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4 Aces Dairy near Osmond, Nebraska.

4 Aces Dairy near Osmond, Nebraska.

OSMOND, Neb. — A robotic dairy near Osmond was born from Walt Aschoff’s love for Brown Swiss dairy cows, nurtured as Aschoff grew up on his family farm, while milking next to his dad Ron.

About five years ago, Aschoff’s 12-year-old son Robert asked dad if he could get some Brown Swiss dairy cows. The love for the Brown Swiss breed had carried over to the next generation. Aschoff’s reply was, “Go ask your Mom.”

Interestingly enough, Mom Michele agreed. Robert had expressed an interest in farm animals and two years early had convinced his mom to buy some sheep, which he grew to a herd of 150.

Aschoff knew from his personal experience, Brown Swiss were real gentle cows so two were purchased. Moving on to taking care of two Brown Swiss dairy cows with calves seemed like a natural progression and when they calved, Robert asked Aschoff if he could milk them. To which Aschoff replied, “Go ask your mom.” And, again, she said yes.

Aschoff, being the owner and operator of Aschoff Construction, proceeded to build Robert a milking parlor for two cows. Previously he had been involved in the construction of a robotic dairy near Clearwater and had some experience in what was involved in a dairy build.

Robert became a good herdsman, milking the brown beauties daily for his growing family of siblings. But, really, two dairy cows are not enough. Then again, how many is enough?

Soon, the Aschoffs were milking eight cows and feeding 18-20 bucket calves. The milk production had grown, and he learned their dairy could be picked up every four days through a dairy production company. During COVID, the cow numbers increased to 22 cows and the parlor had been expanded to a four-stall parlor.

At this point, Aschoff started thinking seriously about building a robotic dairy operation and a plan was formed.

As the Aschoff construction group became involved in building the first robotic dairy, the business decided to invest in the Lely dairy equipment supply company, a Netherlands-based company, which sells all the robotic equipment for these dairy ventures with an office location in Pella, Iowa. They became owners of this supply company with the idea the construction side would build the dairy facility. The milking robots are made at this location in Iowa, but the rest of the robotic equipment is still made in the Netherlands.

“So, the main reasons we built the barn was to show off the equipment and what Aschoff Construction can build,” Aschoff said. “We are really right in the trenches with other dairy farmers, seeing what works, what doesn’t.”

But the last reason the robotic dairy grew and developed is personal for Aschoff.

“The last reason to have our kids play a little bit,” Aschoff said with a laugh. “You know, they all hate it in the house but they love it over there.”

The 4 Aces Dairy, as named by Aschoff for his children, Robert, Keli, Charley and Bennet, was built across the road from the Aschoff family home and started with 120 cows and two milking robots. In the past year, the dairy added another robotic milker and are headed to 180 cows. This new robotic dairy is the future for dairy farms and is breaking the mold for dairy farms or at least, the conventional idea of milking cows.

This facility is run on robotics and no dairy farmer would have ever admitted a robotic vacuum would have ever progressed to making a very labor-intensive farm chore a fun thing to do.

There is robotic feeding and a little robotic wagon goes through the barn and, reads the bunks in the various pens. It then comes back to the feed room where a robotic crane and grabber loads the feed, mixes it and goes back out to deliver the feed. Then the process starts all over again and checking which pens need feed. It feeds the pens of lactating cows eight times a day and dry cows twice a day.

The barn is a deep pit barn under the lactating cows, with slats and rubber mats over them. There are three little robots like robotic vacuums which travel around and knock the solids or cow manure through the slats and into the pit below, keeping the slats clean. The dry cow pens have a solid floor with rubber mats and a different robotic vehicle vacuums up the solids and dumps it into a hole for the deep pit. The pit is then pumped out twice a year onto the fields.

The barn is a modern tunnel vent barn where the air is drawn in one end and blown out the other end with power ventilation. There are also fans inside the barn with high pressure fogging so the cows are cooled in the summer months and the barn never freezes.

“The cows have the best life they ever can have other than eating grass on a mountain side in the Swiss Alps,” Aschoff said. “Never have heat stress; never freeze.”

Aschoff’s seven-year-old son goes in the barn among the cows and never gets kicked. The cows are AI (Artificially Inseminated) and there are no bulls. The barn is very calm and peaceful.

“I first thought we calmed the cows because we were in there and calmed the cows down, but that is not true,” Aschoff said. “I think they are simply tame because they have no threat to them; no one pushes them; their life is a simple as it can be.”

The cows “‘go get” milked when they want to and they are fed again while milking. The majority of cows “go get” milked three times a day and the high producing cows go 4.6 times a day. Low producing cows may only ‘go get’ milked 1.8 times a day. Keeping track of all these details is the key to the operation.

When the cows enter the barn, they get collars which offer a variety of information for the herdsman. They are given an RIFD which recognizes the animal when they go into the robot. It records things like how many minutes a day the cow spends with its head down eating, chewing their cud, or activity which identifies when they are in heat or if they have been bred successful.

Another function of the collars is location. Aschoff said if perhaps one of the cows slips out by accident and goes to Walmart, the herdsman is notified by phone. Everything in the barn can be monitored by phone.

While in the milking robot, the temperature of milk is recorded, color of milk, salt in milk, weight and pounds of milk. If there are any deviations, they are on the health report and checked by herdsman.

“We know a cow is sick before she does,” Aschoff said.

The total system is washed twice a day and each robot washes the milking unit between each cow. The milk from a cow which is being treated or a fresh cow is automatically dumped in the pit so tainted milk never goes into the milk tank for sale.

At the present time, 4 Aces Dairy averages 80 pounds per day which is about 10 gallons with high cows producing 30 pounds per day. Most dairies average three to four lactations or approximately years but Aschoff is hoping for five lactations.

The cows never leave the barn unless they are being culled because of poor health or low production. Calves are born in barn and all the heifer calves are moved to Texas and return two months from calving. Bull calves are sold locally to feeders.

Aschoff wonders now if his wife Michele really knew what she was agreeing to when Robert asked her if he could buy a couple cows. Those cows would have to be milked twice a day, 365 days a year.

In years past, dairy farms were known to need a lot of work. Milking was done twice a day, every day, seven days a week, sometimes by hand, sometimes with a milking machine but it was all hands on. The farmer had to be there all the time. Then there’s the gathering of the cows, feeding, cleaning up manure, putting the animals to pasture or a feed area, checking water sources, keeping up fences, cutting silage for winter months, grinding feed to feed the cows while milking and dealing with weather extremes.

“The labor does not go away; it is just scheduled differently,” Aschoff said. “You’re not married to it like in the past — the world doesn’t turn that way anymore.”

Typically, the herdsman will spend a lot of time in the office checking computer information about the cows, milk production or issues which need to be addressed with health. All the cows lay on mattresses or water beds and they have to bedded with wood chips daily by a different robot which shoots the wood chips out, as well as cleaned off manually twice a day. There may be one with a sore foot or in heat. Someone usually is in the barn from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and then Aschoff and kids take over for a couple hours, checking the operation and cows.

But what if something goes, maybe, wrong?

“The barn runs on its own a lot of the time, but don’t worry, the robots notify us when something’s wrong,” Aschoff said with a laugh. “And they call us a lot.”

Another interesting activity at 4 Aces Dairy is a viewing room in the middle of the building under the porch which is always open to the public. There are viewing windows to see the milking robots and the feeding system. A couple older gentlemen come many days and sit and watch the milking process and tours can be arranged for school children and others.

Aschoff said someday when he’s ready to retire he might ditch his construction gig and take care of the cows.

“It’s enjoyable in the barn, very peaceful,” Aschoff said. “And the cows never talk back.”

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