Three (!) km per hour…
Farming is a wonderful profession—or rather, a way of life. Working with animals, interacting with nature, harvesting, the harvest itself, entrepreneurship, moments of joy, and setbacks—it’s all part of the package. You measure the success of your decisions and actions not month by month, but over the course of a year or even longer. This is vastly different from employees who know exactly what will land in their bank account each month.
In the corporate world, you sometimes see people who excel at overseeing and solving problems on the shop floor—top-tier hospital staff or teachers who could truly motivate children or students—only to be promoted into roles where their talents are lost to administration and management.
Entrepreneurship often involves testing the limits of what you can handle.
Working with cows, observing them, and ensuring they are thriving and performing at their peak gives you a real buzz!
However, due to increasing workloads, the task often turns into a rush: “quickly fetch the last few cows,” “hurriedly do this or that chore,” and so on. Is this a sign that you, too, have yourself promoted away from what you do best?
Can you outsource or automate any of your tasks?
Treat the cow-fetching routine as a valuable part of the day. That is where your talents lie!
Armed with notes from the “2-Minute Check” or DeLaval Plus, always start your rounds at the robot exit—the point where cows leave the milking robot or where they re-enter the barn. Don’t walk faster than three kilometers per hour; this gives the cow time to think and look where she needs to go calmly and without stress.
If you make this a consistent habit, you’ll find it doesn’t actually take any more time than doing it in a rush. And it’s not just the cow that has more time to look—you do too!