3 ways to optimize your rotary parlor investment
If you’re looking to upgrade your milking platform to scale for growth or to streamline your operation, a rotary parlor is a great option to explore.
Whether you’re considering installing one on your dairy, or you already have, here are 3 additional ways to optimize your rotary parlor investment with VAS’ ParlorBoss.
1) Improve protocol adherence
From reproduction to health treatments, managing a herd requires a dairy to follow protocols with keen oversight. This becomes more challenging as your operation grows. But, in combination with management software like ParlorBoss, rotary parlors offer new ways to drive adherence.
ParlorBoss syncs with DairyComp, to display necessary tasks and information as each cow enters the rotary. By handling, marking and checking cows as they enter, dairies can efficiently make sure no cow or task gets missed.
For producers like High Plains Ponderosa Dairy in Kansas, this has been a gamechanger. “By taking her right off of the parlor and knowing if the cow has an item or an issue or a task that needs to be done for that animal that day, we have all of that data right there at the fingertips of our employees,” said High Plains Ponderosa’s Chris Yohn.
Even a marginal improvement in protocol adherence can greatly bolster your herd health and deliver an earlier ROI on your parlor investment.
2) Minimize time in headlock to improve cow comfort and health
With enhanced task-management in the parlor comes another benefit: minimized lockup time. Data has shown that happier, more comfortable cows are more productive.
“When [the cow] comes off the rotary, we know all of that information and she goes right into the rail, and those guys already know exactly what they’re going to do to that animal. It speeds up the process by 20 to 30 minutes, maybe an hour, and the cows are no longer having to be locked up.”
“The biggest benefit of what we’re doing right now is the cows tend do more of what they’re supposed to be doing, which is eating, trying to lay down, and not being as stressed out,” said Enrique Hernandez, production manager at High Plains Ponderosa. “Right now, we’re probably only handling about 1 percent of the cows that we need every day… If we were to lock up all the cows that we needed we’d probably be locking around 60 percent of the herd.”
3) Leverage new labor efficiency and improve worker conditions
As farms look to technology to address labor shortages, ParlorBoss aims to increase employee efficiency – so your team can get more done in a day.
Chris Yohn notes the significant improvement he’s seen in efficiency since implementing ParlorBoss. “The amount of time and space and people that are needed — we would probably have to hire somewhere between three to four guys just to take the place of Parlor Boss.”
Centralizing tasks around the rotary parlor also drives improvement in overall working conditions, limiting the amount of time your staff would otherwise spend walking barns.
“Employees are pivotal to what we do every day here. Their comfort, their happiness, wanting to come to work and be here,” Yohn said. “ParlorBoss allows for us to have a smaller working area, they’re closer to restrooms. They’re closer to break rooms. They’re closer to having a drink or a refrigerator close by since they don’t have to walk in a large barn…or walk as many animals. That alone, the amount of time that they would have to walk in these barns, is a life saver.”
ParlorBoss is compatible with all major rotary systems, including Bomatic, DeLaval, Nedap and GEA, allowing you to truly make the most of your parlor setup. To learn more about the improvements your dairy can see through ParlorBoss, or to talk to a member of our team, click here.
