Value of lely a4 robots

[The funny farm]

Hi all.

Currently milking with 2 lely a4 robots but planning to replace with a parlour in the next couple of years or possibly sooner. The machines have suited fine for our current stage of life but not for the next step.

What is the value on 2 x 2014 a4 machines, central unit and crs. Approx 450k milking on each machine and Where's best to advertise for sale?

 

[TheRanger]

@Bald Rick

 

[Bald Rick]

10 years old, superseded by A5 (with a whisper that A5 Next is coming soon) but I can see a market for them definitely

We sold ours through word of mouth from Lely dealers so I’d start by asking your local dealer

 

[yin ewe]

Was offered the chance to change our 10 year old A4 to A5 for £70k from our local dealer. Lely dealers will be less keen to buy yours if they aren't selling you new ones. Might be worth contacting Tim Gibson to hear what he says.

 

[happycows]

£25k for the 2 is my guess of a valuation.

I got £15k for 2 fullwoods at 14 years old. Also had oopf and massive amounts of spares from few robots I’d broken for spares.

 

[workin f nowt]

Hi all.

Currently milking with 2 lely a4 robots but planning to replace with a parlour in the next couple of years or possibly sooner. The machines have suited fine for our current stage of life but not for the next step.

What is the value on 2 x 2014 a4 machines, central unit and crs. Approx 450k milking on each machine and Where's best to advertise for sale?

Try Tim Gibson at Bedale

 

[Nathan818]

Was offered the chance to change our 10 year old A4 to A5 for £70k from our local dealer. Lely dealers will be less keen to buy yours if they aren't selling you new ones. Might be worth contacting Tim Gibson to hear what he says.

Anyone know the price of a new a5 without trade in for comparison?

 

[yin ewe]

Anyone know the price of a new a5 without trade in for comparison?

I think he told me £140k ish but not sure. Wasn't really interested so wasn't taking heed tbh. That was in May and there was a 9 month waiting apparently.

 

[Homesy]

I think he told me £140k ish but not sure. Wasn't really interested so wasn't taking heed tbh. That was in May and there was a 9 month waiting apparently.

£140k to milk 50 cows
....kin hell !
You could put in a basic 25:50 for less money and have them milked in half an hour. No wonder more people are taking them out than putting them in.

 

[Milkcow365]

£140k to milk 50 cows
....kin hell !
You could put in a basic 25:50 for less money and have them milked in half an hour. No wonder more people are taking them out than putting them in.

Counted up 30 in 30mile radius of here going in in next 6months

 

[Wesley]

Counted up 30 in 30mile radius of here going in in next 6months

Reckon there’s about 28 currently working in a 3 mile radius of here. Christ knows how many more within 10 miles.

 

[yin ewe]

£140k to milk 50 cows
....kin hell !
You could put in a basic 25:50 for less money and have them milked in half an hour. No wonder more people are taking them out than putting them in.

Labour.

 

[pappuller]

Reckon there’s about 28 currently working in a 3 mile radius of here. Christ knows how many more within 10 miles.

Your little area certainly appears to be robot central

 

[celtis man]

Labour.

I personally think these dairies are in for a massive shock about our labour

 

[nonemouse]

£140k to milk 50 cows
....kin hell !
You could put in a basic 25:50 for less money and have them milked in half an hour. No wonder more people are taking them out than putting them in.

A high proportion of the robots being put in, will be part funded via one the grant schemes ( which nearly halves the cost) and depending on yeild and cow type you could be looking at nearer 70 cows per robot.

 

[Macus3]

Also interested in this post as I'm currently contemplating similar move. @happycows I believe I read previously you've made a similar move. How did u and cows adjust? Cost/yield/ working conditions?

 

[happycows]

Also interested in this post as I'm currently contemplating similar move. @happycows I believe I read previously you've made a similar move. How did u and cows adjust? Cost/yield/ working conditions?

We are going to be down on litres per cow this year but milk solids are up and we are milking more cows.
Feeding less blend as still have full control through parlour and oopf of purchased feed. Currently doing 25.5l at 4.8bf and 3.8ptn 225 days average since calving so lots for drying off Feb/March.

After a really difficult summer for the cows with transition from robot to parlour and being turfed outside in some very trying conditions on a farm with barely any grazing infrastructure, amongst a building site we had an excellent pd session couple weeks ago. 85 of the 87 in front vet were incalf with 9 held to earlier services than last ai service.
New computer program activity took a while to settle down and while busy building I didn’t hold back on getting them served.
Another 35 to pd in couple weeks and hopefully will be a good percentage front end in my April to September calving window. Will source some extra incalf heifers to calve when I’ve calculated my new Arla seasonality scheme.

We are working a little bit harder with milking but it’s much less stressful than the robots.
It’s a really nice parlour to milk in and as a family we are never short of volunteers to milk. It’s just over a hour to milk and 2 hours start to finish with scraping and feeding up to.

It’s just starting to show how much easier it seems to be on the cows.
They are much more settled between milkings and appear to be spending less time on their feet. I think we are going to see an improvement on culling rates and we were pretty low before. Definitely doing less feet but part of that could be due to new facilities

I guess if they we’re doing 60 litres before on 4x a day and now peaking at 42/45 with less standing and queuing for milking it’s going to be a bit easier on them.

There are some cracking robot farms and farmers doing a sterling job but after 15 years with lack of dealer backup and tired worn out machine’s at the end I’d had enough of them.

 

[Macus3]

Thanks for your honest reply! Ive had the same ideas that itd be easier on cows and less stressful than running robots it's reassuring to hear first hand that things have turned out for you the same

 

[Enry]

A high proportion of the robots being put in, will be part funded via one the grant schemes ( which nearly halves the cost) and depending on yeild and cow type you could be looking at nearer 70 cows per robot.

50 seems a more realistic figure unless aiming for lower yields

 

[Nathan818]

50 seems a more realistic figure unless aiming for lower yields

All depends on your milk speed and how many visits you want really. We run 60-65 with no problems, average 10500 litres, 2.8 milk speed, 2.8 visits and ~10% free time. Might push more litres from some shy heifers if we dropped numbers but hard to argue against milking higher numbers to dilute the cost.