Lely Robots for sale

[Sid]

Liner changes ever 10,000 milking takes all of 4 minutes , used to be a swine of a job in old parlour. Since twin tube protectors came out milk tubes just don't get changed . Rms take care of heat detection along with heat time . Loco scoring is hardly rele ent , voluntary milking and activity meters highlight issues before you can see them but I now do it for Arla Garden but certainly not a job I could do while conventionaly milking anyway as you need to see them walk in open space and not while being herded or from the parlour pit .
Lely engineers are first class and certainly key to the success of the system but it's pretty rare to need a call out out of office hours .
Very often when carting grass I will stop to do afternoon jobs , feed calves,clean beds,move fence, wash down, filter change ,pen late cows if any and will only miss to lug one load or none if I time it with field or additive change ..
The robot's ability to remove labour is great , but it's that removal of labour that can make life hard for all those other jobs when things go wrong

Heatime RMS no breakdowns maintenace every 10000 milkings for 4 minutes wow
10 minutes to pen 10 cows from the field a real life of leisure

Of course buffer feed all year round to get the cows back to the robots. Additional cost time and labour.

If your milking 60 cows and it took 20 mins to get the cows in something is seriously wrong as i can walk ours nearly half a mile on a elongated grazing platform. Mornings is 10 mins tops. I am home before the cows are grazing on theparlour group.

 

[Chips]

Heatime RMS no breakdowns maintenace every 10000 milkings for 4 minutes wow
10 minutes to pen 10 cows from the field a real life of leisure

Of course buffer feed all year round to get the cows back to the robots. Additional cost time and labour.

If your milking 60 cows and it took 20 mins to get the cows in something is seriously wrong as i can walk ours nearly half a mile on a elongated grazing platform. Mornings is 10 mins tops. I am home before the cows are grazing on theparlour group.

On full service plan , so outside of breakdowns which as I said is rare it really is just liner change every 10000 milking and brush change 3 times a year I think so there's little need for sarcasm.
I buffer fed when on parlour due to very poor grazing if any on dry summer on very steep hills . Rarely fetch any cows from fields until late autumn and they walk over half mile to some fields. When I milked I buffer fed smaller loads that's only difference but then walked cows further , up to a mile , crossing a road and climbing over 300ft , would heat enough take 45 minutes on furthest field .
Of course plenty a farmers on parlour don't buffer but neither do some on robot', this is just my system .
I can't speak for everyone but certainly for me and as plenty of others say , they save a lot of work , especially on small farms

 

[Sid]

Buffer feed every other day at grass

due to very poor grazing if any on dry summer

So do you buffer feed all grazing season or just when its dry?

When I milked I buffer fed smaller loads that's only difference but then walked cows further , up to a mile , crossing a road and climbing over 300ft , would heat enough take 45 minutes on furthest field .

Doesn't sound like a grazing dairy farm to me? So how do the cows cross the road and walk 45 minutes to the robots?

 

[dannewhouse]

has anyone set robots up so that cows go out to a different paddock for grazing say every 12hrs to try and encourage the cows to come home for a milking and a change of paddock? might not work on some farms and might take some skill to get a 12hr paddock right for robots where they aren't as fixed as conventional.

 

[Sid]

has anyone set robots up so that cows go out to a different paddock for grazing say every 12hrs to try and encourage the cows to come home for a milking and a change of paddock? might not work on some farms and might take some skill to get a 12hr paddock right for robots where they aren't as fixed as conventional.

We are on 8 hr padocks. Alot easier to manage then 12hr ones. Water in field and no buffer feed

 

[coomoo]

........ my robot envy’s creeping in again

 

[dannewhouse]

We are on 8 hr padocks. Alot easier to manage then 12hr ones. Water in field and no buffer feed

do you have to go and get the last few cows out or do they come 90% of the time when they realise there mates have gone?
I would have thought on 8hr paddocks you would get a lot of cows skip a paddock ie they milk at 12.01 so go into the 12-8am paddock but then don't come in until around 4pm so go out into the 4pm-midnight paddock skipping the 8-4pm paddock?
does it really matter any way? probably only the odd late lactation cow.

do you have cow tracks basically in 3 directions away from farm? I was thinking 12hr paddock would need 2 directions? (could be parallel aslong as cows cant go from 1 paddock to other without milking)

 

[Sid]

do you have to go and get the last few cows out or do they come 90% of the time when they realise there mates have gone?
I would have thought on 8hr paddocks you would get a lot of cows skip a paddock ie they milk at 12.01 so go into the 12-8am paddock but then don't come in until around 4pm so go out into the 4pm-midnight paddock skipping the 8-4pm paddock?
does it really matter any way? probably only the odd late lactation cow.

do you have cow tracks basically in 3 directions away from farm? I was thinking 12hr paddock would need 2 directions? (could be parallel aslong as cows cant go from 1 paddock to other without milking)

Come in on their own. Very rarely fetch cows.
The 12-8 paddock would be empty of cows by 10am. We have cows come in at say 7 am and wait for the 8am paddock to open. They can not get to a fresh paddock if they have milking permission.
Late lactation cows may have a longer milking interval but does it really matter? We have cows that will come in 4 times a day. Some twice depends on yeild.

Paddocks are in 3 different directions east south and west.
Do not expect cows going to different paddocks to walk parallel with each other. 8ft is the longest parallel we have.
With 12 hr paddocks we were fetching more cows.

 

[The Agrarian]

What time do you do your last check around now? Whats your evening routine?

Last check anytime between 10 and 12, depending if I've been in or out for the evening, and what I'm expecting in terms of calving. Last night I nipped into the shop, and just did it on way home at 945 because nothing imminent in the Springer pen.

Evening routine is just like an evening milking really, just without the milking. Teaching babies to drink, feeding the hutches, supervising the separated milk animals to get colostrum etc, scraping the beds, throwing a few bags of meal to the heifers up to bulling, AI and heat detection, bla bla bla..... You know the type of thing In winter it's roughly 1 1\2 to 2 1\2 hrs depending on what's calving and bulling.

Used to spend 2 1\2 to 3 hrs in a 12 swingover on top of that, which was really a bit much to be honest for one man at the weekend.

 

[Chips]

Doesn't sound like a grazing dairy farm to me? So how do the cows cross the road and walk 45 minutes to the robots?[/QUOTE]

They don't now cross road , 1km is furthest walk on robot .
It's not a full on grazing system , I don't think I ever said it was . Cows have freedom to graze for 8mths 24/7 and also acess to pmr 24/7 . It's all up to the cow , nearly all cows will do a little bit of everything throigh a 24hr period .
All I ever said was it's a lot less work than milking . If you're capable of setting up parlour , going fetching cows and move fence ,milking them , treating any sick and washing down, and feeding calves in an hour fair play , but I like most never could , now with a robot it's 30 minutes and that could be quicker if I didn't have 10 mins of hosing down due to no slats to take manure away . Actual milking equivalent tasks are just the few mins penning late cows if any . Get on with calf feeding while they milk and to be honest fetching them is usually combined with cleaning beds .
Stubborn heiferr training can blow all of that time saving though but fortunately that's not too often on one robot . Once you start getting up to 7 robot's and so on I would then question any labour savings over a big parlour due to amount of potential problems with heifers and alarms , they the main benifit would just be for the cows and possibley staff retention

 

[Sid]

Last check anytime between 10 and 12, depending if I've been in or out for the evening, and what I'm expecting in terms of calving. Last night I nipped into the shop, and just did it on way home at 945 because nothing imminent in the Springer pen.

Evening routine is just like an evening milking really, just without the milking. Teaching babies to drink, feeding the hutches, supervising the separated milk animals to get colostrum etc, scraping the beds, throwing a few bags of meal to the heifers up to bulling, AI and heat detection, bla bla bla..... You know the type of thing In winter it's roughly 1 1\2 to 2 1\2 hrs depending on what's calving and bulling.

Used to spend 2 1\2 to 3 hrs in a 12 swingover on top of that, which was really a bit much to be honest for one man at the weekend.

Sounds reasonable amount of time

 

[Sid]

It's not a full on grazing system ,

And that given your production i what i question with various sector bodies. And yet its labeled free range

 

[Chips]

And that given your production i what i question with various sector bodies. And yet its labeled free range

Cows are free to go out 24/7 for 8 months and very much do go out and graze as well as come home to milk at their own free will t

And that given your production i what i question with various sector bodies. And yet its labeled free range

Given they are free to go outside 24/7 for 8 months, they are free to come back and milk at will and free to shelter in doors at will , I struggle to see how it can be anything other than free range . The cows make the decision just like with free range eggs and the majority of their day is outside other than late Autumn . Are you saying it is more free range to force them out ..? My milk is not sold as free range anyway . Plenty of Omsco farmers graze a lot less than me even keeping them in at night , do you have a problem with them ?

 

[Sid]

Cows are free to go out 24/7 for 8 months and very much do go out and graze as well as come home to milk at their own free will t


Given they are free to go outside 24/7 for 8 months, they are free to come back and milk at will and free to shelter in doors at will , I struggle to see how it can be anything other than free range . The cows make the decision just like with free range eggs and the majority of their day is outside other than late Autumn . Are you saying it is more free range to force them out ..? My milk is not sold as free range anyway . Plenty of Omsco farmers graze a lot less than me even keeping them in at night , do you have a problem with them ?

Yes

 

[Beef farmer]

I can be an antagonizing twit, but my gosh you take my title

 

[upnortheast]

Cows are free to go out 24/7 for 8 months and very much do go out and graze as well as come home to milk at their own free will t

A point I always make when we get visitors. On a hot summer afternoon there is often 70% of our cows in the shed. Come the cooler evening they wander out to graze. Now that is free range

 

[yin ewe]

........ my robot envy’s creeping in again

Bald rick still got a few left, ballygreenan and thewalrus only have room for 4 on the lorry, should be coming at the right money!!

 

[Sid]

I can be an antagonizing twit, but my gosh you take my title

I am guessing you mean me as you haven't quoted anyone?
Not antagonizing but looking at it from an animal welfare marketing side rather than the sell on promotion.
If that means no buffer feeding then so be it. Breed the cow to suit the system not the system to suit the cow.

 

[Sid]

A point I always make when we get visitors. On a hot summer afternoon there is often 70% of our cows in the shed. Come the cooler evening they wander out to graze. Now that is free range

Or you could have some nice trees to shade under or even this

http://shadehaven.net

Why make them walk back to shade?

 

[yin ewe]

Breed the cow to suit the system not the system to suit the cow.

Don't think any breed would suit a grazing system round here this last few days.