VOA慢速英语:The Future of Dairy Farming: Robot Milkers

The future has arrived at a dairy farm about in an hour by car from Washington D.C. A robot is milking cows. It is milking time at Woodbourne Creamery in Mt. Airy, Maryland. The cows are standing in line for a turn at the robot.
未来已经降临到距离华盛顿特区大约一个小时车程的一家奶牛场。一台机器人正在挤牛奶。现在是马里兰州芒特艾里市Woodbourne乳品厂的挤奶时间。奶牛们正排着队等着轮流使用机器人。

John Fendrick is the owner of the farm. He inspects the progress of the animals by looking at a computer screen. That is all he has to do.
John Fendrick是这家农场的主人。他通过计算机屏幕检查了动物们的进展。这就是需要他做的所有事。

"The door of the milk opens up, they walk in, they get milked. The door opens up, they walk out."
“挤奶的门打开，它们走进去，被挤完奶后，门又打开。它们就走出来。”

The robot does all the work. It uses a laser to find each teat -- the place on the cow where the milk comes out. The robot then cleans the teat and connects a milking tube to it.
机器人做了所有的工作。它使用激光寻找每个乳头，也就是牛身上出奶的地方。然后机器人会清洗乳头，将一根挤奶的管子连在乳头上。

The robot also tests the milk for possible contamination. If it finds a problem, it rejects the milk. When the amount of milk coming out of the cow slows, the machine knows to stop, and sends the cow on its way.
该机器人还会检测牛奶可能的污染。如果它发现问题就会排除这些牛奶。当牛奶出奶量降低时，这台机器就会知道要停止，并把奶牛送走。

Milking robots are becoming popular among dairy farmers in the United States, Europe and Australia. John Fendrick says the robots have changed life on a dairy farm.
挤奶机器人在美国、欧洲和澳大利亚的奶农中广受欢迎。John Fendrick称，这台机器人改变了奶牛场的生活。

"You are giving the freedom back. So it allows me or the people work for me to actually do other things on the farm."
他说，“我们获得了自由。这台机器人使得我或者我的员工在农场能够专注做其它事情。”

Most dairy farmers must milk their cows two times a day, early in the morning and late at night. The animals are milked everyday in good weather or bad. But Mr Fendrick's cows do not follow such schedule, they stay in the field until they want to be milked by the robot. Some of them come to be milked in the middle of the night.
大多数奶农每天得给奶牛挤两次奶，时间分别在清晨和深夜。奶牛不分天气好坏每天都要挤奶。但Fendrick先生的奶牛不用遵循这样的安排。它们留在地里，直到它们想要被机器人挤奶。其中一些奶牛到半夜才被挤奶。

Mr Fendrick doesn't even need to be there to watch his cows be milked. He can watch from his telephone. He can learn when each cow was milked and how much she produced. He can also learn if a cow has not been milked for a long time.
Fendrick先生甚至无需在现场看到他的奶牛被挤奶。他可以通过手机看到。他能够知道每头奶牛何时挤奶，挤了多少奶。他还能知道是否有某一头奶牛很长时间没挤奶了。

The cow milking robot is not low cost technology. Mr Fendrick paid more than $150,000 for it. But he notes, paying someone to milk the cows is also costly.
这种奶牛挤奶机器人成本不低。Fendrick先生为它掏了15万美元。但他指出，雇人给奶牛挤奶也很贵。

"In three years, I will have paid off the difference with this, and I don't have to be the person who's always on call to milk. The fact that we have a life, and our cows are able to function without us -- to us, it's well worth the money."
“通过这台机器人三年我就能付清差价。而且我不用总随叫随到去挤奶。我们都有自己的生活，奶牛无需我们就能挤奶。对我们来说机器人非常值这些钱。”

And he says that is a good thing. "I don't like to milk." With the robot, he can turn his attention to other things. He gets about 475 liters of milk a day, and he never has to touch a cow.
而且他说，这是件好事情。“我不喜欢挤奶。”有了机器人，他能够将注意力转向其它事情。他每天能收获475升牛奶，而他不用碰任何一头牛。