Robotic milking

[yin ewe]

6) Animal health and management

Spend more time with the right cows, forget some easy to get in calf exist until I have to dry them off

I sometimes 'forget' about a cow, she calves, gets put into the robot for 1st milking and away she goes, next time you see her is for AI. Those are best cows but all too rare.

 

[chas]

Haven't been using robots here but just over 8 months but the one big regret is letting my builders steer me away from installing grids around the robots as don't underestimate how much WATER they will produce and once mixed with slurry it adds massively to volume of slurry and ease of scraping as water is a bugger to move with any scraper.

Will retrofit grids at some point as I guess water adds an extra hour+ to my day and will also add grids at end of cubicles so then only straight line scraping ?

Had exactly the same problem

 

[surprisefarmer]

I sometimes 'forget' about a cow, she calves, gets put into the robot for 1st milking and away she goes, next time you see her is for AI. Those are best cows but all too rare.

I have a few of those, but I also have the girls who will not go in to the robot until they see me WHY???

 

[pappuller]

It would be interesting to hear from the experienced users (over 5 years) who are now well placed to give an accurate summary on there decision to go Robotic.

Suggested headings.

1) Daily work schedule
2) Operation/user friendly
3) Reliability and service support.
4) Energy consumption
5) Performance/ milk yield/ quality
6) Animal health and management
7) Profitability
8) Other issues /lifestyle/management support/updates etc
9) ONE key item you would change
10) General summary

It's up to you if you want to add make of robot, number of robots/cows, age of robots etc. Out of interest, it would be beneficial if you could also mark the the above heading out of 10, 10 being extremely happy.

A few words for each heading would also be interesting.

Nearly 5 yrs in.
5.45am start all stock tasks completed for 9.30 if two of us on duty, no need to rush.
Lely t4c v user friendly as are the robots, never really wished I had manual attachment.
Reliability and support both excellent, they are machines and they will break down but not very often.
Electric usage £18000/yr for 2m litres and a 4 family farm house with kids who like to leave lights on.
Milk yield increase of 15/20%over the parlour and 2x milking.
Milk quality improvement but more diet related.
Cow health similar no real difference other than we see more ecoli mastitas but no more overall cases.
With a higher cop than our conventional system the extra output we still seem to be paying hector the tax inspector twice a year although due to AIA not as much as we used to.
Lifestyle is what you make it, I've always been in the work to live camp. Always like to finish before 6 and regularly have a few hours off in the day.
Would have put 4 bots in instead of 3 originally.
Happy with my decision and will give me a few extra years with the herd but not in the pit.

 

[Bald Rick]

11) Coitus interruptus .............. Dang those alarm calls

12) Coitus neverstartus .......... Dang the thought of those alarm calls

 

[thewalrus]

11) Coitus interruptus .............. Dang those alarm calls

12) Coitus neverstartus .......... Dang the thought of those alarm calls

For the 1/2 robot men is it really that bad? Say compared to a Relief Milker not showing?

 

[Spear]

For the 1/2 robot men is it really that bad? Say compared to a Relief Milker not showing?

Depends if you like being woke at 2-3am. Always seems to be at that time problems occur.

 

[Spear]

Here’s a question for you that I don’t think has been asked before.....

How do you deal with your fresh calved cows and getting their milk to the calves?


Personally I restrict access to robots and pick them in when I feed the calves but when you suddenly get a load calve at once it’s very time consuming.

 

[pappuller]

Here’s a question for you that I don’t think has been asked before.....

How do you deal with your fresh calved cows and getting their milk to the calves?


Personally I restrict access to robots and pick them in when I feed the calves but when you suddenly get a load calve at once it’s very time consuming.

Fresh cow milked within 6 hrs of calving and then back onto straw pen and milked twice in next 24 hrs and into main herd on free access

 

[pappuller]

For the 1/2 robot men is it really that bad? Say compared to a Relief Milker not showing?

We get maybe 1 or 2 out of hrs calls per month, not a big issue imho

 

[Bald Rick]

We get maybe 1 or 2 out of hrs calls per month, not a big issue imho

that's why you have X kids (fill in correct number) you rascal

 

[Farm buy]

It would be interesting to hear from the experienced users (over 5 years) who are now well placed to give an accurate summary on there decision to go Robotic.

Suggested headings.

1) Daily work schedule
2) Operation/user friendly
3) Reliability and service support.
4) Energy consumption
5) Performance/ milk yield/ quality
6) Animal health and management
7) Profitability
8) Other issues /lifestyle/management support/updates etc
9) ONE key item you would change
10) General summary

It's up to you if you want to add make of robot, number of robots/cows, age of robots etc. Out of interest, it would be beneficial if you could also mark the the above heading out of 10, 10 being extremely happy.

A few words for each heading would also be interesting.

Really interesting thread that you have started here, Thank you.

 

[pappuller]

that's why you have X kids (fill in correct number) you rascal

2, both of which are too big for chimney duties now

 

[s line]

Me ,i work for 4 farms. 2 are parlour farms and 2 are lely A3 robots.

With the parlour farms i,m in the pit and all my work comes to me.I never leave the pit,if only half a side comes in i will never leave the pit to go and get them in.So there for all my work comes to me.

I train the cows and me to never fetch the cows!

With the robot farms.I am looking at the computer which is fantastic by the way and nice and easy and infomative.

So this picks out my late cows and attention cows.With that got to go up and down cubicles and find them.

Theres always one cow you can,t find!Trouble is you have walked past her 5 times and missed her!!

What would i do if i had my own farm??

Answers on a postcard please.

 

[Windmilker]

NFU SW Dairy board have a visit there .....i may go for a peek and see how their grazing on bots is going

I went in October, they will struggle to get the visits whilst grazing the grazing platform is to far away and all at one end in a dog leg. They will go out but not come back. The rest was as you would expect, just replacing the GEA slurry robot with a Joz.

 

[Sid]

I went in October, they will struggle to get the visits whilst grazing the grazing platform is to far away and all at one end in a dog leg. They will go out but not come back. The rest was as you would expect, just replacing the GEA slurry robot with a Joz.

Joz is working better but have found they need more strategically placed slats.

Who ever designed the grazing layout like you say got it completely wrong.
Whole layout needs redesigning before spring! Trying to do A B C D grazing is a step too far.

 

[Chips]

Me ,i work for 4 farms. 2 are parlour farms and 2 are lely A3 robots.

With the parlour farms i,m in the pit and all my work comes to me.I never leave the pit,if only half a side comes in i will never leave the pit to go and get them in.So there for all my work comes to me.

I train the cows and me to never fetch the cows!

With the robot farms.I am looking at the computer which is fantastic by the way and nice and easy and infomative.

So this picks out my late cows and attention cows.With that got to go up and down cubicles and find them.

Theres always one cow you can,t find!Trouble is you have walked past her 5 times and missed her!!

What would i do if i had my own farm??

Answers on a postcard please.

Late cows tend to be the same each day so you could put some marker paint on them if it's a problem . I just send them as I go around cleaning the beds thus two jobs in one and going slowly around thus don't miss them .
I think some manufacturer make a system to tell you which part of the barn they are in.
Maybe on large farms they should make transponders with a LED that flashes once overdue for milking .

 

[Windmilker]

Joz is working better but have found they need more strategically placed slats.

Who ever designed the grazing layout like you say got it completely wrong.
Whole layout needs redesigning before spring! Trying to do A B C D grazing is a step too far.

So what was wrong with GEA scraper? Why does the Joz need more slats? Doesn't it move as much slurry? I'm told the problem with must robotic scrapers is simply they are too light.

 

[Sid]

So what was wrong with GEA scraper? Why does the Joz need more slats? Doesn't it move as much slurry? I'm told the problem with must robotic scrapers is simply they are too light.

The GEA works best with a totally slatted shed which this one isnt. , the joz is trying to push it too far, slats every 15ft would reduce the loading of the scraper.

 

[upnortheast]

I think some manufacturer make a system to tell you which part of the barn they are in.

Using Lely Qwes-HR Collars and a phone app will show where a cow is within 400m ( I think that is the range ) of the base receiver