Rotary parlour help please!

Walwyn

Member
Location
West Wales
We have relocated matts from the herringbone so hopefully we are ok there!
This morning, with the aid of a hose pipe pointing down on exit stall no 2 seemed to be better.
We are finding that the first 150 cows are flying on but we do have a few awkward b******s in the second 150 that are standing in the entry point to the race and as soon as you go to get them in they turn around, upset all the others and head off down the collecting yard!
Do we rig up a longer race again or pull out a few difficult cows until the others are trained or do we set up some gates to hold 30 cows close to the entry point and get them in in batches??? Don't want to create bad habits!
Right now milking is a four person job so hope it gets better soon!
Dont be afraid to just walk away from those awkward ones. They'll either turn round by themselves, flow will continue and they'll be at the end or they'll walk on when there comfortable that noones looking at them. A little extra time now will save loads later.
I try and get through to staff milking here, especially at the start of the season, when flow stops you dont need to get up and push the whole group up, often its just one cow usually a timid heifer, once shes happy she walks on or another cow will push passed and away you go. If you keep pushing cows up they come to expect it.
Once the herd is settled, we find we got 1 or 2 matriachs that no one will pass, you just have to move them and flow resumes.
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
For your first few weeks is it worth having a small batch of problem cows? Put them through at the end? Once the others are happy, put them back in the herd 1/2 per day?
Atleast you'll get the herd through at a "propper" pace.
Probably a pain in the backside to seperate these 20? Off, dry cow shed?
 

PREES

Member
Location
SW Wales
For your first few weeks is it worth having a small batch of problem cows? Put them through at the end? Once the others are happy, put them back in the herd 1/2 per day?
Atleast you'll get the herd through at a "propper" pace.
Probably a pain in the backside to seperate these 20? Off, dry cow shed?
This is certainly part of our thinking as they are quite disruptive, the walk up to the entry race and just stop there and sometimes even push cows away to stop them entering!
 

Dead Rabbits

Member
Location
'Merica
We have 3 and a half off gates.

How does the speed influence getting cows off and staying off.

Cow flow on over the last couple of metres is fine, if they stop it is as at about 2 cow lengths from the platform. We walked them the exit race on the first cole of milkings and then moved them over to a temporary lengthened entry race over the last three milkings. We have a backing gate to move over from the old parlour if required but it is cow off flow that is the biggest worry.
I find cows can be more reluctant to get off and on at around the 5-6 second per cow rate. Only have 2.5 stall exit though.
 

PREES

Member
Location
SW Wales
Ok an update! We started milking in the parlour on Monday afternoon and by this morning we are getting about 150 cows/hour but with 3.5 people (2 at cows on and 1.5 keeping cows moving). We rigged up a hose pipe at cows off which gets most of them moving out of the stall and we created a swinging chain barrier get up which has stopped all but one or two trying to get back on. Current challenge is getting them to move straight off the bridge into the exit race and probably two or three times per milking we have to stand in the collecting yard to just move the odd awkward cow away from blocking the cows on race. We added a few gate hinges so we can hold about 15 - 20 cows up against the cows on race so we don't have cows moving back down the collecting yard each time we go in to move the awkward cows. This morning we only had to use this "holding pen" twice with the last 50 + cows.
We are going to locate a water trough just beyond the end of our exit race (which is quite long as our collecting yard is long and narrow) and hopefully that will draw them down the race a bit quicker freeing up the bridge. We are investing time in moving the cows off the platform and into the exit race to try to train the cows from day one.

How are we doing? Any other things that we should or must NOT do?
 

Milkcow365

Member
Location
Sw Scotland
Ok an update! We started milking in the parlour on Monday afternoon and by this morning we are getting about 150 cows/hour but with 3.5 people (2 at cows on and 1.5 keeping cows moving). We rigged up a hose pipe at cows off which gets most of them moving out of the stall and we created a swinging chain barrier get up which has stopped all but one or two trying to get back on. Current challenge is getting them to move straight off the bridge into the exit race and probably two or three times per milking we have to stand in the collecting yard to just move the odd awkward cow away from blocking the cows on race. We added a few gate hinges so we can hold about 15 - 20 cows up against the cows on race so we don't have cows moving back down the collecting yard each time we go in to move the awkward cows. This morning we only had to use this "holding pen" twice with the last 50 + cows.
We are going to locate a water trough just beyond the end of our exit race (which is quite long as our collecting yard is long and narrow) and hopefully that will draw them down the race a bit quicker freeing up the bridge. We are investing time in moving the cows off the platform and into the exit race to try to train the cows from day one.

How are we doing? Any other things that we should or must NOT do?
Surely just over thinking it all a bit? Youl have the same design of setup as plenty others? Surely just time and patience
 

PREES

Member
Location
SW Wales
Surely just over thinking it all a bit? Youl have the same design of setup as plenty others? Surely just time and patience
I hope so but having had cow flow problems and probably a poor routine in our old parlour we are paranoid that we want to start off the way we need to go on and I wanted to learn from everyone else's experience! Just don't know what to expect in terms of speed of progress!
 

Keep On

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
SW
I hope so but having had cow flow problems and probably a poor routine in our old parlour we are paranoid that we want to start off the way we need to go on and I wanted to learn from everyone else's experience! Just don't know what to expect in terms of speed of progress!
Be 6 months before staff and cows are used to it
 

Farm buy

Member
Livestock Farmer
Sorry for hijacking this thread, would anyone know where I could get a centre milk gland for an old rotary that we are attempting to put going, and and the pulsation device on the centre also
 

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