Eric B - 3/2/2021 08:16 I'd love to have robots but the economics aren't there for us. I'm in Canada so we're based on quota for butterfat and extra production costs money for quota. For same production of 1.5kg butterfat feed cost was $8 for parlour and $9 for robot with extra cost because of needing robot pellets and not feeding commodities. Assuming 15% more production from robots but only half that increase in butterfat we can drop from 80 cows in parlour to 74 in robot. Assuming they don't eat more in robot (not realistic) for the extra production the robots cost $244000 in feed versus $234000 in parlour. So $10000 minimum in extra feed cost every year. Two robots at $10000 each per year in maintenance/parts/chemicals versus say $10000/year for parlour. So that $10000 would pay for 250 shifts a year of milking of two hours at $20/hr. So parlour saves at least the $10000 in feed costs and more if I do most milkings. If I can make parlour very quick and it has similar features as robot (ID, milk recording, sort gate, etc) I can't justify the robots. Germania parlour is $100000 less than robots including building and has ID, meters, crowd gate and sort gate so that seems like best option. Not what I was planning but feed mills charge too much here and I can get feed from by my dad 12 hours away for same cost even though grain is grown here.