Farmer Focus: Robot milking couldn’t have gone better
Tom Hildreth © Tim Scrivener Four weeks since we milked the first cow through the robot and, at risk of sounding overly smug, it couldn’t have gone better.
The team from Longtown were great to work with. We had them on site for 36 hours.
We spent every one of those 36 hours gathering five cows at a time and penning them behind a robot, so the only way back to food and bed was through the box.
See also: What’s in Your Livestock Shed? visits a £1m robotic dairy
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By the time Lely went home, the cows were no longer trying to jump the front gate when the robot arm swung under them.
By day four of manning the shed 24 hours a day, we had both day and night shift pushing every cow through twice and were achieving four milkings a day.
We carried this on until day seven, when we were given the green light to remove the fences and give the cows free access.
Out of 120 cows, we were having to fetch about 25 each day; that is now fewer than 10 – which seem to be the same stubborn ones.
Most of these “collect cows” are well over 200 days in milk, which means they don’t need the energy from the cake.
When they calve down again later this year, I’m sure we will show them the robot once and not see them on the collect list again.
We have seen a good 12% increase in milk yield since November. (I’m discounting December because of the maize issues.)
Yields are currently at 40kg a cow of energy-corrected milk, which I am quite happy with, given we are over 200 days in milk. I think the real gains will be when they calve down again, but also when we go back to all-year-round calving.
All in all, we have had a relatively easy start up: having one cow calve in January and nothing in February certainly helps. It has meant our full attention has been on the cows and learning a new way of farming.
The backup from Lely has been great and they have solved a few teething problems.
But the help we have had from the family and friends has been invaluable, especially as a couple of the friends were in our shoes not too long ago.