staring a dairy farm

browned

was just wondering how do u work the grazing system with the robots? i can't figure out how u'd move cows to new pastures. do they get drafted to new pastures after a certain amount of milkings, r does the farmer constantly move up the strip wire daily to keep cows in new pasture?

Humpty Dumpty

Have a read of this

CASE STUDY: RIDGE FARM

May 2010

The Lely Astronaut robotic milking system and Grazeway Gate
Control combination gives a complete solution for
milk production from pasture

“For a small farm like ours the purchase of the Lely robot system has really been ‘a no brainer’. We
can still graze our cows as before to produce cheaper milk from grass, we’ve eliminated the need for
hired help and we have increased milk production by 20% per cow on average. Life without twice a
day milking is just great.” - Chris Jerman
Chris Jerman a tenant farmer running a small dairy farm in
Chirbury, Powys producing high quality organic milk from a
herd of 65 cows (55 milking) on a pasture orientated input
system. He has a young family and his wife works three full
days each week in a local business.
The farm was originally run by Chris’s father since the early
60’s. In 2007 Chris needed to make a decision on whether
to continue milking and to invest in new milking system to
replace the 6 point Somerset abreast milking parlour that
had come to the end of its life. Chris wanted a system that
would help increase the herd average milk production in
order to provide more farm income. At that time Chris also
employed a hired help, more or less, on a full time basis and finding staff was getting more and more
difficult as well as expensive, therefore the new milking system had to reduce or eliminate the need
for staff expenditure. Pasture grazing is an integral part of the milk production at Ridge Farm
therefore Chris had to ensure that milk could be produced in the same way with the new milking
equipment.
A new conventional milking parlour would reduce milking times to around three hours per day from
the five hours that it took with the old abreast system. However to install a new parlour would mean
a large investment into a new milking shed. Twice a day milking would not increase milk production
without higher input costs and there would still be
manual milking early morning and evening.
Chris looked at robotic milking as an alternative to
buying a conventional parlour. Initially he thought that
there would be issues with pasture grazing and the
upfront higher capital invest required, however, the
finance issue was resolved because there was no
need for major building work which made the cost of a
robot and versus a conventional parlour quite similar.
Lely also provided a purchase package using a
competitive hire purchase agreement (HPI) over ten
years at a fixed cost of £1089 per month. Lely was
also very confident that robotic milking would suit
pasture grazing.
These factors convinced Chris that he could operate robotic milking with his cows grazing with a
supplement of buffer feeding in the barn as before. The Lely robot system fitted very well into his
future plans. One great additional benefit for Chris was the possibility to reduce hired help labour
costs using the robotic milking system. When everything was considered the decision to invest in a
Lely robotic milking system was really quite easy to justify because the lifetime savings would be
exceptionally high compared to using a conventional, twice per day, milking parlour.
The other advantages at the point of investment were:

 Milk yield would increased from an average of 7500 to at least 8500 litres because milking
would increase from 2 times per day to 2.8 times per day annual average.

 Freedom from twice a day milking would give him time to do all other jobs on farm and
manage the business in a more profitable way.

 Flexibility to have a more normal family life rather than be confined to manual milking twice
per day 365 days per year.

Pasture Grazing Using the Lely Astronaut System

Using pasture grazing and robotic milking is easy so long as it is well managed in order that energy
levels match cow intake needs to give optimum milk yields and to ensure cow flows from pasture to
milking are optimised. Cow flow therefore is a key factor; to achieve this, Chris uses the following
management system:

 The Lely Astronaut always delivers some concentrate feed as both an incentive for the cows
to visit and be milked and also as part of the controlled diet to optimise milk yield.

 Buffer feeding is not essential for every herd particularly if the milk yield is based solely on
grass intake from pasture. For higher yielding cows at Ridge Farm buffer feeding is essential
to provide the energy needed for higher milk production.

Buffer feeding was available to the cows when they visited the barn for milking.
Because this was an organic milk production unit the buffer feed used has to
conform to organic milk production regulation and this means that the cows have
to have at least 60% roughage in their diet. The mixer wagon combines the
silage with concentrates to provide the ration for each cow. In the winter the
ration will contain enough concentrate to give 2 kilo per day on average to each
cow. In the summer home grown oats are used as the supplement and on
average 0.75 kilos of concentrate are given daily to each animal.

 The cows at Ridge farm are on grass from March
through to November (weather permitting). Cows like to
be outside on grass and to be together as a herd.

 The farm pasture area is split into 12 paddocks around
2-3 acres per paddock. There are tracks and gates to
control which grazing areas are used at any time. Using
an A and B paddock system (Seven of the paddocks are
classified as A and these are the day time grazing areas and five of the paddocks are
classified as B and these are night time grazing areas) cows enter either the barn for milking
and buffer feed or to the paddocks for grazing. Movement from the pasture to the barn and
from the barn to pasture is controlled by the Lely Grazeway gate system. Control Settings in
both the Lely Astronaut and Grazeway gate system are synchronised to ensure that cows do
not visit the milking system more than necessary (to maximise milking time capacity for the
robot) as well as ensure the cows have freedom to feed from pasture and buffer feeding
areas.

 The cows move from paddock A to
paddock B controlled by the Lely
system. In mid year Paddock A and
Paddock B are available from
midnight to noon and from noon to
midnight respectively. Early and late
in the year Paddock A (day
paddock) and Paddock B (night
paddock) are available for shorter
periods to match grass availability.

 Using the A and B paddock system
ensures cows go from grazing to
milking consistently from March to
November. The average number of
visits to the milking robot is just over
4-times per day (from 2 times for cows in late lactation and 5 times for cows in early
lactation)

 Ridge Farm used controlled strip grazing initially to control grazing. Now that the cows are in
tune with the Lely milking and grazing process generally there is no need for strict strip
grazing control albeit there must still be control of the available grass and buffer feeding to
ensure good cow flow for optimum milking.

Advantages since the robot was installed:

 The Lely robot with the Grazeway pasture entry and exit
system has allowed Chris to run his Holstein–Friesian
and some Norwegian Red crossbred herd using pasture
from March to November to provide a major part of the
input energy to produce high quality organic milk.

 Milk yield has increased from 7500 litres to 8900 litres
since the new Lely Astronaut was installed in December
2008, and this is still increasing. The average number of
milkings per cow is 2.6 to 2.8 times per day while at
grass and 2.9 to 3.1 while housed full time.

 The average milk price for organic milk is around 29
pence per litre and so the increased milk production
provides extra income of around £22,000 per year. The
increased feed cost (from 1500 kilo to 2000 kilos per cow
per year) to match the higher milk production is £8250.
Net income increase for the farm is now £13,000.

 Since the robot has been installed there is no longer any
need for hired help. This has saved the farm in the region
£15,000.

 In the past, milking the herd took 5-hours per day (long day from 5.30am to 6.00pm). Today
times spend on the cleaning milking equipment and buffer feeding is no more than 1 hour
per day. Time is better used for farm management, grass management, harvesting and
husbandry. Chris can also concentrate on improving efficiency using the data generated
from the Lely T4C (Time 4 Cows) software management system for better feeding, animal
welfare, fertility and milk yields which all have a positive impact on farm profitability.

 As for a more flexible way of life: The robot has made this a reality for Chris and his family.
Before the robot everything revolved around twice a day manual milking. Now the family has
a more normal life together, where one parent can go out to work leaving the other to
manage the farm and look after the young family when necessary. A weekend away is no
longer an issue (with help from Chris’s father), and grass cutting can go on into the early

evening if required.

Pacoa

And if you want more reading after that last post have a look at this 90 page ebook.

http://www.futuredairy.com.au/FutureDairy2/pdfs/AMS_Guidelines_2010_Web.pdf

Humpty Dumpty

Good post. But away too complicated. Too many gates in the delaval system. compared to the free cow traffic system.

Pacoa

Have delaval a grazeway gate or something similar or would i be right in thinking that lely have a patent on it?

Humpty Dumpty

I dont think they have a patent on it. But I cannot find anything on there website one similar. I think it is the feed first theory is there major problem. Watch the system how there cows are moving around the house on there website. I just don't know how it will operate on grazing. Maybe the guys from Lely in Cork would answer your question

F.D

The Article on ridge farm is very interesting Humpty, i wonder how much Buffer feeding they require its small enough acres i think around 36, for 55 cows, it would be similar to what i have behind the sheds but the rest is across a road (which was ruling out a robot for me initally)