If there is one place on a dairy farm that is most often overlooked to maximize both efficiency and cash flow, it is the milking parlor.
So often, dairy producers will tell me that their parlor is maxed out. Or perhaps they don’t want to pay more labor.
But when I walk into the pit, my eyes go directly to the opportunities to make minor changes that can yield big results, at a minimal cost if any.
In fact, one dairy I’ve worked with in particular stands out.
They were milking 1,400 cows three times a day in a double-16 parlor, getting 5.4 turns per hour. They felt “stuck” there, not knowing which lever to pull to move more cows through. But I knew this well-managed dairy was just a few tweaks away from doing even better.
One of the most high-impact changes we helped the parlor team make was to change up the prep protocol. The original protocol was to dip, strip and wipe each cow, down the line. Now, milkers make a “circle” as they prep the loaded cows, doing each step at a time: dipping all cows, stripping all cows and wiping all cows.
What difference could this simple change make?
Here were their results: They were able to add 200 cows more per each milking shift, without any additional labor. That was an increase from 5.4 to 7.2 turns per hour.
That’s more milk with the same amount of employees.
This is just one example of the low-hanging fruit for greater efficiencies and profitability that could be just waiting to be harnessed in your milking parlor right now. And at a time when dairy markets are in good shape and there is more appetite for milk by coops, you don’t want to miss the opportunity to up your output, harvest more milk and capture additional income on your milk check.
And perhaps the greatest opportunity is to do this all without adding additional labor or hours.
