Mobile Milking Parlour

[BeReyt]

Hello,

The more I learn about holistic/regenerative agriculture the more it excites me about the possibilities of the future. I'm wanting at some point to buy a farm to start my own dairy herd, and I've so many ideas (some probably misguided or unworkable) rattling around in my head that I'm confusing myself.

I'm wondering about starting with a mobile parlour, mainly to keep initial costs down compared to a fixed parlour and all the infrastructure required (perhaps allowing me to find a farm without lots of buildings) and secondly the potential flexibility it would give me on a mob grazing system.
Does anyone have any experience with mobile parlours?

I haven't posted this in the dairy section for fear of being lynched.

Thanks, James.

 

[Poorbuthappy]

Not sure if @shortney has experience with this?

 

[Suffolk Serf]

@The Ruminant is the man to ask. He’s got the T-shirt.

 

[The Ruminant]

Hello,

The more I learn about holistic/regenerative agriculture the more it excites me about the possibilities of the future. I'm wanting at some point to buy a farm to start my own dairy herd, and I've so many ideas (some probably misguided or unworkable) rattling around in my head that I'm confusing myself.

I'm wondering about starting with a mobile parlour, mainly to keep initial costs down compared to a fixed parlour and all the infrastructure required (perhaps allowing me to find a farm without lots of buildings) and secondly the potential flexibility it would give me on a mob grazing system.
Does anyone have any experience with mobile parlours?

I haven't posted this in the dairy section for fear of being lynched.

Thanks, James.

Hi James
I set up a very small raw milk dairy a few years ago. I started with just a couple of cows.

My parkour comprised an old Land Rover with a generator in the back. Hitched on to this was a horse trailer. The single unit mobile milking machine sat in one half of the trailer and the cows walked in, individually, into the other side to be milked. It had a front exit so they could exit forwards. I milked into a churn which I sat in the stream (or a water tank) to cool the milk before I could get it back to the fridge. (Cooling the milk was the weak link and I’d have cone up with a better solution if I’d continued).

I also fitted a water tank into the Land Rover for washing down etc too and was meticulous about hygiene - I used peracetic acid to rinse the units between cows. By the end I was milking ten cows through it in about hour, on once a day milking (they were 100% grass fed).

If you’re thinking larger scale than this then @Tim May is your man - he’s putting several hundred through a proper mobile parlour!

 

[BeReyt]

@The Ruminant
That's positive, thanks for that. How did it work in the winter months, were the cows and parlour still out to grass?

I'm wanting to milk around 40, though that may change depending on mortgage costs.

Getting ideas on the parlour design is key.

Thanks

 

[JP1]

Hi James
I set up a very small raw milk dairy a few years ago. I started with just a couple of cows.

My parkour comprised an old Land Rover with a generator in the back. Hitched on to this was a horse trailer. The single unit mobile milking machine sat in one half of the trailer and the cows walked in, individually, into the other side to be milked. It had a front exit so they could exit forwards. I milked into a churn which I sat in the stream (or a water tank) to cool the milk before I could get it back to the fridge. (Cooling the milk was the weak link and I’d have cone up with a better solution if I’d continued).

I also fitted a water tank into the Land Rover for washing down etc too and was meticulous about hygiene - I used peracetic acid to rinse the units between cows. By the end I was milking ten cows through it in about hour, on once a day milking (they were 100% grass fed).

If you’re thinking larger scale than this then @Tim May is your man - he’s putting several hundred through a proper mobile parlour!

I remember it well including your herdslady

I was very pleased to be part of the herd delivery team with my Landrover at the time !!

Ideas wise I'd fly to Agritechnica this November, there were a couple of milking bail companies exhibiting last time - even just to grab ideas

 

[The Ruminant]

@The Ruminant
That's positive, thanks for that. How did it work in the winter months, were the cows and parlour still out to grass?

I'm wanting to milk around 40, though that may change depending on mortgage costs.

Getting ideas on the parlour design is key.

Thanks

It wasn’t brilliant in the winter, to be honest. I have regularly kept jerseys outside when they were dry, plus steers etc, but not when they were in milk (I tried, to the point where I bought half a dozen waterproof horse rugs for the cows. These were a disaster - one animal never got used to it and would go galloping round the field every time it flapped in the breeze - which was all the time when she was galloping.....!! With the others, I couldn’t see their rumen, their body condition etc so quickly came up with plan B - rent a small cattle shed and put the mobile parlour at the end of It, the cows in the remainder and milk from there during the winter. )

This caused some problems for the dairy inspector as he had approved the original holding - the same parlour had moved to a different holding so in theory he had to approve it as a new dairy holding (he actually showed a lot of common sense, for which I was really grateful!)

I often thought a low loader trailer on the back of a tractor (with a tractor-driven generator) would hold half a dozen stalls - cattle entering and exiting from the side, standing at 90 degrees to the direction of travel of the trailer. With a cheap milking machine I reckon you could have a simple mobile parlour for between £8k and £10k and would easily milk 40 cows.

 

[Suffolk Serf]

Have you seen the mobile tandem parlour from Lithuania?
Comes up if you bang “mobile milking parlour” into google, seems to be available in sizes from one stall to eight, looks good to me and reasonably priced.

 

[BeReyt]

@JP1 I'll have a look into that, thanks. If you went, did you take much notice of what was there?

@Suffolk Serf I've looked at them, yes. They look good, I like how everything is mechanical however I don't know if my back would stand stooping to put the clusters on... they do supply a nice stool ?

@The Ruminant Wasn't brilliant due to being out in the crappest weather? That's one of the major drawbacks I can see with it.
What did you do with the waste water and slurry?

That's my thinking, a suitablely sized trailer with capacity for between 5 - 10 cows, plus milk tank and wash down facilities would be good in my thinking, whether that's feasible I'm not sure.

 

[The Ruminant]

@The Ruminant Wasn't brilliant due to being out in the crappest weather? That's one of the major drawbacks I can see with it.
What did you do with the waste water and slurry?

That's my thinking, a suitablely sized trailer with capacity for between 5 - 10 cows, plus milk tank and wash down facilities would be good in my thinking, whether that's feasible I'm not sure.

Combination of things. Having kept various breeds of cattle outside I’m convinced they’re healthier, but only if they can grow a thick enough coat for winter and can eat enough food of a quality to give them enough energy to keep warm (their rumen is like a giant compost heap and generates lots of heat). I felt that, on a grass (silage) fed only diet, milking jerseys couldn’t get enough feed I take to milk well and stay warm - and their genetics meant they continued to milk well so it risked becoming a welfare issue. I stopped well before winter set in!

One of the other problems was the grass / mud track to the field. I had visions of my old disco getting stuck. That was a real risk and would have meant I couldn’t have milked the cows. Again, not work the risk.

The third problem was water. I was operating off a single standpipe tap which froze frequently. If I could t get water I couldn’t wash down, and with raw milk production the hygiene element is absolutely essential.

In different circumstances it could be done - hard tracks, proper water supply, cattle fed cake as well as silage (and maybe also get them used to wearing rugs at a young age, like the calf jackets you see).

Alternatively, get a seasonal contract and dry off before Christmas. Start milking again as the weather improves in late March.

 

[awkward]

We milked through a mobile setup for 4 months while we demolished and rebuilt our yard. We created a permenant slab for it so better access for truck to collect and keep clean. If you can find the program( ear to the ground, William o Leary, mobile milker) it showa his home built mobile milker pulled by tractor from farm to farm. Also look up mobi star it a dairymaster machine on a well built frame looks a great job.

 

[shortney]

Not sure if @shortney has experience with this?

thanks, hope all is well

yes we mobile milk, spring calving OAD on a mob grazing system milking 400 crossbred cows. Happy to answer any questions.

 

[cowslave]

@James Sagar

Just stumbled across this post. We've recently invested in the mobile milking parlour that you can get from Lithuania, as mentioned above. Currently milking on the yard as not set up to milk in field, and may not even bother tbh as we're only milking 9 cows atm and we have 4 fields that circle our yard. But may do one day, and tbh I'd still recommend a simple mobile parlour. Anyway, if you want to chat private message me and I'll drop you my phone number if you like? For info we've got 9 Jersey cross cows, keep calves on till they're 6 months, milk OAD, feed about 2-3KG cake, spring calving, dry off for 2-3 months. sell raw milk direct via vending machine and local distributor.

 

[Whitewalker]

@James Sagar

Just stumbled across this post. We've recently invested in the mobile milking parlour that you can get from Lithuania, as mentioned above. Currently milking on the yard as not set up to milk in field, and may not even bother tbh as we're only milking 9 cows atm and we have 4 fields that circle our yard. But may do one day, and tbh I'd still recommend a simple mobile parlour. Anyway, if you want to chat private message me and I'll drop you my phone number if you like? For info we've got 9 Jersey cross cows, keep calves on till they're 6 months, milk OAD, feed about 2-3KG cake, spring calving, dry off for 2-3 months. sell raw milk direct via vending machine and local distributor.

are you happy to share more here ? Very interesting

 

[cowslave]

Hi Whitewalker, yeah sure - what would you like to know more about exactly?

 

[Whitewalker]

How are you getting on ? What type of vending machine are you using? Are you close to a main road or tucked out of the way ? Has it influenced sales?

 

[cowslave]

Sooo - we used to sell milk, just 25L a day from a few cows, to locals. We used to bottle it by hand, just had a single mobile milking machine, milking one at a time. Worked fine for about 2 years, but we realised we needed to scale up as that wasn't going to be financially sustainable. We decided to stop milking for a year or so, so that we could rework everything (also had our first child). We're reopening for milk sales on Tuesday with out new vending machine. We used to have a waiting list for milk that was at least twice as long as we could supply, so I feel confident that with our current 50-60L a day we'll be able to sell it all. Used to sell at £2/L but we've dropped to £1.50 so that more people can afford it.

With keeping calves suckling till 6 months, we obviously don't have a huge yield to the tank. When calf is 5-6months we get about 4L/day with about 2-3kg of cake. When we wean the calf, we drop the cake down to about 1Kg per day and get about 10-12L. Herd is half Jersey and half Jersey crosses, and one dairy shorthorn! Calves are separated at night from about 6-8 weeks, we gradually shorten how long they're with their mother so that by 6 months calves only get 4-6 hours to suckle.

We've been rearing all males as steers for beef, but are going to try leaving some entire to sell as rose veal/beef at 9-12 months. Heifers kept as replacements so far.

Vending machine - bought a Brunimat through the Milk Station Company. Happy with it and their support is great.

We are on a decent road, about 1 mile from a fairly busy large village (pop. approx 2,000) with a large local secondary. But we're pretty rural. Nearest town is 20 mins away and it's only 4,000. Customers before were mostly from local villages.

Also got a local distributor who's going to take 50L a week. We've got another couple of avenues we could explore too if we need to, but want to keep it simple as poss. We are planning to make one batch of yoghurt each week and occasional batches of cheese too. Aim is to be selling around 100-150L milk per day whether as milk or processed.

Check in with me in a month and I can tell you how it's going!

 

[Whitewalker]

Was in touch with milk station about a vending machine haven’t ordered yet but could be close . We’re milking 50 bf cows, trying this regen angle. Keep us posted . Very exciting ?

 

[O'Reilly]

Hello,

The more I learn about holistic/regenerative agriculture the more it excites me about the possibilities of the future. I'm wanting at some point to buy a farm to start my own dairy herd, and I've so many ideas (some probably misguided or unworkable) rattling around in my head that I'm confusing myself.

I'm wondering about starting with a mobile parlour, mainly to keep initial costs down compared to a fixed parlour and all the infrastructure required (perhaps allowing me to find a farm without lots of buildings) and secondly the potential flexibility it would give me on a mob grazing system.
Does anyone have any experience with mobile parlours?

I haven't posted this in the dairy section for fear of being lynched.

Thanks, James.

Also look up happy cow milk company on faceache. They're in new Zealand and currently not in action as they are redesigning the system, but there's some interesting pictures of his old setup.

 

[johnsid]

Sooo - we used to sell milk, just 25L a day from a few cows, to locals. We used to bottle it by hand, just had a single mobile milking machine, milking one at a time. Worked fine for about 2 years, but we realised we needed to scale up as that wasn't going to be financially sustainable. We decided to stop milking for a year or so, so that we could rework everything (also had our first child). We're reopening for milk sales on Tuesday with out new vending machine. We used to have a waiting list for milk that was at least twice as long as we could supply, so I feel confident that with our current 50-60L a day we'll be able to sell it all. Used to sell at £2/L but we've dropped to £1.50 so that more people can afford it.

With keeping calves suckling till 6 months, we obviously don't have a huge yield to the tank. When calf is 5-6months we get about 4L/day with about 2-3kg of cake. When we wean the calf, we drop the cake down to about 1Kg per day and get about 10-12L. Herd is half Jersey and half Jersey crosses, and one dairy shorthorn! Calves are separated at night from about 6-8 weeks, we gradually shorten how long they're with their mother so that by 6 months calves only get 4-6 hours to suckle.

We've been rearing all males as steers for beef, but are going to try leaving some entire to sell as rose veal/beef at 9-12 months. Heifers kept as replacements so far.

Vending machine - bought a Brunimat through the Milk Station Company. Happy with it and their support is great.

We are on a decent road, about 1 mile from a fairly busy large village (pop. approx 2,000) with a large local secondary. But we're pretty rural. Nearest town is 20 mins away and it's only 4,000. Customers before were mostly from local villages.

Also got a local distributor who's going to take 50L a week. We've got another couple of avenues we could explore too if we need to, but want to keep it simple as poss. We are planning to make one batch of yoghurt each week and occasional batches of cheese too. Aim is to be selling around 100-150L milk per day whether as milk or processed.

Check in with me in a month and I can tell you how it's going!

Hi there, I’m a bit late posting on this thread. But how is your milking system working. How long does milking take you each day and how many liters are you getting per day? How is the vending machine going? Thanks