cost and installation of an AMS is why 63% of surveyed Minnesota and Wisconsin farms have avoided the technology (Burney & Pena-Levano, 2023). When considering the robotic unit, installation, and barn modifications, each complete system can cost $180,000-$250,000 which can accommodate around 60 cows. Depending on milking herd size, farms may need multiple robots to effectively milk their cows. This price surpasses that of a conventional parlor and since each robot has a service limit, farmers may have a hard time gradually increasing the size of their herd if they have an AMS (Jacobs & Siegford, 2012).
The cost of these machines can’t be justified by the labor reduction alone. According to a survey given to large farms around the US, most farms (88%) deemed that detecting sick cows became easier after transitioning to an AMS (Lage et al., 2024). The milking system is completely personalized to each cow and collects several data points that help farmers monitor their cows in greater detail. Most of these statistics could not be easily or at all obtained without these technologies including reproductive status, feed intake, BW changes, milk quality, and udder health status (Jacobs & Siegford, 2012). Two milk quality parameters I found particularly interesting were progesterone levels and electrical conductivity to detect estrus and mastitis respectively (McFadden & Raff, 2026). Using an AMS cannot directly improve milk quality and production, but rather provide information to better manage the health, nutrition, and reproduction of a dairy herd.
AMS technology is not a magic fix. The promise of reduced labor and improved cow welfare can overshadow the reality that these systems require significant financial investment, ongoing technical support, and organized management. Farms that adopt AMS must be prepared to navigate new forms of labor — robot maintenance and data interpretation. Yet despite this, adoption of these systems is increasing because they offer precision agriculture, individualized cow care, and greater efficiency. The decision to integrate an AMS requires consideration of these factors and the understanding that every farm’s experience will be different. It’s exciting to see new technology giving producers tools to better manage their farms while supporting healthier, happier cows and high quality milk production.
— Juliette Levesque
