Robotic milking

[Clive]

At last... what on earth happened to BFF...? Anyway, found you all now - and someone's nicked my name!

Wanted to invite the BFF users to our open day on 10th April. Now its the farming forum may I extend the invite to the rest of the world! There are some international visitors coming- from Denmark, Holland and France already.
We also have David Handley and Ian Potter coming to speak and offer their views on the next ten years (as its 10 years since our last big day)

See and circulate the attached invite and hope to see you there?
Tim

You might want to add your event to the events gesture we have here - those planning on going can then show there intent there and it mies the events details visible on the Callander with map etc

If you need help just pm a mod !

 

[Foot Doc]

There seems to be some confusion and grey areas regarding the legislation concerning the use of electrical devices on animals. As far as I am aware no electrical implements are supposed to be used on animals in Ireland and the UK, including cattle prods.

A lot of problems arose from a few years back with farmers and vets using the "Stockstill" device which used two wires clipped onto the animals head and backside, and then ran an electrical current through the whole animal to "lock" muscle movement. This control also affected the heart and the lungs and there were reports of death occurring on some animals. This resulted in broad legislation banning the use of all electrical equipment on animals. Unfortunately the Pacifiers seem to have been included in this even though they work on totally different technology and in over 12 years of use worldwide and thousands of units sold, no reports have been made of any animal coming to harm by using this device.

The Pacifier uses low AC current output technology to gently stimulate the animal’s natural nervous system’s response to muscle constriction, allowing the operator to perform treatments in the shortest possible time. The pulse output is so low that the probe could be inserted into your own mouth and turned up fully without any harm apart from a tingling sensation. The Pacifier units are sold worldwide and have obtained all the necessary animal welfare documentation in South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and America. Perhaps it is time the legislation was challenged in this part of the world.

If anyone cares to look at the videos on our website http://www.soshoofcare.com/About-Us.html you will see that all the animals that the Pacifier is used on show no undue stress and it makes the work a lot easier and safer for the stockman. How many animals and people have been seriously injured trying to carry out routine everyday procedures on stock. Are kick bars, nose tongs, head scoops, squeeze crushes, head halters, leg restraints etc all animal friendly and guaranteed not to cause pain, stress and injury? Using the Pacifier animals can quickly be brought under control to carry out any number of procedures. It is imperative that pain relief is used on any procedures were required, and it is the responsibility of the user to do so. The Pacifier can be used to safely and calmly bring the animal under control to enable analgesics to be administered.

Heifers in the milking parlour are quickly settled without the use of kick bars and ropes and will quite happily eat their meal while the pacifier is used and it stimulates milk let-down. It is also a training device in that most heifers can be "trained" in 3 - 6 milking’s. How many farmers have been injured with kicking cows and heifers? There are lots of other jobs that can be carried out safely while using the Pacifier (see videos).

We are all in the business of farming and looking after and keeping stock in the best of condition and the Pacifier is a great management tool to enable us to carry this out to the best of our ability. It is not for everyone and you need to make up your own mind as to the ethics of using one. As far as I am concerned I don't leave home without it as it makes a lot of my work easier and safer all round, especially Freeze Branding as I no longer need anyone to sit on cows backs or enter the crush to hold tails up. Most farmers and stockmen are very happy about this!!

As I mentioned earlier perhaps it is time to look at the legislation and challenge it where necessary. At a time when so much is talked about farm safety surely a device such as the Pacifier could be used in some farm trials to properly establish how animal friendly and people friendly it is! Sometimes red tape and nonsense needs to be confronted head-on. When I started my Cattle Hoof Trimming business in 1985 it was deemed illegal for me to treat a cow with a lame foot as this came under the Veterinary Act, yet most vets were not interested or didn't have the proper equipment to try and treat large numbers of lame cattle. A lot of our work in the early days came from Vet referrals. Nowadays hoof trimmers are classed as "para professionals" and are allowed to treat lame animals, in the same way that Veterinary nurses are now allowed to administer injections to small animals, and the Veterinary Act has been changed to accommodate this.

We have vets and some of the best award winning farmers among our list of happy customers and nearly everyone comments that they wonder why they put up with so much hassle for so long and would not like to now do without their Pacifier. We are talking to manufacturers and installers of robotic milking systems at the moment having successfully demonstrated the Pacifiers for use on cows and heifers using the robot for the first time. Would many farmers like to go back to milking cows by hand or in a pipeline byre? I think not. In my opinion we have to embrace new technology and make use of it, and don't just write it off without giving it an open-minded appraisal.

We carry out demos where we can but this is not always possible because of distance and time constraints, but we also give a 7-day money back guarantee if not completely satisfied (not had one back yet).

Let the debate continue!!!

 

[Peter]

Has anbody with 2 A4 made use of the tandem sort?

 

[Hillbilly]

Anyone changed nozzle on teat spray to use a thicker teat dip on a A3

 

[alan6430]

Do robots work with lower yielding british friesians or do u have to have high yielding holsteins? Somebody told me once that if they not high yielding, u don't feed as much cake and cows don't come to the robot. Is this right? I know very little about robots?

 

[Baling Hay]

Do robots work with lower yielding british friesians or do u have to have high yielding holsteins? Somebody told me once that if they not high yielding, u don't feed as much cake and cows don't come to the robot. Is this right? I know very little about robots?

I'm sure they will work, you would just not have any oopfs and feed everything through the robot. However, it makes more sense to have high yielding cows to spread the cost of them. Especially if you keep the cows in all year round.

 

[Chips]

I don't suppose any one would want to keep British Friesan's in all year around , and why bother grazing works great on small herds with robots ,I say small because unless on ideal set up 200+ plus cows would probably need to walk too far or cross roads. I love grazing our cows ,saves on bedding up so often and saves buying blend to boost silage in the PMR although I still feed exactly the same in the robot . However last year due to having no shed as we rebuilt our old one I had to nearly rely totaly on pasture for housing and feeding with only a single round bale in a ring feeder to encourage cows home and keep those fed who are waiting to milk and thus get back out to graze , this did not work so well for our medium yielding holstiens as average milkings dropped to under 2.5 and this dropped both overall yield and yield from forage . I think the key to having low yielders on a robot would be to stop worring about 3x milking at grass and try and set up an A,B and C grazing system instead of the more usual A+B to keep the cows encouraged to return to get to the next pasture more than to feed in robot , this way cows would be encouraged to return to get to another pasture even more than on AB and thus parlour cake could be reduced keeping milk from forage up and preventing late lactation cows getting fat which is when they would get lazy . Grazing with a grazeaway gate works very well and my costings seem to stack up against other organic farms on all systems in our dairyco costings ,but it would be difficult (not impossible) to make a spring block calving systems work and for this I would always look at a big simple conventional parlour

 

[alan6430]

I guess if I fed my cows more cake like I would in a robot I could get them to 7500litre fairly easy. That's not really enough to keep them housed all year and milk with a robot is it?

 

[Baling Hay]

I guess if I fed my cows more cake like I would in a robot I could get them to 7500litre fairly easy. That's not really enough to keep them housed all year and milk with a robot is it?

No that is too low a yield to justify year round housing in my opinion. How is you grazing set out though, could you graze them with a robot?

 

[alan6430]

I don't suppose any one would want to keep British Friesan's in all year around , and why bother grazing works great on small herds with robots ,I say small because unless on ideal set up 200+ plus cows would probably need to walk too far or cross roads. I love grazing our cows ,saves on bedding up so often and saves buying blend to boost silage in the PMR although I still feed exactly the same in the robot . However last year due to having no shed as we rebuilt our old one I had to nearly rely totaly on pasture for housing and feeding with only a single round bale in a ring feeder to encourage cows home and keep those fed who are waiting to milk and thus get back out to graze , this did not work so well for our medium yielding holstiens as average milkings dropped to under 2.5 and this dropped both overall yield and yield from forage . I think the key to having low yielders on a robot would be to stop worring about 3x milking at grass and try and set up an A,B and C grazing system instead of the more usual A+B to keep the cows encouraged to return to get to the next pasture more than to feed in robot , this way cows would be encouraged to return to get to another pasture even more than on AB and thus parlour cake could be reduced keeping milk from forage up and preventing late lactation cows getting fat which is when they would get lazy . Grazing with a grazeaway gate works very well and my costings seem to stack up against other organic farms on all systems in our dairyco costings ,but it would be difficult (not impossible) to make a spring block calving systems work and for this I would always look at a big simple conventional parlour

So how much milk you getting from your medium yielding holsteins? And my place is not the best for grazing, I can grow lots of grass but is often very wet and muddy getting cows to it.

 

[Baling Hay]

So how much milk you getting from your medium yielding holsteins? And my place is not the best for grazing, I can grow lots of grass but is often very wet and muddy getting cows to it.

You're not in Northern Ireland or S.W Scotland by any chance?

 

[alan6430]

Nooooo I farm in cornwall and all the fields next to my yard are full of rushes/reids. Very very heavy clay soil. Good grass once I get past those fields though. I like the idea of housing all year but don't think the litres from british friesians will justify it even if milked by robot

 

[Sid]

Nooooo I farm in cornwall and all the fields next to my yard are full of rushes/reids. Very very heavy clay soil. Good grass once I get past those fields though. I like the idea of housing all year but don't think the litres from british friesians will justify it even if milked by robot

I do believe that one of the big brands has developed a "grazing robot"...wait with baited breath

 

[Baling Hay]

I do believe that one of the big brands has developed a "grazing robot"...wait with baited breath

Now that would be the ticket! One that you could put in the shed in the winter and then move round the fields in the summer!

 

[Chips]

So how much milk you getting from your medium yielding holsteins? And my place is not the best for grazing, I can grow lots of grass but is often very wet and muddy getting cows to it.

About 8300 litres sold normally , last year was down to below 8000 though due to no shed/buffer feeding and rubbish weather. Calves have to have whole milk for 12 weeks on organic regs so 8800 litres per year and about 9200kgs in 339 days is the recorded yield on 2 ton of cake so a good bit of that coming from forage.
The biggest guy into grazing in our discusion group reckons there is no such thing as a farm too wet to graze , it just needs more tracks , however tracks are not cheap either , maybe lower yielding could work indoors if you zero grazed them ,what extra it costs you in labour and diesel lugging grass and slurry may be made up a little in extra grass growth /quality and less sward damage . Bit of a tie though everyday on top of other summer jobs like making silage etc.
My cows walk up to about 900 metres to graze and up hill but if I have them that far away in the day I try to use a closer paddock at night to help balance the milkings out . With the new shed I have moved the grazeaway about and it really works well now and is very easy to drive new cows/heifers through for the first time

 

[neilo]

Now that would be the ticket! One that you could put in the shed in the winter and then move round the fields in the summer!

Does it fill churns? Or do you run a long pipe back to the dairy? Or do 'normal' dairy rules not apply, so that you can fill a trailed tank sat in the field by the genny?

 

[alan6430]

I'm just guessing my cows would do 7500litres, they mayy surprise me and go way over 8000litles if I ever do get a robot

 

[neilo]

Nooooo I farm in cornwall and all the fields next to my yard are full of rushes/reids. Very very heavy clay soil. Good grass once I get past those fields though. I like the idea of housing all year but don't think the litres from british friesians will justify it even if milked by robot

Is it not possible to build a track across those fields with rushes & reeds?

 

[Chips]

Thing is even if uk dairy regs did allow it I don't think it's the holy grail every non robot farmer thinks it would be . Just because you plonk a robot near to cows does not mean they will volinteer to milk in it ,especially if they have a gut full of lush spring grass. You have to give them an extra incentive when grazing , which is usually for the keener hungrier cows is getting to the next patch of fresh grass and for the later slower cows is not been left on their own in a field ,i.e the herd instinct and so you would still need to deploy the A B system in my opinion , to do this without tracks and a grazeaway would mean you would need to keep moving this mobile robot around and setting up new hard standings and gate layouts , so lots of work and lots of wood chips or similar , plus having several pcaes to do this that is level enough and able to trundle back and fore everyday to lug milk back to a suitable place for tanker collection , I guess you would need two mobile tanks so as not to have to wait around all day for the tanker to collect , on top of this extra expense you would need to run the robot and all water heating and milk cooling of a generator which will cost a hell of a lot more than mains electric and not as reliable . Late in season even if going for a full grazing diet you would need to offer some sort of forage buffer feed which would make one hell of a mess in a british autumn or even summer ! this is going to cost way more than building tracks across your wet fields ,will be far more labour intensive and I bet my bottom dollar will result in lower returns .Hell it would probably be cheaper and far better return on capital to drain those wet fields . In reality I would say your two options for robotics are tracks or zero grazing ,both proven to work well , we're still averaging 3 milkings/day and our cows are out days , probably drop to 2.7 when out nights , there are plenty not getting that with cows indoors , the reason I would say is it's not how far they have to walk but how they are fed , how much capacity is there on the robot ,and what other incentives are there to milk other than food or the robot being close by , all these things I would get right before ever entertaining the logistical nightmare of mobile parlours .
Lely did mention one college that eventually pulled out , but were thinking of a second permanent robot room and dairy in the centre of the grazing platform with all the wiring and pipe work left in place and then quickly moving robot and crs /computuer twice a year , if everything is in place it could probably be done in 3/4 hrs ,but again a lot of extra expense and grazing is about reducing cost !

 

[Frankly Speaking]

SAC have been trying a mobile robot for several years now yet it has all gone rather quiet. How would on/off grazing suit robots? I think cows can eat around 5kg dm in around 3 hours. Maybe low yielders could go out twice a day and high yielders once.