With robot feeding advancing in leaps and bounds, it’s no wonder that there were several systems on show at the Livestock Event 2014.

Dutch company Trioliet has had a T40 feeding system that uses blocks of silage or bales of straw for some while, but at this year’s event it was showing a simpler, cheaper T30 system that fills the 3cu m robot automatically from bunkers.

See also: Triolet gets low down on compact feeder wagon

Typically, the farmer would have three or four 18cu m stainless steel bunkers that would put the required feed ration into the robot ready for it to be mixed and dispensed to the cows.

This would usually involve hay, maize and silage, with concentrates put into the robot via an auger. Cows can be fed up to 12 times a day and a pusher on the side of the robot moves uneaten feed back to the feed barrier as it goes along.

While Trioliet has installed some 80 systems across Europe, UK farmers have been relatively slow to take on the technology. However the company reckons that a couple of systems will be going on to UK farms before the end of this year.

See also: All the news and photos from the Livestock Event 2014