- Location
- South Molton
Robotic milking
- Thread starter newholland
- Start date
happycows
Member
- Location
- North Devon Cornwall border
Seasonal calving. 30 heifers in April whilst lots dry then 75 cows 8th May too end of August. Full tank by 10th of July in plan and plenty of positive seasonal litres in second half of the year but still making use of milk from grass.
Essential tip has to be calf heifers first while cows are dry so you have time and space to train.
Other one is don’t expect to milk more than 50 fresh calved without putting lots of work in........... hence why I’ve gone for 100.
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- Location
- South Molton
Grazed grass? Or cut n carried?
happycows
Member
- Location
- North Devon Cornwall border
- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
with you increasing cow nos have you still got enough feed space for them to all eat grass at the same time ?
happycows
Member
- Location
- North Devon Cornwall border
I’ve space for 80 to feed at once. I also feed 120% of daily requirements and give any spare to other stock, usually a bucket to drys and bucket to bullers. Dont want too see cows without food.
Putting ring feeder out with a bale of nice seeds coarser haylage in loafing area this year to try and help bfat, that’s my biggest concern/challenge by far for this summer.
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- Location
- M6 Hard shoulder
Our issue was only having enough barrier for 1/2 cows where we can put grass. So we make sure we push up regularly and plenty of tmr in the troughs
Robots don't like not working so personally i would be very wary of trying to block calve & having them idle for any length of time unless you were prepared to strip them down & give them a thorough clean.
Having said that, we run a summer/autumn calving bias to try & get some additional RAP and winter bonus as our contract allows and will certainly do that much stronger when the rotary is in
- Location
- Northumberland
AYR calving here, Yep I know it`s not fashionalble but our bottling plant needs a level supply ( + / - 10% ) throughout the year.
pine_guy
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
Which of you guys are on delaval vms? Neighbour had second hand ones in for about 18 months and has some real problems to the point they are for sale on TG site I think. It all sounds software related to me but no one in support wanting to say that I assume as I think he would be due some money back as cows have gone stale with so many problems/miss milking.
- Location
- South West
We're they refurbished machines? Sid's are Delaval VMS but his were refurbished and that's my intentions also.
pine_guy
Member
- Location
- North Cumbria
I think this may be the problem. I think they had been in two places before his and sat for a year unused. They are still running XP which I assume means they haven’t been refurbished!? I don’t milk but have read up a fair bit about them and think his problems really should be solvable. He went robots due to health and I think he has embraced them. But the problems he gets are really the robots failing to do what they should. Quite sad situation.
- Location
- South West
Is it too late for him to refurbish them fully? Probably worth talking to a Delaval area rep as mine is brilliant and is installing 2 himself
- Location
- Northern Ireland
- Location
- South Molton
westvalley87
New Member
Hello everyone, looking at putting robots in and just wondering if anyone had any feed back from the GEA monobox v's the de laval robot? We are AYR milking Holstein's... looking at utilising 2 robots for the higher yielding cattle. Any one had experience of mixing conventional milking and robot milking?
Looked at the usual three but not been impressed by Lely, specifically around their attitude. They have the attitude that they will automatically get the business and unwilling to consider any thing other than free access. (Plus they are a lot more expensive)
Looked at the usual three but not been impressed by Lely, specifically around their attitude. They have the attitude that they will automatically get the business and unwilling to consider any thing other than free access. (Plus they are a lot more expensive)
- Location
- Northumberland
Very wise
westvalley87
New Member
thought provoking... any reasoning would be most welcome
- Location
- Northumberland
Because it works exceptionaly well. No need to clutter the shed up with hurdles, one way gates etc.& have cows in a holding pen when they could be feeding or resting in a cubicle
Remember robot milking is a totally different beast to conventional milking. It is the ultimate free range system. The cows are quite capable of deciding (with a bit of training ) when they need to be milked. So you will get a cow giving 50 litres going 5x a day. a stale cow giving 15 litres maybe only goes every 15 hours
We have been robot milking since 2009 Our cows are averaging 3 milkings a day. This morning there were 3 "late" cows to gather, last night just 2
Don`t listen to the reps, get in the car & visit lots of farms and watch cows and talk to farmers with robots.Most robot farmers I know are quite happy to tell it how it is
No experience of robots & parlour together. You doin`t say where you are ? Think there is someone doing that on the Carlisle / Dumfries road
Buy good quality 2nd hand from a reputable source
The reason for free access is that it stops shy animals from being trapped in a forcing pen where they may be a few hours before they can get in to the box. With free access they can watch & bide their time either at the feed face or from their beds (provided that you haven't got massive cubicle end panels)