For this farmer robotic milking is the way to go. But it’s not for everyone. The robotic milker was removed from Philip Delabay’s farm near Finch recently. That year long experiment didn’t work.

Farmers should not listen to a sales pitch that says you can install a robot and go on vacation, argues Mowat, located west of Richmond, now in the new city of Ottawa. He says he is still in the barn five hours every day and feels uneasy about spending a few days away without checking in on the cows. He has a full-time worker in the barn but his daily schedule in the barn with the cows goes like this:

"That’s the minimum I feel comfortable with," he says. "You can cheat and not go to the barn for a few days but it will catch up to you. You still have to scrape the cows down two or three times a day. We shove the feed in six or seven times a day."

He moved in to the new barn with the three robots last September. He would have done one thing differently.

"It would have been better to have bought a herd of cattle," he said. Instead, he was buying eight to 10 cows at a time and it took four or five months to build up to 180 cows.

The only glitch in the robotic system is that there are about eight cows who have an extra short teat and therefore are not recognized by the robot. In those cases, Mowat puts his finger in place of the udder when the cow steps up to the plate. The robot detects the finger and can then find the teat.

"It’s a pleasure to come in here and work," said Mowat. "But the schedule is totally different."

He has a service contract with Lely, who installed the robot. "The service has been exceptional. They are here within one hour and a half."

The large barn is actually half a barn, rising to 26 ft at its peak on one side and is ready for further expansion at any time. The barn is naturally ventilated. The only motor has 3 hp to pull the scraper along the floor, which is 30 inches higher at one end. The manure pit can hold one year’s manure.

The big move to a bigger barn and three robots was an easier decision for Mowat than it would have been for some farmers. He was only two years away from paying off the mortgage when he decided to make the investment. He cash crops on 1,500 acres but in looking to the future he sees dairy expansion as adding value to his farm.