CALMAR, Iowa — The new robotic milking system at Iowa's Dairy Center continues the philosophy that existed when the facility was built in 2000.

Dairy machinery manufacturer Lely has unveiled its new Astronaut A5 milking robot and an enhanced Juno feed pusher. The Astronaut A5 milking robot now comes with an “arm” that follows a cow ...

Joe Doak talks about all of the functions of the Lely Robotic Milking System at his dairy farm in Mannington. The Doaks are the only dairy farmers in the state that own a Lely system.

We visited in June 2010 and realized it was a LELY we wanted to invest in as we made upgrades on our farm. We strategized how to pay for a robot ($250K) and a new barn ($90K).

The company contracts 11 vendors for the dairy. Behind barn doors, Lely brand robots and other technologies do everything from feeding the animals to washing their teats and scooping manure.

Ashley Farr of Farr Farm in Richmond programs his Lely Astronaut robotic milker while a cow is milked by the machine. Farr bought the machine used last year. Photo by Andrea Suozzo Inside the barn ...

The Lely Discovery, a mobile barn cleaner, was sold in Randle, a small town near Mount St. Helens. and the owners of Styger Family Dairy in March installed the first robotic milking system in the ...

Lely's latest robot milker - called the A4 - claims to take automation a step further by giving the cow more freedom. The A4 differs in quite a number of ...

Robots may be dairy's future, but not a cure-all, farmer says The number of licensed dairy farms in the U.S. has dropped from around 60,000 to 30,000 in the last two decades.