Benn there, done that, well, sort of.
We had a 6:12 with enough length to put an extra unit in, we doubled up to a 14:14 but it never lived up to expectations.
We have since put a new 16:32 parlour in which will milk twice as quick as the 14:14 but does take a bit longer to wash down.
Anyway, my advice from experience is that if at all possible go longer rather than double up, I know exactly how you feel right now, you're hoping to reduce milking time for little cost and disturbance. It won't cost you a lot to do what you want but I don't think it will gain you a lot either, it depends what your long term plans are.
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I never understand why doubling up doesn't save time? Surely it must? Any idea how much you did save per milking when you did do it. The logic I suppose is you could double up to 10/10 then you just need the stallwork to move up to a 10/20 in th future, therefore spreading the cost with a half way house on the way? Or is it the cost of installation that makes that expensive?
In a swing over as soon as a cluster comes off its available to go on a cow on the other side.I never understand why doubling up doesn't save time? Surely it must? Any idea how much you did save per milking when you did do it. The logic I suppose is you could double up to 10/10 then you just need the stallwork to move up to a 10/20 in th future, therefore spreading the cost with a half way house on the way? Or is it the cost of installation that makes that expensive?
hi we've got a 20 year old Alfa 5/10 swing over , we're thinking about doubling it up to make a 10/10 to save time milking . ideally we'd like to find a used similar parlour to uses as a donor , does anyone know where the best place to source one would be ?
Rip out and put a 20/40 in
hi we've got a 20 year old Alfa 5/10 swing over , we're thinking about doubling it up to make a 10/10 to save time milking . ideally we'd like to find a used similar parlour to uses as a donor , does anyone know where the best place to source one would be ?
I'd love to say rip it out and put a new one in , but we are currently milking 80 cows and just doesn't seem viable taking up a big investment like a parlour on the current climate
Unfortunately when the old man put the parlour in he didn't think of the future , but after having to buy milk quota , didn't have the cash to go bigger !! Yeah well this is the problem we will never be able to milk more than 100 without renting land in , it not just the parlour if we were to go bigger than that it would mean spending money else where lagoon exstention , more cubicles ect so a big investment seems stupid to me , were 2 times a day on average yield .