Staffing requirements for 180 cows?

[Winklepicker]

We’re just considering expanding current herd to around 180 cows, housed and calved all year round. There will be a new parlour and cubicle house with auto scrapers. My brother, who’ll be running it has the options of a new parlour to be either a 16/32 swing over herringbone or 3 robots with auto segregation. We have had recent staffing issues and been let down badly by him so the thought of employing someone isn’t very palatable at the moment so this is why we’re considering robots. He thinks that with the herringbone it would need himself and 2 others, and with the robots, himself and 1 other. I feel with robots that he’d manage on his own especially with the auto segregation as if you’d need to employ someone with robots then you’re losing the main benefit of robots.
We also rear our own replacements.
Contractors will do silaging and slurry spreading.

What are others views and experiences?

 

[thewalrus]

with staff he’d have to consider a bad day when people phone in sick etc. with 3 robots would it be easier to survive a day or week on his own and get all the work done. Always handy to have some form of help around to get down time. No help means no time off.
As long as he’s not block calving I’d go robots.

 

[pappuller]

We’re just considering expanding current herd to around 180 cows, housed and calved all year round. There will be a new parlour and cubicle house with auto scrapers. My brother, who’ll be running it has the options of a new parlour to be either a 16/32 swing over herringbone or 3 robots with auto segregation. We have had recent staffing issues and been let down badly by him so the thought of employing someone isn’t very palatable at the moment so this is why we’re considering robots. He thinks that with the herringbone it would need himself and 2 others, and with the robots, himself and 1 other. I feel with robots that he’d manage on his own especially with the auto segregation as if you’d need to employ someone with robots then you’re losing the main benefit of robots.
We also rear our own replacements.
Contractors will do silaging and slurry spreading.

What are others views and experiences?

Your brother is correct with regards to the robots, one man cannot manage 180 coos and followers 24/7 365

 

[Llmmm]

We’re just considering expanding current herd to around 180 cows, housed and calved all year round. There will be a new parlour and cubicle house with auto scrapers. My brother, who’ll be running it has the options of a new parlour to be either a 16/32 swing over herringbone or 3 robots with auto segregation. We have had recent staffing issues and been let down badly by him so the thought of employing someone isn’t very palatable at the moment so this is why we’re considering robots. He thinks that with the herringbone it would need himself and 2 others, and with the robots, himself and 1 other. I feel with robots that he’d manage on his own especially with the auto segregation as if you’d need to employ someone with robots then you’re losing the main benefit of robots.
We also rear our own replacements.
Contractors will do silaging and slurry spreading.

What are others views and experiences?

It all depends on your system highyielders tmr need more staff.Personal i think the most profitable is block calve one full time one relief and students or extra relief at calving.

 

[Winklepicker]

Forgot to mention that these are cross bred cows and averaging 8500 litres, also milk buyer doesn’t want summer milk and wants it in autumn so currently calving cows in July and heifers in spring. The move to AYR calving was to suit robots.

 

[Beef farmer]

Anyone who wished to keep cows housed all year round is mad to not install robots when making an investment into milking.

 

[pappuller]

Forgot to mention that these are cross bred cows and averaging 8500 litres, also milk buyer doesn’t want summer milk and wants it in autumn so currently calving cows in July and heifers in spring. The move to AYR calving was to suit robots.

Surely maximising your milk contract is the 1st priority ?

 

[Winklepicker]

Surely maximising your milk contract is the 1st priority ?

Yes, hence why majority are dry May/June and coming to peak yield Sept/Oct

 

[jimmer]

Regardless of contract, is it viable to house 8500l cows ayr on robots?

 

[pappuller]

Yes, hence why majority are dry May/June and coming to peak yield Sept/Oct

You will not be maximising your robots at certain times of the year and vice versa you may not have enough capacity at other times.

 

[Bald Rick]

Anyone who wished to keep cows housed all year round is mad to not install robots when making an investment into milking.

** swings in ... swings out **

 

[pappuller]

Forgot to mention that these are cross bred cows and averaging 8500 litres, also milk buyer doesn’t want summer milk and wants it in autumn so currently calving cows in July and heifers in spring. The move to AYR calving was to suit robots.

We run as flat a profile as possible aiming for 50/52 coos per robot Ayr it works well for us and we have tried to load cows in the autumn but it just became a pia collecting too many cows and general overcrowding in the shed.

 

[Repeat]

Personally I would go for a simple 16 - 20 unit herringbone , with auto feeding and drafting out of the parlour. Possibly with oopf as awell with a easy feed silage system. Two people should easily manage this, might even manage a one man weekend.

 

[Cowabunga]

We’re just considering expanding current herd to around 180 cows, housed and calved all year round. There will be a new parlour and cubicle house with auto scrapers. My brother, who’ll be running it has the options of a new parlour to be either a 16/32 swing over herringbone or 3 robots with auto segregation. We have had recent staffing issues and been let down badly by him so the thought of employing someone isn’t very palatable at the moment so this is why we’re considering robots. He thinks that with the herringbone it would need himself and 2 others, and with the robots, himself and 1 other. I feel with robots that he’d manage on his own especially with the auto segregation as if you’d need to employ someone with robots then you’re losing the main benefit of robots.
We also rear our own replacements.
Contractors will do silaging and slurry spreading.

What are others views and experiences?

Your brother would still have calvings, issues, a heck of a lot of maintenance and repairs, cows not milked and whatever, and no days off if on his own with 180 cows. It is not on. He would never cope and do a good job.
Your robots would just not replace two men. There’s always work that requires two pairs of hands, plus weekends or the occasional holiday.
if anything, for at least the first few months, there is likely to be MORE work with robots than parlour.

 

[Moorlands]

We’re just considering expanding current herd to around 180 cows, housed and calved all year round. There will be a new parlour and cubicle house with auto scrapers. My brother, who’ll be running it has the options of a new parlour to be either a 16/32 swing over herringbone or 3 robots with auto segregation. We have had recent staffing issues and been let down badly by him so the thought of employing someone isn’t very palatable at the moment so this is why we’re considering robots. He thinks that with the herringbone it would need himself and 2 others, and with the robots, himself and 1 other. I feel with robots that he’d manage on his own especially with the auto segregation as if you’d need to employ someone with robots then you’re losing the main benefit of robots.
We also rear our own replacements.
Contractors will do silaging and slurry spreading.

What are others views and experiences?

Yeah your brother would need some help!
Where do you fit into this equation?

 

[Martyn]

We have three diffrent neighouring farms who have put robots in the last 4/5years, they all now admit they put more time into getting the robot milking their cows than they used to spend milking them in herring bone parlours, they also struggle to take any holidays as cant find staff robot minded. i would work on 80-90 cows per labour unit, if your trying to do the job right, getting cows back incalf intime etc. Why the idea to increase numbers, are you making good money currently with lower numbers. 180 cows will kill 1 man how ever good they are,

 

[nonemouse]

NO WAY would 1 person look after 180 cows plus rear calves etc for an extended length of time, you could justify robots on improved milk yields and better animal health, save 1 fulltime worker probably. but 1 man cant be on call for all that time without regular days off and there will still be jobs where you really need a second pair of hands

 

[Beef farmer]

** swings in ... swings out **

Ah rickster, you shoot from the hip, bots where never gonna work for you, same as I couldn't stick em. We dont love cows enough, need some time out and not at there becon call.
I've good friends going to stick 8 x a5s in, il guarantee they get them bots absolutely singing. But cows are life to them.

 

[deleted user 837354]

All business decisions in the dairy world need to be weighed carefully and should consider the fact that skilled or even semi-skilled labour may not be there in future. Saving 20,000 quid here or there with a setup might be the wrong thing to do, consider all options to reduce labour requirement, particularly daily or weekly tasks as much as possible.

Yes, contractors might be able to empty your slurry store or dung out young stock on rotation but they aren't going to handscrape the robot pad every day.

 

[More to life]

8500 cross bred cows that aren’t level profile would rule out robots before you start imo.With so many questions, why housed ayr? doesn’t your contract favor a level profile or would proper block calving be better? Is rearing your own replacements the best use of land?