By Amanda Poelman
‘We Would Do It All Over Again’
RMD Makes the Change to Robotics RMD Dairy is in Rittman, Ohio, about a half-hour northeast of Wooster, and is owned and operated by Rick Dotterer and his sons Matthew and Mark. What Rick’s father began in the 1950s with a herd of Brown Swiss cows has grown and developed into the 600-cow Holstein milking
herd it is today, while embracing new technology and keeping family at the forefront. With the help of one full-time employee, Ryan Musser, and six part-time helpers who are mainly in high school, Rick, Matthew, and Mark share the bulk of the work on the dairy. Rick is charge of all of the feeding, Matthew looks after the young stock from baby calves to breeding age, and Mark manages the milking herd. The RMD partnership was established in 2009, when the sons bought into the business. As cow numbers continued to grow, a new 6-row freestall barn was constructed in 2015. Three short years later, the first six Lely A4 robots were installed. “We started up in January 2018,” said Mark. “It was freezing!”
Dawn & Rick Dotterer, with daughter Jill 8
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The choice to go with Lely was simple: the dealership is six miles down the road from the farm. “We have a good relationship with WG Dairy Supply Center. They
service the robot and take care of the parlor as well.” The double-10 parallel parlor is still used to milk 150 cows, three times daily. For the Dotterers the decision to make the switch to robots was largely driven by labor. “It was a getting harder to find help in the area and we would rather manage equipment then people,” said Mark, adding, “all the new technology of everything is also pretty intriguing.” Often, transitioning to robots can come with its challenges but the RMD herd handled it well, possibly because they were used to a three times daily milking schedule. Patiently working through any of the minor challenges that did arise, he noted, “we would do it all over again.” Although they lost some production initially, the cows bounced back quickly and the herd is currently realizing an average of 28,000 pounds of milk, 1,140 pounds of fat, and 900 pounds of protein. All of the cows currently milked by the robots are in their second lactation or higher, while first calvers are milked in the parlor. With the
