You spin me right round, baby

[Beef farmer]

No it's going to be a right headache as we have mains & borehole to each clean room, electric all over the place and are constantly digging through pipes of one sort or another because no one had the foresight to make scale drawings of the run of each one & its approx. depth
Heed the warning people!

Oh, and we have to destroy 3 perfectly good clean rooms and make internal alterations to the sheds.

On the up side, .............. a good nights sleep some time in 2019

2019? Really? I was expecting may 2018

 

[Cuthbert]

Milfos platform which we rate as it has a double H beam between nylon rollers (critically without bearing) spaced at 600mm. GEA are supplying electronics including their backing gate & auto footbath and NEEDAP collars.
Yes to ACRs but no to retention bars as we think our cows on a x3 will milk out before the exit. Haven't gone for auto flush either and are looking at running the cups through a peracetic bath cunning housed between the pre treatment person & the cups on to stop them coming together for a chat!
Meters are not iCAR approved as we don't milk record. However they will read yield and constituents so will give us the info we currently get off the robots. Crucially the meters do not need much in the way of servicing which will be a huge saving over time. Running costs were one of the KPIs we looked at.
We have the ability to both pre & post spray through the iPUD which is also running LED lights so the cups on person knows if it's an attention cow or not. Looking in to ensuring that the teat spray is automatically primed rather than manually primed at the beginning of each milking.

We also liked the Pearson but it was more ££s and the engineer isn't as close as the Milfos guy who is only 30 minutes away.

Thanks for that

 

[Cows 'n grass]

Are you not tempted to move to an autumn or predominantly autumn calving herd?

3 X milking and housed September to March then 2 X and grazing for 6 months. They're good little grazers these brown jobs..

 

[Bald Rick]

Thanks for that

No problem

You mentioned Waikato. Just for info, they appear to have filled their order book for this season - at least until autumn as they werent desperately keen to strike a deal. Same is true for a lot of the manufacturers as there has been a substantial interest in rotaries recently according to those we spoke to

 

[Grassman247]

No problem

You mentioned Waikato. Just for info, they appear to have filled their order book for this season - at least until autumn as they werent desperately keen to strike a deal. Same is true for a lot of the manufacturers as there has been a substantial interest in rotaries recently according to those we spoke to

I really hope someone from milfos has explained to you how they are going to earth you platform with those nylon rollers.

I’d buy a Waikato over a milfos hands down any day.

 

[Cuthbert]

No problem

You mentioned Waikato. Just for info, they appear to have filled their order book for this season - at least until autumn as they werent desperately keen to strike a deal. Same is true for a lot of the manufacturers as there has been a substantial interest in rotaries recently according to those we spoke to

Yes dairy master don't seem to be interested Waikato sales rep is keen and so is Gea but the Gea man hasn't given me any prices yet he said he's got a job near Anglesey with milfos platform no rush for us yet just pricing up and making decisions for future looking at 50 point 400 cows at the moment

 

[Stinker]

If you are not having anyone at cups off how are you going to get away without retention bars for units kicked off, low yield, problem with the unit etc.

 

[ollie989898]

Are you not tempted to move to an autumn or predominantly autumn calving herd?

3 X milking and housed September to March then 2 X and grazing for 6 months. They're good little grazers these brown jobs..
View attachment 623544

Now they look a picture, when you post photos like that, you do have to wonder why you'd even bother trying any other system!

 

[Cows 'n grass]

Now they look a picture, when you post photos like that, you do have to wonder why you'd even bother trying any other system!

I might put up a picture later of the ones still out now, that might make you question the system. Fekin rain.

 

[More to life]

If you are not having anyone at cups off how are you going to get away without retention bars for units kicked off, low yield, problem with the unit etc.

I wondered that but I've never milked on a roundabout. I saw one last year operating with one man because they had s retention bar

 

[Stinker]

Without them I think you will be looking at a 3 men on the parlour, 4 if you count bringing the cows round.

 

[Fraserb]

We don't have retention bars or a person at cups off, the odd problem cow just stops the parlour and one of the milkers goes to it.

 

[Cuthbert]

We don't have retention bars or a person at cups off, the odd problem cow just stops the parlour and one of the milkers goes to it.

Hi what make is yours

 

[Fraserb]

Hi what make is yours

GEA for everything.

 

[Bald Rick]

2019? Really? I was expecting may 2018

Given a fair wind & the Gods aligned, we are aiming to be turning at the end of July BUT that is so dependent on all the trades coming together. Having said that, we are having McKnight to install with Kev Cooke as the engineer and the builder and sparky are having fun at the moment so it's a case of fingers crossed

 

[Bald Rick]

Are you not tempted to move to an autumn or predominantly autumn calving herd?

3 X milking and housed September to March then 2 X and grazing for 6 months. They're good little grazers these brown jobs..
View attachment 623544

Cows look good @Cows 'n grass

One of our problems is that the home farm is long & thin and could be awkward to graze properly without a lot of walking. We have a very slight autumn bias at the moment but may increase this.
Our heifers on the bots are not being milked properly with the bots at the moment as we have to be very careful not to allow them to over milk - being Jerseys they quick cotton to the cake and can overdo so we have throttled them back but it does mean that they are only milking x2 at the moment and we are missing potential. Hopefully the parlour will address this.
Having said that, who knows what the future holds in terms of having to graze to satisfy contracts so it may well be that we adopt your idea

 

[Bald Rick]

I really hope someone from milfos has explained to you how they are going to earth you platform with those nylon rollers.

I’d buy a Waikato over a milfos hands down any day.

Seems to me that everything is going electric these days so why not the cows too???


In truth, there is a hell of a lot of rebar & weld mesh going down to which everything will be bonded and if there was a problem with static, Milfos would never sell a parlour so I am confident that this will not be an issue and we are happy with our choice

 

[Fraserb]

Seems to me that everything is going electric these days so why not the cows too???


In truth, there is a hell of a lot of rebar & weld mesh going down to which everything will be bonded and if there was a problem with static, Milfos would never sell a parlour so I am confident that this will not be an issue and we are happy with our choice

Our gea is on nylon rollers as well and no issues.

 

[Walwyn]

Isn't there 1 metal roller on GEA to connect the 2 beams?

 

[Bald Rick]

If you are not having anyone at cups off how are you going to get away without retention bars for units kicked off, low yield, problem with the unit etc.

TBH at x3 if the odd heifer or cow kicks off or hasn't finished, it isn't a big problem. At present, we average 6min 20 of box time and it takes 1min 40 average for the laser to scan & attach the cups so our cows are in the range of 5min or so to milk out. Persistent offenders will probably go but from what I hear, cows love being spun and are relaxed so hoping it wont be a big issue.
Time will tell