Milking time on a dairy farm is a balancing act between maintaining cleanliness and calmness while moving quickly enough to finish on time and get the cows back to their pens where they can eat, drink, rest and produce milk.
Low-stress strategies, worker prep streamline milking parlors
The Hafemeisters milk 120 cows with two Lely Robotic milkers, which were installed in 2014. The cows milk 24 hours per day, basically when they want to. Most go through three times each day. The family checks their computer twice each day at about 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. to find any cows that haven’t been in the robots within the previous 12 hours.
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Editor’s note: This is the third in a series on the 2025 Iowa Women Impacting Agriculture award winners.
