By Shelby Hartin
If you were to visit the University of Maine’s Witter Farm in the quiet hours before sunrise, you would see bleary-eyed students shuffle through their morning chores. At 4:30 a.m., students bring the farm’s dairy cows into a tie-stall barn for the first of their twice-per-day milking. The next will take place at 4:30 p.m., then the process repeats — “even on Thanksgiving,” said Patricia Henderson ’17, farm superintendent.
That routine will soon change in the interest of preparing students for the future of the dairy industry.
A new barn equipped with a robotic milking system is under construction at the farm and expected to be fully operational by the end of the year. It will be the third barn in the state equipped with the advanced technology, according to Henderson.
Robotic milking systems allow for voluntary milking — cows have the ability to set their own milking schedule. Rather than rely on human resources for this task, this will create a more efficient system for farm staff and students. These systems record milking frequency and volume, milk quality and the number of visits to the robots by each cow, which offers dairy producers better insight into herd management, nutrition and health. Dairy cows that set their own milking schedule also show increased production.
Witter Farm, which is part of the J. Franklin Witter Teaching and Research Center in Old Town, is home to the UMaine undergraduate and graduate education and research programs in dairy and equine science. The farm attracts students from multiple majors, including animal and veterinary sciences; biology; ecology and environmental sciences; and those pursuing a pre-veterinary concentration, among others. Dairy classes taught at the farm usually have about 25 students.
Although the process will be automated by next year, students will still learn how to do hands-on milking and herd management, with a new focus on technological advancements. Madison Philbrick ‘23G, former Witter Farm livestock manager, said daily maintenance and hands-on experience with the cows, including assistance with bottle feeding and vaccinations, will continue to provide the educational experience students have come to expect.
“The cows still need to be cared for. The calves still need to be fed. It might not need to be at three in the morning anymore, but there’s still that day to day,” said Philbrick, now coordinator of UMaine’s School of Food and Agriculture. Additionally, the new robotic milking system will have its own requirements for cleaning and maintenance, according to Philbrick.
This won’t be the first technological advancement at the farm. Staff have also implemented an automated health monitoring system for the herd, which allows them to get ahead of any potential issues with individual cows.
“The system will do heat detection and health alerts, and it tracks their overall rumination and eating schedules,” Philbrick said, adding that it can send alerts to phones. “If there’s a cow that has stopped eating for a little while, it’ll flag it as a health alert. Then you get to play the puzzle game of what’s actually wrong.”
Gaining experience with new and emerging technologies, as well as hands-on work with large animals, is a unique aspect of animal education that UMaine provides to students.
“Having large animal experience helps students get a step ahead,” Henderson said. “It’s very valuable. Most of our students get into vet school on the first try, which is not the case at many other universities that don’t have a research station with animals and livestock on site.”
The dairy industry in Maine has lost one-third of its farms since 2020 due to rising costs and other challenges. The Task Force to Support Dairy Farms in Maine was recently created to help identify how the state might help farms be more profitable.
“This investment is critical to the university and the state of Maine,” said Marge Kilkelly, chair of the Maine Board of Agriculture. “This facility will transform Witter Farm, reflecting modern practices and technologies used to care for and manage dairy cows, while also allowing for essential research to be conducted. It is exciting to see UMaine continue to modernize education and research experiences while responding to the workforce needs of Maine.”
As part of the university’s Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station, Witter Farm is one example of a resource that provides capacity support to faculty who conduct fundamental and applied research. The work done at the farm helps address issues and develop opportunities for the people of Maine. Henderson noted these advancements will prepare students for the future of dairy in Maine and beyond, especially in the midst of the challenges the industry faces.
“The state of Maine has not been a national leader in milking technology, but we’re gaining. There are already two robotic farms in the state. One of them was just constructed and finished this spring,” Henderson said. “Before I started here, I was a dairy consultant for a grain company and I did a lot of work in Vermont. Everybody there was transitioning to robots.”
Henderson highlighted labor savings and easier management for her staff as an additional perk of the robotic milking operation.
“Sometimes you have to rely on technology a little bit,” she said “We’re excited to be some of the pioneers in that moving forward.”
Source : umaine.edu