Robotic milking affects labor costs differently depending on farm size

Robotic milking systems—in which dairy cows enter a box-like stall, are milked automatically without manual labor, and then exit—are becoming more common on U.S. dairy operations. However, the impact on labor expenses varies with herd size. For smaller dairies with fewer than 150 head, paid labor is often difficult to find and afford, so the operator and household members provide much of the work unpaid, which ERS values as an opportunity cost using information on average wage rates and operator-reported hours worked. Survey data show that dairies with 50–149 head with robotic milking systems had substantially lower unpaid labor expenses in 2021 than dairies that had not adopted robotic milking: $5.30 per cwt compared to $9.22 per cwt. Small dairies also incur paid labor expenses, but those were not statistically different between adopters and nonadopters. As herd size increases, dairies rely more on paid workers to perform milking and other tasks associated with having a larger number of cows. On midsized operations with 150–499 head, robotic milking adopters spent $1.17 per cwt on paid labor in 2021, significantly less than the $2.10 per cwt average paid labor expense on nonadopting farms. These differences may suggest that robotic milking could help dairy farmers reduce their labor expenses, although the effect depends on farm size. This information is drawn from Precision Dairy Farming, Robotic Milking, and Profitability in the United States, published in January 2026.