A few weeks ago, we were joking about the fact that this winter we’ve had maybe a total of five inches of snow. An inch here, two inches there. And then we finally had our first real snow of the year that left a completely white cover.
It was great to see that the snow didn’t impact the robotic milkers, but the extreme cold has been more of a challenge. Things start freezing, and we’re still learning what to do and how to handle it. During the last cold snap, some of the underground lines that carry liquids froze. It took about a day of running hot water through the lines to get them all thawed out and running again.
After we thawed all of the lines, we were able to insulate them. Surprisingly, snow itself works as a great insulator. We also piled straw onto the lines and wrapped some of the concrete casings around the lines in insulation blankets.
During the cold snaps, we make sure there is extra heat in the robot rooms to keep everything running as smoothly as possible. We also make sure the cords that remove the milking unit from the cow stay thawed. We learned that ice builds up on the cords on the robotic milkers located on the south side of our barn.
Even though it’s been over six months since the first few robots were up and running, we are still learning how to manage their quirks.
