The new farm hand on a small dairy farm in northern Minnesota may not be R2d2 or C-3PO of Star Wars fame, but this robot knows how to milk cows, never gets tired, doesn't complain and gets the job done every day.
Jim and Sue Steinmetz of Mahnomen, a tiny town with a big casino about 35 miles north of Detroit Lakes, knew they needed to get some hired help, or they would have to sell their cows and retire. Sue's arthritis was making it tougher every day to handle the milking chores.
But they never dreamed that hired help would be a robot.
While attending dairy conference in Iowa, the Steinmetz's saw a demonstration of the Lely Astronaut A3, a state-of-the-art robotic and computer-controlled milking machine sold by Lely, a Dutch high technology firm.
Watching the A3 (a decidedly Star Wars-like name) go through its paces, the Steinmetz's were sold on the spot. They brought one out to handle their 69 cows, and the contraption works like a dream.
It's almost completely hands-off milking -- the Steinmetz's don't even have to herd their cows into the milking barn -- they learn to show up on their own when they feel the need to be milked.
It took the Steinmetz's about three weeks to train the cows to belly up to find the robot, belly-up to it -- or should we say, udder up? -- but once the cows learned the routine, A3 does all the milking, and Jim and Sue merely need to tweak the whole process using a lap top computer.
To see a video demonstration of the A3 in action, check out this video on YouTube.
Lely says international sales of the A3 have been brisk since they introduced the product in 2005, and say that in the future, all cows will be milked this way. There are currently some 4,000 systems milking cows worldwide.
For Jim and Sue Steinmetz, labor and milking problems are solved. Now, all they need is for the market price of dairy to rebound from the miserable slump it has been mired in for more than a year -- and their shiny new robot can milk the profits for them.
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