Quote
"How can a manager/owner on a larger dairy know their cows.  If they didn't feed them as calves, watch them grow as heifers, watch/assist calvings and most importantly actually milk that cow "
"I have to love what I do or I wouldn’t do it, or I wouldn’t do it well either - I wouldn’t be happy. And the hardest part is losing animals. That’s always the hardest part."
"So sometimes it’s okay, it was unpreventable, that happens. But it’s hard to put down an older cow. *cries* It’s too hard to talk about. *pauses* It’s just hard on everybody around here. And I don’t think that’s a part the public understands is the relationship you have."
It’s something you have to be so passionate about to do it because there is no financial reward whatsoever. But I love what I do obviously that’s why I do it. I mean I love cows
"Well I think actually the cows because of the robot has changed. And my relationship with them has changed because I’m not physically milking my cow every day... And a cow’s natural behavior isn’t every day at 4 o’clock to get shoved into a pen and have somebody go and throw a milking machine on her. And you know, the same thing every day over and over, repetition. “I want to sleep” well no you don’t, we’re gonna get you up and we’re gonna milk you whether you want it or not. So that part of it has changed because I don’t physically touch my cows twice a day. I’ll go walk through them. If the robot says cow whatever hasn’t been in to milk in a certain amount of time it shoots me a thing on my phone or on my computer – we call it the fetch list, which means we have to go see if they need fetched or not. Anyway, so I just go out there and walk with them but they have become more docile. I mean like I said I can go out and walk in them and they virtually won’t move. I’ve had people come and visit me and I’ll say well let’s go look at the cows and they’re like “why are the cows just standing there?” And then some will come up and like want petted. And all the robot farmers will tell you their cows demeanor has changed since they put in robots. It’s just one of the things – a veterinarian will tell you. You walk in a farm with a robot, different group of cows."
"Yeah I would say because they’re not spending physically with their cows. They’re… They have employees who probably spend time with the cows but the smaller scale guys a lot of times will even feed the cows, the baby cows. So they’re seeing the baby cows when they’re little. They’re seeing the baby cows when they’re teenagers. They can see their cows and then when the cow has a calf you’re connected with – “oh that’s number 500, I remember the day she was born”. Like my son had one that was born on his birthday so he always remembered that was the one that was born on my birthday. And unfortunately if something happens to it you remember oh that was the one that was born on my birthday. So yeah, the larger scale people would have a harder time connected…"
"And the big difference is is okay do people because of robots do they spend time – we seen a lot of feet that needed to be trimmed. Okay so people forgot about that part of it. And you just think, we have rumination, we have heat detection, we have just about everything now. So do you want to spend time out there or do you just “okay it’s here, now I don’t have to manage it”. "
"Now, we probably had the friendliest cows there were because of the way we milked and our interaction with them."
"Our businesses run per cow now because we have the meters and we know exactly what time a cow is milked and how much milk she gave each time she comes in the barn. We know how many times we've to give her shots or she's gotten lame or she's gotten sick, or how many times she doesn't have a calf. So we know who's profitable and who isn't, and we're very interested in following the cows that take good care of us so we'd take good care of them."
"Yeah, he wouldn't know if his cows are doing well or not. It's all about the bottom line, for him. He has managers that do that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think there's a real disconnect there. And I'd like to be a little bit more hands-on too. I like to see the cows be treated right and when they're treated right, they're more comfortable. And it is, it really is. The better the cows are doing, the better the whole operation, everything. It just works that way."
Yes. The people caring for animals on large farms have as much empathy for animals as people caring for animals on a small farm. 
"I think I would be most confident making the statement that the answer to the question is size neutral. I think empathy and intimacy are wildly different words. So whether you have 10 cows with a name on their neck chain or 10,000 with a five-digit number hung in their ear, I don't think impacts whether a human is empathetic or not."
Of course there’s a disconnect
Their rubber boots are probably pretty clean. There’s no role for them. Everything’s already mapped out
"The way things have changed, I think... Well, there's a lot of things have changed. Well, I used to do a lot of work ourselves, myself, but over the years, because we've grown and I think you have to grow just to keep up with the times and keep up with things. And so now it's more of managing people than it is with actually milking cows or feeding cows."
"Well, yeah, I enjoy it. The best parts are probably, you get to be somewhat independent and you can set your own schedule and you have to be self motivated, I think. And you have to enjoy working with, to a certain extent, other people and animals. I like farming. I like to see stuff grow and I like that part of it. So yeah, I do enjoy it, but I would recommend it to somebody who likes to be outdoors and likes to farm, or likes dealing with animals. Or even people who like dealing with other people. That's probably the worst thing, dealing with other people, it's not always the easiest thing. But there's some pretty good people around."
"I would recommend it to a certain kind of person, but I think you have to want to work hard also, because there's opportunities there and there's benefits and there's financial benefits to it, too. "
"I have to love what I do or I wouldn’t do it, or I wouldn’t do it well either - I wouldn’t be happy. And the hardest part is losing animals. That’s always the hardest part."
"I enjoy it just because I guess I was born into it. I told somebody in an interview here a while back that like a dirt farmer they say has dirt in their blood so if you really like milking cows you must have like milk in your blood. Because that’s… The hardest part of it can be long hours or cows calving in the middle of the night, or the robot breaks down in the middle of the night, there’s no specific set hours I guess. It’s not a 9-5 job. So that’s probably one of the worst deals."

"(For confidentiality reasons only select quotes from farmer interviews are presented below, with identifying information removed)."