STALLBOY-FEED

Feed management is where the gap between potential and actual production is won or lost in modern dairy operations. A cow’s rumen functions optimally when fresh feed is available frequently, consistently, and without competitive exclusion conditions, and manual push-up, however diligently executed, cannot reliably maintain across a full feeding day. The HETWIN STALLBOY-Feed is engineered to close that gap permanently, replacing the variability of manual feed management with the precision and consistency of intelligent autonomous operation.

The Fresh Feed Principle
Feed retreats from the feed fence as animals graze, progressively reducing accessibility for animals with lower competitive status. In operations without mechanical push-up, this retreat creates extended feeding gaps — periods during which feed is technically present in the barn but not within reach of the animals that need it most. Lower-ranking cows, which are the most nutritionally vulnerable members of any herd hierarchy, bear the greatest cost of those gaps in reduced dry matter intake, compromised body condition, and suppressed production.
Manual push-up partially addresses the problem but cannot match the frequency, timing consistency, or precision that rumen physiology requires. The STALLBOY-Feed resolves it completely by advancing automatically toward the feed face every two hours, maintaining feed within reach of the feed fence continuously, and ensuring that every animal in the herd, regardless of rank has reliable access to fresh feed throughout the full feeding day.

Intelligent Fresh Feed Software
The operational core of the STALLBOY-Feed is its fresh feed software, a proven automation platform that controls advance timing, cycle frequency, and feed face positioning with precision that manual management cannot replicate. Every two hours, the system advances approximately 5cm toward the feed face, maintaining the feed position that allows comfortable access from the fence without overreach or competitive crowding. Up to ten push cycles per day are executed without operator input, maintaining the fresh feed availability that supports optimal rumen function, maximum dry matter intake, and the milk production performance that follows. The software platform is the same proven intelligence system that underpins the STALLBOY product range, a feeding automation approach with established operational credibility across commercial dairy operations.

Conveyor Drum Technology and Feed Quality
The individually driven conveyor drum is the mechanical component that distinguishes the STALLBOY-Feed’s push-up quality from simpler blade or scraper systems. Rather than displacing feed in a single mechanical action, the conveyor drum provides continuous, controlled feed movement throughout each push cycle, minimising the friction and compression that generate heat in pushed feed, and maintaining the fresh presentation quality that maximises voluntary intake. Feed that is warmed, compressed, or poorly presented is feed that cows sort, refuse, or consume suboptimally. The conveyor drum prevents that quality loss at the point of delivery.

Milking Robot Integration and Herd Productivity
Increased fresh feed availability at the feed fence has a documented secondary effect in automated milking operations: it raises the frequency of voluntary cow visits to the milking robot. Cows motivated by fresh feed availability circulate more actively through the barn, visit the feed fence more frequently, and as a consequence pass through the milking robot more often, increasing milking frequency and the daily milk yield that automated milking systems are designed to optimise. The STALLBOY-Feed’s contribution to herd productivity in robotic milking operations therefore operates through two simultaneous pathways: direct dry matter intake improvement and indirect milking frequency increase.

Optional Concentrate and Mineral Top-Dress
The optional concentrate or mineral top-dress function allows small quantities of enticement feed or nutritional supplement to be distributed over the base ration during push cycles. This capability serves multiple management objectives simultaneously: it encourages feed fence visits from animals that might otherwise be slow to approach, supports targeted mineral supplementation without separate delivery systems, and provides an additional motivational driver for milking robot visits in AMS operations. The function integrates directly into the automated push cycle, no separate manual distribution required.

Energy Efficiency and Installation Simplicity
The 24-volt drive system delivers continuous autonomous operation at a fraction of the energy consumption of mains-powered alternatives, reducing the operational running cost of automated feed management to a level that makes the system economically compelling across its full service life. The lightweight, trackless design requires no track infrastructure installation, no barn floor modification, and no structural alteration, reducing upfront installation cost and providing the operational flexibility to relocate or reconfigure the system as barn layout or herd management requirements evolve.

For operations where dry matter intake, feed efficiency, milking frequency, labour cost, and herd welfare are managed as a connected set of production priorities which defines every serious modern dairy enterprise, the HETWIN STALLBOY-Feed is the feeding system those priorities converge on.