You spin me right round, baby

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
@Bald Rick Can we have an update?

Was it the right choice?

Has it improved your teams lifestyle?

Staff happy? Son Happy?

What would you Change, what are running costs like?

This was an exceptional thread!

Yeah.

Undoubtedly the right choice once we’d gone beyond 5 robots as it’s allowed the herd to grow rapidly and critically the swop was allowed to go through under the sustainable grant scheme .. probably because we employ a lot more staff than the original application specified and there is nothing grant givers like better than employment.
Biggest error we made was trying to do our own silage making rather than getting to grips with the new system so took the eyes off the ball. In time I suspect we may return to doing our own cutting etc but for the foreseeable it’s contractors for most of the field work.
In common with most of us, staff is an ongoing issue but slowly we are getting a core team of permanents and reliefs but there is always something to worry about and the latest is bactoscans.
Running costs per cow are much less than robots in terms of power but water use (mainly borehole thankfully) is much greater. I think on a per cow basis, chemicals are similar

Think the only change would be better way of cleaning the return race than having to manually scrape.
Just one major job left - to fit a roller door
By the end of this year, we will be a max cow numbers for current infrastructure as we have a lot of heifers in the wings with 53 due to calve in May alone
 

Half Full

Member
Location
Southwest
I’m currently looking at either a new rotary or two herringbone parlours, was wondering what sort of average throughput you are getting and what kind of pre milking routine you do, TIA
 
Yeah.

Undoubtedly the right choice once we’d gone beyond 5 robots as it’s allowed the herd to grow rapidly and critically the swop was allowed to go through under the sustainable grant scheme .. probably because we employ a lot more staff than the original application specified and there is nothing grant givers like better than employment.
Biggest error we made was trying to do our own silage making rather than getting to grips with the new system so took the eyes off the ball. In time I suspect we may return to doing our own cutting etc but for the foreseeable it’s contractors for most of the field work.
In common with most of us, staff is an ongoing issue but slowly we are getting a core team of permanents and reliefs but there is always something to worry about and the latest is bactoscans.
Running costs per cow are much less than robots in terms of power but water use (mainly borehole thankfully) is much greater. I think on a per cow basis, chemicals are similar

Think the only change would be better way of cleaning the return race than having to manually scrape.
Just one major job left - to fit a roller door
By the end of this year, we will be a max cow numbers for current infrastructure as we have a lot of heifers in the wings with 53 due to calve in May alone

I’m with you on the return race, I wished we’d fitted slats on the bridge where the cows get off and I also wish we had fitted flood wash for the yard and exit race. Currently use canons to wash the yard and race and they use way to much water
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
Fits in well to the cow end of the operation.

yard.jpg
 

Bald Rick

Moderator
Livestock Farmer
Location
Anglesey
How has this all worked then, now you’ve had a decent experience of robots and rotary? Pros and cons with both I suppose.

Loved the robots
Like the rotary

If I’m honest, we have gone from a smallish family only farm to a biggish outfit relying on regular and good labour. We are lucky in that we are not in a high employment area and have a good team but two are leaving to go to university so need replacing and on it goes.

I suspect the cows would vote for robots every time but it was interesting that they were settled on the rotary within two weeks of the changeover

Regrets? Not really. The alarms were killing son by the end and we are getting a good herd together
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
Loved the robots
Like the rotary

If I’m honest, we have gone from a smallish family only farm to a biggish outfit relying on regular and good labour. We are lucky in that we are not in a high employment area and have a good team but two are leaving to go to university so need replacing and on it goes.

I suspect the cows would vote for robots every time but it was interesting that they were settled on the rotary within two weeks of the changeover

Regrets? Not really. The alarms were killing son by the end and we are getting a good herd together
Who does most of the people management and how are they finding it?
 
If I’m honest, we have gone from a smallish family only farm to a biggish outfit relying on regular and good labour.

We have done much the same.

How many are you milking now?

We calved nearly 600 this year and I've already culled nearly 40 fresh cows (Inc 8 more today) to get back to 555. If TB allows I will be selling most of my IC heifers this year to cut back to 500 for next year because I've come to the conclusions there's no easy way to milk a big number of cows and there is definitely more to life than cows so I'm going to milk slightly fewer going forward.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 80 42.3%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 34.9%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,292
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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