We had the same experience on our farm, heifers can be pretty hesitant at first, and it often took a couple of weeks before they started visiting the robot on their own. What really helped us was just getting them familiar with the robot environment early. Even before calving, we’d walk them through the robot area so it didn’t feel so new and intimidating.

We also noticed a big difference when there was feed available in the robot. That small reward seemed to encourage curiosity and helped them make the connection faster. Another thing we paid attention to was the flow of the barn making sure there were no bottlenecks or dominant cows blocking access. It’s surprising how much that can affect whether a timid heifer feels confident enough to approach.

Hello Rick, great to hear your experience! 

Indeed taking away, or minimizing, bottlenecks is very clever to do like you say with dominant cows or other obstacles. 

when you say having feed available in the robot, you mean there is some concentrates in the bin before entering the robot? How do you manage that?

Hello Rick, great to hear your experience! 

Indeed taking away, or minimizing, bottlenecks is very clever to do like you say with dominant cows or other obstacles. 

when you say having feed available in the robot, you mean there is some concentrates in the bin before entering the robot? How do you manage that?

Yeah exactly, just enough concentrate to get their attention without turning it into a full-on snack session. We’d drop a small portion manually, maybe once or twice a day, only during the first week or so after calving. The idea wasn’t to feed them much just to get them to poke their nose in and start associating the robot with something positive. Once they showed more confidence and started visiting on their own, we backed off and let the robot’s regular feeding take over. Im not sure how many farmers in the field use this technique, but definitely something that helped us