Matthew and Kerri Howrigann have always put cow comfort as one of their top priorities on their Vermont dairy farm. They credit new technology with pushing their operation to be more profitable, but also helping them ensure cows are well cared for.
Black Creek Farm, located in Fairfield, Vt., was previously run by Mathew’s father, Tom, and his four sons, with Mathew being the oldest. In 1999, the farm consolidated a few tie-stall locations into one new freestall barn with a conventional parlor, which served the family for 20-plus years.
By 2021, Matthew was the only brother still working on the farm and took over the day-to-day management. After weighing many options, the family decided to move forward with 6 GEA robotic milking machines in December 2021.
Mathew says that the robots have been the biggest component to help them transition into a new barn.
Being a family farm, we wanted to entice at least one of our sons to continue farming,” Keri says. “We recognize that times have changed since Matthew was a teenager. Technology is everything to this generation right now. Making dairy farming a little less manual work and more at the push of a button is something much more appealing to our sons.”
