Herd size/grazing area for robot milking

[ploughman1963]

please enlighten me - how well do grazing herds complement the use of robots? Presumably there is a limit to how far you can expect a cow to go to graze and then return to be milked? As herd size increases, so will the distance required to walk to reach the paddocks. On an organic farm there is a requirement to graze and a need for even further walking to access the extra acres required.

Are the 2 - organic farming on a paddock system and robots just not compatible? Or perhaps part of the herd grazing close by fields on robots with a second herd grazing further away but being brought into run through a conventional parlour?

 

[William Mellor]

You need to talk to @Sid far as I know he has both, robots and is organic

 

[Sid]

We have 80 acres we are planning to graze with 80 cows with conserved forage on an away block.
We have set up ABC grazing so 8 hr paddocks using smart gates.
500m maximum walking distance in 180 degrees semi circle.

This year was our first year and it went well. Only downside was wet from mid july meant tracks were unable to be put in yet.

 

[ploughman1963]

Currently 250 cows, parlour fairly centrally located , cows walking up to 1km to paddocks when grass was short this summer.
Did, this is the nub of what I was asking - do-able with 80 cows but is it scaleable?
I see plenty of farms with greater numbers walking further when moved as a group twice a day. Is the 500m distance something you have discovered/a distance beyond which the system won’t work?

 

[Sid]

Currently 250 cows, parlour fairly centrally located , cows walking up to 1km to paddocks when grass was short this summer.
Did, this is the nub of what I was asking - do-able with 80 cows but is it scaleable?
I see plenty of farms with greater numbers walking further when moved as a group twice a day. Is the 500m distance something you have discovered/a distance beyond which the system won’t work?

We have 80 cows because of the acreage and to not have to worry about alarms in the night. So basically spare capacity. The 500m is how the max they actually have to walk.
You would be talking 4 robots 240 ish cows in a central location.
I don't see why not as tge further out from the robots you go the greater the amount of land avaliable in short distances. A squaremile is 640 acres so 320 in half a square mile or 800m.

 

[ploughman1963]

Thanks for your input - unfortunately it’s not a nice flat piece of land - roads to cross, woodlands, etc
Just reading another thread about running two herds - one robots, one milked - possibility but two sets of paddocks to manage

 

[Sid]

Thanks for your input - unfortunately it’s not a nice flat piece of land - roads to cross, woodlands, etc
Just reading another thread about running two herds - one robots, one milked - possibility but two sets of paddocks to manage

We will run two herd of 80 one parlour one robots. 6 miles apart

 

[betweenthelines]

But how much concs do you have to offer to entice the "grazing" cows to walk to the robot?

If it takes 2kgs per milking and the cow is milked 3 x day that's a fairly high conc intake for a " grazing" cow

 

[Sid]

But how much concs do you have to offer to entice the "grazing" cows to walk to the robot?

If it takes 2kgs per milking and the cow is milked 3 x day that's a fairly high conc intake for a " grazing" cow

Minimum 1t per cow to encourage flow i heard

 

[KJL]

Currently 250 cows, parlour fairly centrally located , cows walking up to 1km to paddocks when grass was short this summer.
Did, this is the nub of what I was asking - do-able with 80 cows but is it scaleable?
I see plenty of farms with greater numbers walking further when moved as a group twice a day. Is the 500m distance something you have discovered/a distance beyond which the system won’t work?

Have a look at this

 

[Glaswellt]

We will run two herd of 80 one parlour one robots. 6 miles apart

It will be of interest to many too compare how the two systems perform.

 

[ploughman1963]

Have a look at this

Thank you- very helpful

 

[nonemouse]

Our cows walk up to 800meters without too many problems usually try to make it so that night paddock is fairly close to buildings and grass further away is used as day paddocks

 

[thewalrus]

But how much concs do you have to offer to entice the "grazing" cows to walk to the robot?

If it takes 2kgs per milking and the cow is milked 3 x day that's a fairly high conc intake for a " grazing" cow

The was a Farm in the Republic of Ireland last may doing 25litres a cow on 0.5kg a day. The draw of fresh grass brought them into the robot to be milked

 

[Sid]

It will be of interest to many too compare how the two systems perform.

Robots loose housed conc only in robots rb silage 8 hr paddocks within 500m
Parlour cubicles conc only in parlour clamp wholecrop and silage also rbs. 12 hr paddocks with some long walks

 

[jerseycowsman]

@goldtop

 

[trexcf]

Just been to a farm in Pleasant Point, NZ. 6 robots 480 x-breds 450kgs/ms 1.5kg/conc/day, worked really well by the looks of things, cows seemed to come out of paddocks easily as long as next pasture is of high quality, but the farm was very well funded.......

 

[sidjon]

Just been to a farm in Pleasant Point, NZ. 6 robots 480 x-breds 450kgs/ms 1.5kg/conc/day, worked really well by the looks of things, cows seemed to come out of paddocks easily as long as next pasture is of high quality, but the farm was very well funded.......

Is that place not for sale?

 

[trexcf]

Is that place not for sale?

yeah..never got a full explanation for that when I asked the farm manager

 

[ploughman1963]

Excuse my ignorance - i see mention of A&B paddocks and ABC paddockes - I think I understand - AB is 12 hour paddocks? ABC is 8 hour paddocks?
TIA