[Music]
[Dearing, Georgia/Hillcrest Farms]
[Mark Rodgers/Owner, Hillcrest Farms]
The reason we went to robots here at Hillcrest
was for our next generation that's going to
run the farm.
My daughter and my nephew, we were talking
about building a new parlor and with that
kind of investment we were halfway to buying
robots, so we decided to build a new facility,
put robots in, and it also would be better
on them and more challenging than the monotonous
milking that we were doing before every eight
hours.
Now the cows go milk when they want to milk,
so it's better on my daughter and my nephew.
It's better on our staff.
It gives them flexibility to go watch their
kids play a ball game and then come back and
finish their chores because the cows are still
milking.
So, I think it just really makes for a better
work environment for the next generation coming
on.
[Music]
[Mark]
The timeline for this it took us a good two
years in doing our due diligence, our going
to visit other robot barns to see how they
were managing their cows.
It is a different way to manage cattle.
It is a better way to manage your cows.
It is more comfortable for the cows.
They kinda just stay in the barn and do what
they want to do every day.
They go to a brush when they want a massage,
and then they come to the robot when they
want to milk, and they go eat anytime 24/7
when they want to eat.
So the cow sets her day and it allows us also
to have flexibility as well as the cow.
So, all this stuff went into the process of
learning, or how we were going to do this
process.
[Music]
[Mark]
The technology with these robots is awesome.
So now they can go to micromanaging the cow's
day.
They can look at all this data from the robot.
They know her motion in three dimensions.
They know what each individual quarter of
that cow gave that day.
It monitors the quality of the milk, and it
lets us know if there's a problem, and it
diverts it down the drain.
It cleans the cow better, and it does it consistently.
Every day, 24 hours a day, it's going to do
the exact same thing, and you can take the
best human in the world and you cannot be
that repetitive.
[Music]
[Mark]
It was a concern.
Would they give less milk when we went to
robots?
We were the top producing dairy in the state
per cow at that time.
And with robots it gives you the opportunity
to manage when she's milking.
So we may want to milk her less times as she
gives less milk, and we can adjust her permissions
to come to the robot.
So when she's giving a lot of milk, we can
actually milk them four or five times a day
when they come to the robot.
But they set the schedule.
Not us.
[Music]
[Mark}
Cows learn faster than people.
Within about three days you can see individual
cows going, "Wow, I'm going to outrun you,
and go in this robot, and get milk."
They just love it.
It takes about three weeks for staff to start
understanding the process and it doesn't take
so much outside guidance to keep us going
from day to day.
And you could really tell a difference at
two months in.
It was starting to get easier on us, and we
were starting to relax from the strain of
making this transition.
Did I second guess myself during this process?
Sure.
Me and Andy at our age, this is a huge investment.
It's a long-term investment, but I think down
the road with getting harder to find labor,
I think it was a good investment in the labor
that I had, to challenge them.
A good investment in the gen fours.
Our generation fours coming in to manage the
business now, and my goal here is I want to
be the guy that does some farm tours and people
come in and go, "Hey, I'd like to see Georgia's
first robotic dairy."
They'll come in; I'll have a tram.
We'll ride around the farm.
I'll show them sustainable agriculture.
I can show them the most technologically advanced
dairy in the State of Georgia with the robotics,
and all we have here, and all the work that
goes into production of food
here at Hillcrest.
[Music]
