Robots

kermit

Member
Location
Glos
Don't make the mistake of thinking that because Gea have a good reputation for conventional parlours, they must supply equally good robots.
Be sure to compare some running costs eg. Gea liner shells £240 each for plastic shell, so fail quite often.
Gea vac pump oil £53 / 10 lts, from Ford Fuels £10 / 10 lts .
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Best thing to do is find the 3 closest of each brand to you and speak to who ever deals with them every day, preferably who is also the person who pays the bills! Its not the snazzy set up the reps want to take you to that will show you the full picture or the bought and paid for green field site funded by a huge housing development land sale, its the smaller set ups you never hear about that will tell you what they are really like. It sounds like you would be mad to even consider GEA at present unless they give you the robots to try and drag their name back out of the AMS mud. IMHO its a waste of time considering anything other than Lely or Delaval or possibly Fullwood if you have a good dealer local to you at present. There are a lot of people who wish they bought Lely/Delaval but not many who wish they bought SAC/GEA/Boumatic!
 
Best thing to do is find the 3 closest of each brand to you and speak to who ever deals with them every day, preferably who is also the person who pays the bills! Its not the snazzy set up the reps want to take you to that will show you the full picture or the bought and paid for green field site funded by a huge housing development land sale, its the smaller set ups you never hear about that will tell you what they are really like. It sounds like you would be mad to even consider GEA at present unless they give you the robots to try and drag their name back out of the AMS mud. IMHO its a waste of time considering anything other than Lely or Delaval or possibly Fullwood if you have a good dealer local to you at present. There are a lot of people who wish they bought Lely/Delaval but not many who wish they bought SAC/GEA/Boumatic!
Would agree with the majority of this but would exclude de Laval robots could take you to several farms that have a lot of problems. Lely or Fulwood but only a new Fulwood not an old one. In my opinion
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
Would agree with the majority of this but would exclude de Laval robots could take you to several farms that have a lot of problems. Lely or Fulwood but only a new Fulwood not an old one. In my opinion
Every machine has issues.
I could take you to see a guy who sold all his cows due to Lely robots. He couldn't sleep at night or leave the farm for long due to worry that something was going wrong or miss an alarm.
 

yin ewe

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Co Antrim
Every machine has issues.
I could take you to see a guy who sold all his cows due to Lely robots. He couldn't sleep at night or leave the farm for long due to worry that something was going wrong or miss an alarm.

We have all heard different horror stories about different makes, but from what you say in this case, it sounds like the man was the problem and not the robots. It doesn't cost me a second thought leaving the farm for a day, in fact I do 5/6 hours, 3 days a week to go to my work.
I've said it before backup, backup, backup is the key to robotic milking, the machine is only as good as the backup.
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
It's not the guys only business.
Milking cows with red robots was not good.

That’s why it’s important to find out about how the people near you are getting on, someone the other end of the country who completely different dealers/fitters will have a different to what you will receive.

The fact mr A had a nightmare with delaval in Fife or Mr B’s GEAs are brilliant in Marlow is completely irreverent if your 600 mile away from both of them.
 

richy

Member
I have been looking at many different robot farms recently all red or blue one's. I know you need to be careful what you are told but it seems to me that aside from the milking process which works fine on both machines, the big difference is the guided versus free access system. I think maybe the red machine is slightly better but with new models out that may change. The red machine seems to have a much better second hand market. In favour of the delaval I think you can feed more outside of the robot, most lely farms were on at most feeding for 25 liters at the fence.
An interesting comment made by a large delaval farm manager who had been working on a free access system previously was he wouldn't go back to it.
 

richy

Member
Is that before or after the lump sum demanded by Lely to buy one of their s/h machines through a dealer?
Not a expert on buying used machines unlike yourself just looking around used delaval seem very cheap (so obviously depreciation is massive for first couple of years).
I have a delaval main dealer quite close to me do and lely seem a bit like scientology I would be very nervous dealing with them.
 

Scholsey

Member
Location
Herefordshire
Not a expert on buying used machines unlike yourself just looking around used delaval seem very cheap (so obviously depreciation is massive for first couple of years).
I have a delaval main dealer quite close to me do and lely seem a bit like scientology I would be very nervous dealing with them.

Great analogy lol I always compared them to Apple and like to tie you in.
 

westvalley87

New Member
This thread has completely thrown me now. Was looking at two monobox's and been to 3 farms who have them up and running in this country. It does concern me that the monobox in this country doesn't have any big farms up and running, which are high yielding cattle. we are currently averaging 32litres @ twice a day milking so was hoping for an increase due to the increased no. of visits per day through robots. I am in the fortunate position that the blue,red and green ones are all local and was leaning towards the monobox but if like people say people are removing the in Europe then that says it all. I was told (by the salesman) so taking this with a pinch of salt... but he said half of the new robots going in at the moment in Holland were monobox?! I suppose its just the unknown... I know GEA have a bad rep after their initial venture with M1one, but was hoping the monobox had overcome a lot of the issues.
 
This thread has completely thrown me now. Was looking at two monobox's and been to 3 farms who have them up and running in this country. It does concern me that the monobox in this country doesn't have any big farms up and running, which are high yielding cattle. we are currently averaging 32litres @ twice a day milking so was hoping for an increase due to the increased no. of visits per day through robots. I am in the fortunate position that the blue,red and green ones are all local and was leaning towards the monobox but if like people say people are removing the in Europe then that says it all. I was told (by the salesman) so taking this with a pinch of salt... but he said half of the new robots going in at the moment in Holland were monobox?! I suppose its just the unknown... I know GEA have a bad rep after their initial venture with M1one, but was hoping the monobox had overcome a lot of the issues.
'Hoping' isn't going to help if you make a cock of choosing what make to install.
I can't comment on other makes but Lely works, fullstop.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 4 2.3%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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