Robotic milking

[nonemouse]

We all know the good and bad points of the Lely as they have been discussed on here loads , good points for me Reliability , back up and residual values , Bad points , obviously No.1 no means of manual attach or teach , then running costs of compressed air and the occasional but very damaging risk of the brushes not fully disinfecting .
But what are the bad points on the delaval , there must be some , what makes delaval users think if only they could be like Lely on those bits or what would you change if you could ?
Serious question because I am starting to contemplate the possibility of a change in a year or so if affordable while mine still has some value.
also wondering if a delaval could operate my existing grazing gate and buffer tank or would I need a complete new system ?

Tim Gibson has some secondhand VMS units advertised on his website if you fancy a change. And I might be able to find a home for a 2nd hand A3'

 

[Chips]

I was talking to a Lely employee about 2 months back and he said they are scared of authorising manual attach after a German farmer was crushed by the arm and a cow during a manual attach manoeuvre. Could this happen or just a rumour?

Far far more likely to get crushed not having manual attached , if manual the arm would not move other than to stay under the udder , when trying to help it to auto attach you have to get your hand under the udder and try and hold front of udder up or teats out of the way to see the rear ones and all the time the arm is scanning up and down , usually crushing your arm at the top of a scan , however it is only compressed air so I don't think you would get seriously hurt . The latest heifer I had trouble with took about 40 minutes the first two milkings to get an attachment, greatly increasing the risk time to get hurt over just popping the cups on , also manual attach you would only have to hold the cups at their base and thus further away from the cow , when helping auto attach your arm gets trapped between the cow and the arm at the top of the scan , if the cow slips as a nervy heifer does she could easily break your arm as your poking through the bars of the gate to be high enough and your arm would take the full weight of the cow , manual attach and your arm can remain below the bottom bar . Also with auto attach sometimes you have to help from the clean room side and I have been crushed a couple of times as the arm came too far back and pinned me to the m4use, with proper manual attach you would always do it from cow side and thus no risk from the arm , or even better just guide the cups on with the arrows and bingo no danger and the massive benefit of the robot being taught by the human eye .
The only reason they refuse to do this is because they like to claim their robot does not need it , which most (but not all ) users will tell you is rubbish , hence so many portable milkers are sold and delaval from a standing start match if not out sell Lely worldwide .

 

[Chips]

Tim Gibson has some secondhand VMS units advertised on his website if you fancy a change. And I might be able to find a home for a 2nd hand A3'

I have been looking , won't be for a year or so yet as need more youngstock housing 1st , if you could drop the vms into the lely place within a day it would be tempting as my back can no longer tolerate being bent under a heifer for half an hour at a time ( I think this is why I am getting more and more intolerant of the A3 ) However I would need to do alterations meaning hiring a bail or building new site for it while the lely carries on , all adding cost and hassle , if it was like changing a tractor it would be gone !

 

[Hanspree]

I have been looking , won't be for a year or so yet as need more youngstock housing 1st , if you could drop the vms into the lely place within a day it would be tempting as my back can no longer tolerate being bent under a heifer for half an hour at a time ( I think this is why I am getting more and more intolerant of the A3 ) However I would need to do alterations meaning hiring a bail or building new site for it while the lely carries on , all adding cost and hassle , if it was like changing a tractor it would be gone !

Good points and bad points to them all but sometimes The grass isn't always greener.........
Some people going blue to red..

 

[wasted years]

I'm struggling to unserstand this manual attach problem with lely it can be done really easy on the A2, did they change the newer ones?

 

[s line]

Far far more likely to get crushed not having manual attached , if manual the arm would not move other than to stay under the udder , when trying to help it to auto attach you have to get your hand under the udder and try and hold front of udder up or teats out of the way to see the rear ones and all the time the arm is scanning up and down , usually crushing your arm at the top of a scan , however it is only compressed air so I don't think you would get seriously hurt . The latest heifer I had trouble with took about 40 minutes the first two milkings to get an attachment, greatly increasing the risk time to get hurt over just popping the cups on , also manual attach you would only have to hold the cups at their base and thus further away from the cow , when helping auto attach your arm gets trapped between the cow and the arm at the top of the scan , if the cow slips as a nervy heifer does she could easily break your arm as your poking through the bars of the gate to be high enough and your arm would take the full weight of the cow , manual attach and your arm can remain below the bottom bar . Also with auto attach sometimes you have to help from the clean room side and I have been crushed a couple of times as the arm came too far back and pinned me to the m4use, with proper manual attach you would always do it from cow side and thus no risk from the arm , or even better just guide the cups on with the arrows and bingo no danger and the massive benefit of the robot being taught by the human eye .
The only reason they refuse to do this is because they like to claim their robot does not need it , which most (but not all ) users will tell you is rubbish , hence so many portable milkers are sold and delaval from a standing start match if not out sell Lely worldwide .

We always put the in-calf heifers through the robot on training mode for a few weeks before they calved. Twice a day. Once they are calved they are ALL as good as gold. The first milking we tie them in tight in the A3 lely robot, so they can't move. Put the arm under start scanning, cups on, oh and i am sat in my chair by the x link having a cuppa. Live life lely [emoji108][emoji108][emoji108].

 

[s line]

Ask @jimmer if you don't believe me!!

 

[Bald Rick]

We always put the in-calf heifers through the robot on training mode for a few weeks before they calved. Twice a day. Once they are calved they are ALL as good as gold. The first milking we tie them in tight in the A3 lely robot, so they can't move. Put the arm under start scanning, cups on, oh and i am sat in my chair by the x link having a cuppa. Live life lely [emoji108][emoji108][emoji108].

On the other hand, just get them used to the smell & taste of nuts and get the heifer whisperer to gurgle sweet nothings in their ear.

Works for us at any rate - even the latest batch of Danish invaders have been "nutted" to calmness

 

[Chips]

All my heifers are pre trained and many will go on as above but every now and then it will struggle and the more it struggles the more the heifer gets upset and you start going backwards , these are just random heifers , perfect udders and temperment to start . As a one man band I dont have time for this nonesense just alter the software to leave pulsation on when on arrow screen , simples

 

[s line]

All my heifers are pre trained and many will go on as above but every now and then it will struggle and the more it struggles the more the heifer gets upset and you start going backwards , these are just random heifers , perfect udders and temperment to start . As a one man band I dont have time for this nonesense just alter the software to leave pulsation on when on arrow screen , simples

If i do struggle with a heifer. I give up after 10 minutes and let her go. Then put her in a different robot. That does the trick [emoji108]

 

[Hanspree]

We've 150 cows through 3 robots free access n thinking we should look at grazing, theres the A n B, A n B n C ideas but what sort of acreage would you work on for these areas? fields may not be the handiest and in north Lancashire so not the driest in a good summer
Cows can go outside in a loafing yard but otherwise housed on mattresses n sawdust and currently over 10,200 litres. Would it be worth it?? or are we looking at more work fetching cows back in?

 

[Bald Rick]

We've 150 cows through 3 robots free access n thinking we should look at grazing, theres the A n B, A n B n C ideas but what sort of acreage would you work on for these areas? fields may not be the handiest and in north Lancashire so not the driest in a good summer
Cows can go outside in a loafing yard but otherwise housed on mattresses n sawdust and currently over 10,200 litres. Would it be worth it?? or are we looking at more work fetching cows back in?

Milk price is good/OK at the moment .. why compromise it? Though if you are really keen to graze, have a look at what Moorepark have been doing with their robot/grazing setup in Ireland though I am sure there are others on here who graze and can give you direct tips etc

 

[upnortheast]

IMO grazing is the most difficult part of robot farming to get right, especially as you say your fields are not handy. Have a look at how others manage it but I suspect with your yields you would be best as you are

 

[pappuller]

IMO grazing is the most difficult part of robot farming to get right, especially as you say your fields are not handy. Have a look at how others manage it but I suspect with your yields you would be best as you are

We thought we'd give it a go this year, got all the paddocks planned out and then bottled it and bought a 2 nd hand 0 grazer, loafing on a 13 acre piece next to the sheds with tmr and starting 0 grazing nxt week.

 

[Hanspree]

IMO grazing is the most difficult part of robot farming to get right, especially as you say your fields are not handy. Have a look at how others manage it but I suspect with your yields you would be best as you are

Cheers. Was hoping someone would say that, just looking for reassurance. Just thinking about it because you never know what processors and supermarkets are up to next..

 

[sheep600]

i work on a farm with robots we let cow go out for a hour every morning while we bed up and put silage in and one group goes out again after dinner. they went up about a ltr a day. but its a lot of work

 

[Chips]

We graze 24hr/day from mid March to late October , grazing 12hr/ day at the shoulders is the hardest , once 24hr grazing it's lots easier than fully housed due to less bedding and feeder wagon work although I still do buffer throughout the year . Certainly no more cows to fetch due to the added incentive for cows to milk to get to the next paddock . Stale cows that aren't as keen still have the incentive of not be left out on their own and so come back to the shed . Stale cows when fully housed have less incentive as all the company and feed they require is available without the need to go to the robot .
Downside is that due to the buffer and robot concentrate the cows will not graze paddocks down hard enough to ensure quality regrowth and thus to stop that becoming a viscous circle you need to top or move dry stock around to clean up which adds work but not as much as you save from not having to feed tmr every day , bed so often and lug slurry with the added benefit of grass being cheaper than silage .
This is one robot though , walking distances obviously increase the more robots you have and thus may not work as well

 

[Sid]

We graze 24hr/day from mid March to late October , grazing 12hr/ day at the shoulders is the hardest , once 24hr grazing it's lots easier than fully housed due to less bedding and feeder wagon work although I still do buffer throughout the year . Certainly no more cows to fetch due to the added incentive for cows to milk to get to the next paddock . Stale cows that aren't as keen still have the incentive of not be left out on their own and so come back to the shed . Stale cows when fully housed have less incentive as all the company and feed they require is available without the need to go to the robot .
Downside is that due to the buffer and robot concentrate the cows will not graze paddocks down hard enough to ensure quality regrowth and thus to stop that becoming a viscous circle you need to top or move dry stock around to clean up which adds work but not as much as you save from not having to feed tmr every day , bed so often and lug slurry with the added benefit of grass being cheaper than silage .
This is one robot though , walking distances obviously increase the more robots you have and thus may not work as well

Are you on ab or abc grazing?

 

[Chips]

Are you on ab or abc grazing?

AB , the buffer negates the need for C

 

[pine_guy]

Are you on ab or abc grazing?

And what area do you graze for a cow? @Chips