GEA Farm Technologies is proud to announce that ground has been broken on the first North American installation of DairyProQ, a revolutionary milking system allowing farms to install individual, fully automatic, robotic milking stall modules on a rotary parlor. The installation of the 72-stall DairyProQ rotary parlor is occurring at Mlsna East Town Dairy, Cashton, Wis., where the groundbreaking was held on August 20th.

Each stall unit on the DairyProQ rotary has its own robotic arm, and is designed to completely automate the entire milking process. Teat cup attachment, teat prep (including pre-dipping), fore-stripping, stimulation, the milk harvest process, and post-dipping are done in-liner, in one single attachment. The unit is automatically removed and backflushed between milkings to sanitize the clusters between cows. Problem cows, or special needs cows, can be milked on a semi-automatic, manual basis if required.

For the Mlsna family, DairyProQ technology will bring a solution to the herd, which plans to expand from 900 cows to 2,000 cows with the rotary installation. More than doubling the milking herd, the Mlsna’s were faced with concerns about their labor force being able to handle the increased cow volume. They were looking for a solution when they were introduced to DairyProQ technology by their GEA Farm Technologies representative.

Nick Mlsna, co-owner of the dairy, looks forward to the consistency that DairyProQ will bring to the milking process. “We’re glad that we’ll have the consistency factor down with cows being milked and handled the same way every time,” says Mlsna. Nick owns the farm with his wife, LeAnne, and parents, Dennis and Barbara Mlsna.