User Experience - Koskamp
At Koskamp Dairy Farm, the welfare of the cows is paramount. That is why they use the FreeLivingBarn, a barn concept based on the natural behaviour of cows. Rather than adapting the cows to the barn, the barn has been adapted to the cows’ needs.
12-8-2026 | 4 mins
Freedom for the cow, convenience for the farmer
At the Koskamp dairy farm in Aalten, everything revolves around cows being able to live healthy, comfortable lives and behave in their own way. So when Emiel Koskamp was drawing up plans for a new barn, he looked beyond the traditional cubicle barn.
As early as 2015, he visited a free-range barn. The idea behind a system in which cows are given more space to express their natural behaviour immediately appealed to him. That idea ultimately formed the basis for his choice of the FreeLivingBarn.
Growing into a future-proof business
In 2018, Emiel entered into a partnership with his uncle and aunt. The business grew from a single fully-equipped milking robot to two milking robots spread across two sites. Once both sites were running smoothly, the opportunity arose to consider a new barn.
The result is a modern FreeLivingBarn in which 135 dairy cows have plenty of space to express their natural behaviour, combined with the benefits of automatic milking.
Cows have the space to be cows
According to Emiel, what has been most striking since the switch to the FreeLivingBarn is the cows’ behaviour.
The animals have plenty of space to move around freely, rest and engage in social behaviour. Their lying behaviour is particularly striking: the cows sleep and lie down much more than they used to.
On hot days, the deep sand bed also offers extra comfort as it stays cool. Cows therefore like to seek out the lying area.
The FreeLivingBarn is based on a deep sand bed of approximately 60 to 70 centimetres. Beneath the sand is a drainage system through which urine is drained away and stored. This keeps solid manure and urine separate.
As manure and urine are collected separately, this opens up new possibilities for manure utilisation.
Clean cows and a comfortable bed
To keep the sand bedding clean every day, the Koskamp dairy farm uses the BeddingCleaner.
Every day, the manure is sieved out of the sand, whilst the clean sand remains. This keeps the lying area clean and comfortable for the cows.
According to Emiel, this makes a noticeable contribution to hygiene in the barn.
“We clean the bedding every day. That way, we also keep the cows extra clean.”
He also sees positive effects on animal health.
“Because the cows lie on sand, there is less risk of udder health problems. The somatic cell count has dropped significantly.”
He also sees at least the same results in terms of hoof health as in the previous situation.
FreeLivingBarn and robotic milking go together perfectly
A frequently asked question regarding free-stall systems is how they can be combined with robotic milking.
For Emiel, there was never any doubt about this from the outset. The farm had been using milking robots for many years and wanted to continue working that way.
“We’d already been using robotic milking for 19 years. That was something we definitely wanted to continue with, for reasons of flexibility and workload.”
In practice, it’s proving to work extremely well.
“It’s actually going really well.”
According to him, the combination of automated milking and the FreeLivingBarn gives both the cows and the farmer a great deal of freedom. Cows can move freely around the barn, whilst the flexibility of robotic milking is retained.
Find out about the experience of Koskamp Dairy Farm
