Auto drafting

[cowmandan]

Looking at setting up auto drafting this season, I’m just wondering what other peoples experiences are with it and if there’s any lessons people have learnt along the way? Particularly with the race, distance from the parlour? Don’t want the race to impact milking as cow flow is a struggle at the best of times. 26/52 parlour.

 

[vantage]

Looking at setting up auto drafting this season, I’m just wondering what other peoples experiences are with it and if there’s any lessons people have learnt along the way? Particularly with the race, distance from the parlour? Don’t want the race to impact milking as cow flow is a struggle at the best of times. 26/52 parlour.

Had Delaval drafting gate for 20+ years. It’s 140’ from the turn out of the front of the parlour, we have a gate to narrow down the exit from 15’, down to cow width, about 10’ from the saloon gates. It works fine, occasionally have an extra cow or the odd miss where a flighty little cow rams up behind the cow to be drafted, so the gate resets . Keeping the photo cell readers clean with a wipe occasionally is useful. Do have the odd cow that pushes out of the drafted area, against the gate on the vacuum ram,so a non return gate would be useful. Our gate runs on a small vacuum pump separate from the parlour, as one unit couldn’t understand how cows were missed when the parlour turned off!

 

[Horn&corn]

GEA gate 45’ from parlour. Air ram. Turn 60 degrees into hoof count footpath about 12’ long then through gate. Works fine. Second hand off eBay and now graze as one herd all summer then highs topped up with partial tmr.
Saved a lot of time sorting 2 grazing groups and less fat cows. Can use for vet cows but will occasionally miss one so often manual draft as only a few

 

[vantage]

Looking at setting up auto drafting this season, I’m just wondering what other peoples experiences are with it and if there’s any lessons people have learnt along the way? Particularly with the race, distance from the parlour? Don’t want the race to impact milking as cow flow is a struggle at the best of times. 26/52 parlour.

GEA gate 45’ from parlour. Air ram. Turn 60 degrees into hoof count footpath about 12’ long then through gate. Works fine. Second hand off eBay and now graze as one herd all summer then highs topped up with partial tmr.
Saved a lot of time sorting 2 grazing groups and less fat cows. Can use for vet cows but will occasionally miss one so often manual draft as only a few

Forgot to mention our footbath is actually within the sorting gate, bought second hand, which helps to slow them down if I’ve held the herd back behind the gate for whatever reason.

 

[In the pit]

Dairy master gate but with an AFI reader and collar system and a bit of herdsman bodging

 

[Grassman247]

This is my saber gate

Unfortunately no longer available in the uk. It’s excellent. Draft to the left goes back into the shed so we can draft a lot of cows for vet. Pen on the right holds about 10 for Ai or foot trimming. This is on the opposite side to the parlour so they go round a corner before going into race, works very well.

Only thing I would change is making the pen on the right longer as the odd cow can stand in the way

 

[markbury1]

We have a four-year-old GEA sorting gate that has never worked properly from day one. Constant visits from the engineers. The gate itself is fine the software is far too complex and just fails all the time. If I were awash with money it would be long gone.

 

[Grassman247]

We have a four-year-old GEA sorting gate that has never worked properly from day one. Constant visits from the engineers. The gate itself is fine the software is far too complex and just fails all the time. If I were awash with money it would be long gone.

I have an ATL gate at another farm that is absolute junk

 

[Bramble]

I have an ATL gate at another farm that is absolute junk

My ATL one works well, 95-98% accurate. Needs tuning once a year, and has had a couple of cards in it over the 10 years of being used.

What’s wrong with yours?

 

[Grassman247]

Interference and they have been useless in sorting it.

There was a Facebook post about them a while ago, lot of people with ATL gates sat on there farm that don’t work. And people wonder why we don’t buy British

 

[Bramble]

Sounds like an installation issue. Data cables should all be screened and kept away from any power cables that might have surges as things switch on and off

We used screened cabling and put it inside metal pipe. Pain to install but only done once

 

[Hill Dairy]

I think that Allflex or MSD now sell a rebadged Saber gate if you want one. They are the best gate I've seen.

 

[Grassman247]

I think that Allflex or MSD now sell a rebadged Saber gate if you want one. They are the best gate I've seen.

allflex sell there own gate it isnt the saber one, they do own the rights to saber but for some reason wont sell it in the uk

 

[jerseycowsman]

You want a long straight race say about 10 cow lengths with the gate at the end of that, and no obstructions to their vision on either side.
Then the gate itself needs the collar or pedometer sensor exactly in the right place with a gate to stop the cow if necessary if they are going too fast to read (about I cow length in front of the actual draft gate gate). Then you need plenty of movement sensors in the right positions so it knows the cow is coming down the race, gone into the drafting gate area and then left the drafting gate area

 

[crashbox]

Looking at setting up auto drafting this season, I’m just wondering what other peoples experiences are with it and if there’s any lessons people have learnt along the way? Particularly with the race, distance from the parlour? Don’t want the race to impact milking as cow flow is a struggle at the best of times. 26/52 parlour.

Have a big enough area between put and shedding gate to hold at least a whole line of cows.

We have a double race which merges into a single race with the auto gate in; one side has auto footbath so we can still footbath and auto draft if we want.

Get auto draft that talks to heat detection equipment, if you have it.

From my research, Sabre do the best gate on the market for accuracy. Unfortunately Allflex (who have UK distribution rights) refuse to allow other heat detection systems to connect to it.

 

[crashbox]

allflex sell there own gate it isnt the saber one, they do own the rights to saber but for some reason wont sell it in the uk

Because it's better than their gate.

 

[crashbox]

This is my saber gate

Unfortunately no longer available in the uk. It’s excellent. Draft to the left goes back into the shed so we can draft a lot of cows for vet. Pen on the right holds about 10 for Ai or foot trimming. This is on the opposite side to the parlour so they go round a corner before going into race, works very well.

Only thing I would change is making the pen on the right longer as the odd cow can stand in the way

How do you program your Sabre gate to pick out bullets?

Is it automatic, or touch screen in the parlour?

Cracking set up.

 

[Grassman247]

How do you program your Sabre gate to pick out bullets?

Is it automatic, or touch screen in the parlour?

Cracking set up.

We are on patch and paint still, can use the laptop to enter drafts, there is an app for your phone and an app for a tablet, we mounted a waterproof tablet in the parlour for drafting anything like mastitis or lameness.

The frustrating bit they don’t tell you is that saber only comes with one WiFi access point and any device using the app has to be connected to that specific access point, I asked wether more could be fitted to extend the range and got told no by the techs in New Zealand

Anyway after fitting I managed to configure a sub network from there router and remove there access point and fit multiple round the parlour, one on the feed bin which points down the collecting yard and 2 in the cubicle shed so anyone with there phone in range can use the drafting app. If you see something down the field it won’t hit the gate until you come back into the yard and pickup the WiFi


Allflex have said if we want collars they can fit the all flex brain to the gate and it will work with there collar system

One thing I really like is the fact you can pull a screen up on the laptop and it tells you exactly how many cows have been through the parlour and exactly who so if a cow was to go missing you would know exactly who it was. It also draft any cow without a tag or work tag into the pen so any problem you can deal with it straight away

 

[Bramble]

One thing I really like is the fact you can pull a screen up on the laptop and it tells you exactly how many cows have been through the parlour and exactly who so if a cow was to go missing you would know exactly who it was. It also draft any cow without a tag or work tag into the pen so any problem you can deal with it straight away

Cowmanager tags apparently have a ‘find my cow’ function a bit like find my phone. Not sure it is enabled for the U.K. but used on big herds in the US where they have 1000’s in the herd

 

[crashbox]

Cowmanager tags apparently have a ‘find my cow’ function a bit like find my phone. Not sure it is enabled for the U.K. but used on big herds in the US where they have 1000’s in the herd

Never heard of this

Would be useful for the odd lost tag!