Will dairy farmers abandon freestalls for open deep-bedded compost packs? Retired dairy farmer Bert Waybright knows it’s a tall order. But he thinks his new technology might convince a few farmers to consider it.

Waybright spent a year building The Barn Tender, a machine he designed that mechanically cleans and re-beds open deep-bedded barns. “This is an idea that I’ve had for a long time — over 10 years, actually,” Waybright says. “This was pretty high on the things I wanted to do.”

New technology isn’t a new thing for him. In 2019, he retired from Mason Dixon Farms in Gettysburg, Pa., one of the largest robotic dairy operations in the country. Robots have become the solution for dairy farms looking to save on labor and eliminate menial tasks. So, Waybright thought, if automation could be brought to the parlor, why not bring it to the barn?

Open deep-bedded pens can provide lots of cow comfort, but they can be labor-intensive to keep clean. They also require the constant replacement of bedding which, depending on the farm, can be expensive.

Slow, steady and safe

Waybright says The Barn Tender takes care of a lot of those issues. The machine works off timers and circuitry — no computers — powering blades that go through the pack and remove 4 inches of bedding, taking off manure and other materials. A conveyor belt takes the material out of the bedded pack to the alley, where it is automatically scraped out.

Behind the conveyor belt is a tine tiller that aerates the pack and keeps it fluffed. An auger then goes through and spreads fresh bedding each time.

“The idea is that you will never have to go in and clean out extra because you’re removing a little bit every pass, and you’re replacing that little bit with fresh bedding,” he says.

The Barn Tender only moves 1 foot per minute, though it can be adjusted to move faster. If you were to install the machine in a 400-foot-long barn in a three-times-daily milking system, Waybright estimates the machine could make a complete pass in around seven or eight hours.

It is designed to operate continuously, and it includes a “nudger” at its front that is designed to gently nudge cows to move when it is coming through. If a cow doesn’t move after a few nudges the machine stops, he says, and an employee is called to help move the cow.

Barn Tender testing

Waybright has been testing the machine in an old milking barn at Mason Dixon that was originally going to be torn down. He claims to have one patent granted with 36 claims, and one patent pending.

“It’s kind of an outside idea. It’s not following the formal progression of the way ideas should be,” he says, adding that open deep-bedded pens went out of favor years ago when the industry transitioned to tiestalls and freestalls. Labor and time were big reasons, he says, as the open pens must be tilled once a day, sometimes twice a day, to keep them aerated, requiring labor. Bedding is another issue, because once the bed becomes too wet, dry bedding must be added and eventually replaced — an additional cost. In summertime, the heat generated by aerobic bacteria can also be an issue for the cows, he says.

Waybright shows his machine’s “nudger,” which is designed to gently nudge cows to move when it is coming through. If a cow doesn’t move after a few nudges, the machine stops and an employee is called to help move the cow.

Waybright says his system can solve most of those issues.

“It works really well. I’ve been very happy with it,” he says.

“I just became obsessed with it, but it’s impossible to get dairy farmers to even consider it because it’s so different,” he adds.

Manufacturers aren’t on board, yet, but Waybright is hopeful. At the recent New York Farm Show, he appeared in the Seneca Dairy Systems booth to garner interest for his invention. He says he got lots of interest, but more questions.

Barn requirements

The system is not for everyone, he says, as it will only fit barns that are long enough, wide enough and are “conducive” to a machine like this being installed. “Mainly, no poles from the bed area to feed alley or water bowls in the way. I’ve always known this would be a tough order and assumed it would have to be new construction to integrate The Barn Tender for optimal results,” he says.

Filling the bedding box is another issue. The ideal system would likely require the installation of an over-the-top bedding box that drops bedding down through a tube.

“It could be refilled every cycle, since I envision this happening completely automatically from a storage box at the end. It comes down to the size and cost of the storage box on The BT itself. I have a pretty good handle on necessary volume needed per day per cow from my trials.”

Still, Waybright thinks the invention could work on a dairy that’s looking to reduce its labor costs and improve cow comfort, even if it requires farmers doing something drastically different.

“There is so much difficulty with getting labor, good labor, training — that whole issue — not just in dairy, but in everything now. It just eliminates so much of that menial work that you’re trying to hire people to do, and keep them motivated to do it well,” he says.

For more information on The Barn Tender, contact Waybright at [email protected].