AUTOMATIC MILKING

2pack

What your opinions on automatic or Robotic milking, it is worthwhile and worth the money.
I see you need some sort of planning permission to get it it.

49801

2pack wrote: »

What your opinions on automatic or Robotic milking, it is worthwhile and worth the money.
I see you need some sort of planning permission to get it it.

It has it place... Most suited to all year round milking. Cows housed year round... Grass grazing can be done but infrastructure and will hast to be in it.

2pack

ok so you wouldnt really be a fan of it then?
is it true that this can cost €160,000 for a 80 cow machine,
why do you need planning permission to install it.

st1979

Think they are €45 per day over 10yrs finance with rabo bank on a hp agreement. Have to say at the presentation i was at by lely i believe they
Are well worth serious consideration in a grazing situation as long as you dont need to graze a field far side of a public road.
I have already got a new parlour so Wont be buying but kinda wish i had the option at the time. And i think the finance deal is a great selling point considering how the banks have tightened up.

st1979

2pack wrote: »

ok so you wouldnt really be a fan of it then?
is it true that this can cost €160,000 for a 80 cow machine,
why do you need planning permission to install it.

Dont think there is any specific planning for robot compared to any other parlour. Most are installed in existing slatted sheds which would be the same planning group as a parlour so would reckon you would need no planning

yellow50HX

2pack wrote: »

ok so you wouldnt really be a fan of it then?
is it true that this can cost €160,000 for a 80 cow machine,
why do you need planning permission to install it.

Most work best with 60-70 cows. Make most sense with liquid milk supply and year round milking. Yes they are pricy but if your someone that pays someone to milk or are dong anther type of farming and don't have the time for milking 6 hours a day then they ave a place. You need 3 phase supply for a lot of them.

st1979

yellow50HX wrote: »

Most work best with 60-70 cows. Make most sense with liquid milk supply and year round milking. Yes they are pricy but if your someone that pays someone to milk or are dong anther type of farming and don't have the time for milking 6 hours a day then they ave a place. You need 3 phase supply for a lot of them.

Well if you need 3 phase that will lose a lot of sales in Ireland. I was quoted 40k for 3 phase

yellow50HX

st1979 wrote: »

Well if you need 3 phase that will lose a lot of sales in Ireland. I was quoted 40k for 3 phase

It depends on the model. I think if your using more than 1 you would need 3 phase. Not sure about lely but fullwood don't need it for the smaller models

kincaid

i also know a farmer getting it in who is milking 80 cows and he has alot of land on other side of public road and he has the sign outside for the planning permission also i hear that lely is poor system

Fermec

Lely Open Day in Killarney this Tuesday, Cows are crossing under a public road us

ing a Tunnel to get to the Robot.

yellow50HX

kincaid wrote: »

i also know a farmer getting it in who is milking 80 cows and he has alot of land on other side of public road and he has the sign outside for the planning permission also i hear that lely is poor system

planning permission is most likely for an under pass. cows need access to the robot 24hrs a day.

Have looked at the figures myself and if i was to get back into milking it would be with a robot. I could milk 40-50 cows at present at home but would need to spend money refurbing the parlour, covering the collecting yard and putting in extra slurry storage. also i'd have to pay someone to milk them. so it owuld proably have to be a OAD or peak supply operation.
If i went for 60 cows, i would need to build an extra cubicle house, extend the feed passage and put in extra storage, plus i would have to rent more land for silage and possibly maize. The up shot would be i could do liquid milk supply so would be able to pick up extra cash for that.

going to wait and see what happens after 2015, i think there will be a rush in the 1st few years but it'll settle down. I wanto see what to real price and cost will be after the quotas go.

whelan1

how much would an under pass cost?

kincaid

for the underpass or tunnel under a public road,its the council that would have to do the job then and this could take a while to complete ... this farmer has his own jcb 130 track machine and teleporter and could do the work himself if allowed its all precast sections of concrete so wouldn't be hard to put together, i wouldn't think

yellow50HX

whelan1 wrote: »

how much would an under pass cost?

depends on the size. how big do you want it (cattle and people only or will it need to take tractors or a jeep)? how far is it going (how wide is the road)? How much do the council want for you stopping the road for a day?

bbam

kincaid wrote: »

for the underpass or tunnel under a public road,its the council that would have to do the job then and this could take a while to complete ... this farmer has his own jcb 130 track machine and teleporter and could do the work himself if allowed its all precast sections of concrete so wouldn't be hard to put together, i wouldn't think

Insurance is the problem..
I know a contractor who did one on a minor road.. he had to up his public liability to some crazy number.. €10-€12M insurance cover, the additional cost of course has to go onto the price of the job.. I doubt a farmer would get the go-ahead from the council without a contractor on board..

Massey10

whelan1 wrote: »

how much would an under pass cost?

40k give or take 5k

Massey10

kincaid wrote: »

for the underpass or tunnel under a public road,its the council that would have to do the job then and this could take a while to complete ... this farmer has his own jcb 130 track machine and teleporter and could do the work himself if allowed its all precast sections of concrete so wouldn't be hard to put together, i wouldn't think

Ive never heard of the council doing them unless its a new road job

yellow50HX

Massey10 wrote: »

Ive never heard of the council doing them unless its a new road job

nor i, i think once you have your planning permission and have a date agreed you close the road and get out your digger. you need to get a council enginer to sign off on the road afterwards i think, but having seen the shoddy jobs they do themselves a few shovels of grit and couple of stamps with the boot will be fine. famer near here put in 2 in one day a few months back, cows were crossing the road in two places, he had the job done before people knew it. if its part of a new road then you can insist that the council do it.

bbam

I'm supprised at that as I know in Cavan you need the contractor to show his insurance details to the council before the road can be opened.

.

yellow50HX

bbam wrote: »

I'm supprised at that as I know in Cavan you need the contractor to show his insurance details to the council before the road can be opened.

.

that woul dbe for work on an open road. Once the road is closed the risk is reduced from what i was told. Terms and conditons apply

bbam

Nope this road was closed completely. It's only a car and half wide.
Contractor job wasn't allowed proceed until insurance was shown and his own standard €5M public liability wasn't deemed enough. It had to be doubled.

I know this as my BIL is the contractor that did the work.

yellow50HX

bbam wrote: »

Nope this road was closed completely. It's only a car and half wide.
Contractor job wasn't allowed proceed until insurance was shown and his own standard €5M public liability wasn't deemed enough. It had to be doubled.

I know this as my BIL is the contractor that did the work.

wonder what teh reasoning for that was, maybe tryign to make sure they could job themselves and charge double the price for half the job

bbam

Probably Over zealous county engineer.

yellow50HX

bbam wrote: »

Probably Over zealous county engineer.

imagine that! wonder if he was as efficent in repairing the potholes? cavan used to have some of the worst from what i remember

Pacoa

Wonder what happened with these ones? They look fairly new.


http://www.agriaffaires.co.uk/annonces.asp?action=detail&numRub=633&numAnnonce=3031628&lprop1=&sprop9=&rechModele=0&page=&type=&ltypeann=

yellow50HX

Pacoa wrote: »

Wonder what happened with these ones? They look fairly new.


http://www.agriaffaires.co.uk/annonces.asp?action=detail&numRub=633&numAnnonce=3031628&lprop1=&sprop9=&rechModele=0&page=&type=&ltypeann=

Nothing coming up

Massey10

Pacoa wrote: »

Wonder what happened with these ones? They look fairly new.


http://www.agriaffaires.co.uk/annonces.asp?action=detail&numRub=633&numAnnonce=3031628&lprop1=&sprop9=&rechModele=0&page=&type=&ltypeann=

Thats what is turning me away from the idea .There seems to be a few second hand ones for sale up north from time to time .In the journal a few months back a german farmer throw out his one after a few years because he said it never works right .If you put in a robot its a big step backwards to go back to a palour again .

mahoney_j

Know of a guy not too far from me that has just decommisoned 2 lely robots after 3 and a bit years and now back milking in a conventional parlour.Its my opinion that robots are just not suitable in a country like ours where most of our milk is produced from grazed grass.Dont buy into the fact that they work on a grass based system.Robot is in control of grass allocation and not cows.INITAL CAPITAL COST IS TOO HIGH AND RUNNING COSTS ARE ASTRONMICAL

PMU

yellow50HX wrote: »

Most work best with 60-70 cows. Make most sense with liquid milk supply and year round milking. Yes they are pricy but if your someone that pays someone to milk or are dong anther type of farming and don't have the time for milking 6 hours a day then they ave a place. You need 3 phase supply for a lot of them.

most well designed modern parlours will milk and wash in 1 1/2 hrs,(3hrs daily,not six)

Timmaay

PMU wrote: »

most well designed modern parlours will milk and wash in 1 1/2 hrs,(3hrs daily,not six)

And I'd argue liquid milk and all year around calving doesn't make sense full stop! We milk between 40 and 65 cows all year around, parlour needs replacing, and the freedom of a robot doing the milking has crossed my mind, but the sums just don't stack up, I'd flog the winter milkers and go with a tight spring system and a normal parlour well before a robot.

kincaid

from what i hear the lely robotic machine was being taken out as it was unreliable,
Its probably best to sit back and wait a few years to see how things pan out

20silkcut

mahoney_j wrote: »

Know of a guy not too far from me that has just decommisoned 2 lely robots after 3 and a bit years and now back milking in a conventional parlour.

I heard this too and also heard that
this decision was nothing to do with the reliability of the machines.

freedominacup

kincaid wrote: »

from what i hear the lely robotic machine was being taken out as it was unreliable,
Its probably best to sit back and wait a few years to see how things pan out

Lelys have been working on farms for at least 15 years. While there are guys who have tried and failed with the robots there are others who are on their second machine having replaced the originals at the end of their lifespans. The tech works but it is actually quite rigid in how it works. It has an assumption that it will milk roughly the same number of cows milking the roughly the same amount of milk every day and doesn't appear to have much if any flexibility. One of it's major assumptions is that cows would be fed meal in parlour which is something we have never done.

yellow50HX

PMU wrote: »

most well designed modern parlours will milk and wash in 1 1/2 hrs,(3hrs daily,not six)

yes that is true, we used to get all our milking done in about 90mins back in the day but a lot of fellas round here are putting the money into to more cows rather then a bigger parlour. This seems to be espically the case with anyone you is hiring in a milker. I asked one local guy about it and his attitidue was that the parlour worked fine it might take longer but he was ok for someelse to do it.

yellow50HX

freedominacup wrote: »

Lelys have been working on farms for at least 15 years. While there are guys who have tried and failed with the robots there are others who are on their second machine having replaced the originals at the end of their lifespans. The tech works but it is actually quite rigid in how it works. It has an assumption that it will milk roughly the same number of cows milking the roughly the same amount of milk every day and doesn't appear to have much if any flexibility. One of it's major assumptions is that cows would be fed meal in parlour which is something we have never done.

if they were unrelibable lely would have gone bust years ago. I think a lot has to be done in the planning stage 1st.

Milking in ireland is very much based on our grazing platform and it is what we have been used to doing for years. The convential milking parlours work best in our systems and have a great deal of flexibility. While its very labour intensive it is also very flexible so varying volumes of milk and cows can be adpoted easily. Like any manufacturing process (dairy is the business of manufacturing milk) varitiaon is bad. Automation and equipment work best in a steady state process so when this is the case the equipment works at its most efficient. This is why the processing plants have huge capacity for the summer moths but many a closed in winter. I bet is you ask the plant manager in any of the processing plants if they could pahse their millk supply out over the year woul dthe plant be more efficent they would say yes. Now i know that this is highly unlikly given the most efficent way to make milk in ireland is off the land rather then out of a fees lot but that the main difference with automated and convential milking.

In europe much of the milkign cows are zero grazed and are indoors all year round, many use a stand off pad or oscannionly use paddocks next tot he shed. its actually a bit ironic but in sweden the goverment have brought in a law that cows must be grazed outdoors for a certain amount of time, most farmers over there are opposed to this because while thier slurry and housing costs will go down thier output is also decreases. you would think that this would be cheaper but with outdoor grazing for cows not used to it they find that the cows become more likely not to come into the robot.

i personally think there is defnitaly a happy medium and a place for them in ireland (not every dairy farmer is fulltime). If you are fulltime in dairy and do not have other enterprise (beef, sheep, tillage, cheese making, etc) then the convential parlour is the way to go without a doubt. if you want your weekend off then hire in a milker for a day so you can spend time with the family. However if you are not fulltime or spend much of your day away from the cows then OAD makes more sense but its a lower output system. If you want high output (and hence high input) but do not have the time or inclination to milk 2 or 3 times a day then a robot makes more sense. I have also seen a good few articales over the last few years of fellas on heavy land (places like cavan and lietrim i think) moving towards zero grazing. In these systems its very like farming on the contient so a robot would make perfect sense there too.

Yes the capital costs are much higher but how much does a parlour with the same amount of technlogy cost? you have to compare apples to apples. if you built a convential parlour with indiviadual milk recording, auto cleaning, weighting , auto drafting, milk analysis, auto feeding, auto cluster removal etc etc, im sure it would cost a pretty penny then add in your labour cost there proably wouldnt be a huge difference over the life of each. Yes running a service costs are high but convential parlours need servicng too and these also canbe very power hungry and most milkign is done at peak ESB prices.

I cant see a robot being worth it for a low input system spring calving but for a high input high ouput system then it may have a place espically is the utilsaion of grass can be maximised

jaymla627

My biggest hold up about a robot is its limatation in that 1 robots good for 50-60 cows after that you have to go out and drop another 100 plus grand if you want to expand, a new entrant down the road from us started this year with a lely robot and is planning putting in another one in 2015, ourselves also started and put up in a 14 unit secondhand parlour with a pit and stallwork for 20 units at a cost of 75,000 have also applied for the grant and to put in a new 20 unit with acrs/milk meters/auto drafting im looking at another 35,000 euro all-in minus trade-in and grant
So a total cost of 110,000 euro and for that i"ll have a parlour capable of milking 200 cows in under a hour and a half at its ease with a working life of 20 plus years, compare this to going down the other route of robots your looking at a conservative 320,000 for your 3 robots plus your annual maintance costs combined with the fact after 8-10 years your robots are going to have to be replaced and from doing reasearch online 8-10 year old are making 25,000-30,000 so your looking at another 250,000 down the line, financially the whole thing just dosent stack unless your milking 10,000 litre holeistians on a very good liquid milk contract.

yellow50HX

jaymla627 wrote: »

My biggest hold up about a robot is its limatation in that 1 robots good for 50-60 cows after that you have to go out and drop another 100 plus grand if you want to expand, a new entrant down the road from us started this year with a lely robot and is planning putting in another one in 2015, ourselves also started and put up in a 14 unit secondhand parlour with a pit and stallwork for 20 units at a cost of 75,000 have also applied for the grant and to put in a new 20 unit with acrs/milk meters/auto drafting im looking at another 35,000 euro all-in minus trade-in and grant
So a total cost of 110,000 euro and for that i"ll have a parlour capable of milking 200 cows in under a hour and a half at its ease with a working life of 20 plus years, compare this to going down the other route of robots your looking at a conservative 320,000 for your 3 robots plus your annual maintance costs combined with the fact after 8-10 years your robots are going to have to be replaced and from doing reasearch online 8-10 year old are making 25,000-30,000 so your looking at another 250,000 down the line, financially the whole thing just dosent stack unless your milking 10,000 litre holeistians on a very good liquid milk contract.

yes it needs a high input/output system to make it viable. i think the grant is also applicable to robots too so there should be a reduction on the oveall cost too.

quick question how does a 20 unit work out with one person? is it tough getting from one end to the the other. Worked a 14 unit before and i was flat out up and down, that said it didnt have auto cluster removers.

Happy farmers wife

I can't understand this negativity about Robots,it seems to have started overnight.I am a farmer's wife we are the owners of two robots.It is the best thing that has happened in our lives.We are not slaves anymore.Our herd of cows have never yielded as much milk.They have a life span of 20 years plus.They are much cheaper to install than a state of the art milking parlour. No need for big fancy sheds and passageways etc and absolutely no need for planning permission. Someone is trying to create a fog here throwing issues about planning permission into the mix absolute bull crap.They are are a very viable efficient machine.You can hold down a job outside the farm and your cows will be more than adequately catered for and you can get the sort of information feedback instantly that you would never get in a conventional system.

mahoney_j

Happy farmers wife wrote: »

I can't understand this negativity about Robots,it seems to have started overnight.I am a farmer's wife we are the owners of two robots.It is the best thing that has happened in our lives.We are not slaves anymore.Our herd of cows have never yielded as much milk.They have a life span of 20 years plus.They are much cheaper to install than a state of the art milking parlour. No need for big fancy sheds and passageways etc and absolutely no need for planning permission. Someone is trying to create a fog here throwing issues about planning permission into the mix absolute bull crap.They are are a very viable efficient machine.You can hold down a job outside the farm and your cows will be more than adequately catered for and you can get the sort of information feedback instantly that you would never get in a conventional system.

Just Ti correct u on a few points,I put in a Hi spec parlour last year with all the gizmos.it is a 14?unit with room for 20 if I wish and is currently milking 72 cows comfortably in 45 minutes.it would milk 100 in an hour easily and down the road with 20 units I'd sat 200 plus in an hour and a half.i looked at robots and they were a total non runner due to limitations(70 cows per robot)cost120 k odd(my parlour and shed cost similar money with much more potential).thats 250 k odd for a machine that is restricted to 140 cows.running costs are also very high(6 to 8 k )per annum.my service cost 1500 this year and once every 5 years it will cost 3 k. I also have daily yield reports per cow ,conductivity production graphs,feed usage reports,cow activity for bulling activity etc.its just my opinion but a robot in a grazed grass system just doesn't work no matter how lely or any other company dresses it up.

st1979

Happy farmers wife wrote: »

I can't understand this negativity about Robots,it seems to have started overnight.I am a farmer's wife we are the owners of two robots.It is the best thing that has happened in our lives.We are not slaves anymore.Our herd of cows have never yielded as much milk.They have a life span of 20 years plus.They are much cheaper to install than a state of the art milking parlour. No need for big fancy sheds and passageways etc and absolutely no need for planning permission. Someone is trying to create a fog here throwing issues about planning permission into the mix absolute bull crap.They are are a very viable efficient machine.You can hold down a job outside the farm and your cows will be more than adequately catered for and you can get the sort of information feedback instantly that you would never get in a conventional system.

I agree with you. But I use to be one of these people who taught it was only for indoor high yield systems. From having the talk from lely I stand corrected. I think they are definitely worth looking at before investing in a new parlour. As stated I have invested in a parlour already so will stick with it, but if I was doing it again I would definitely consider the robot. And it will suit certain farms and not others.
From what i saw you want to be a good grassland manager because it is the taught of fresh grass that drives the cow to leave the paddock and go to be milked cause she knows when she does she will return to a new paddock. So you need to allocate correctly the 12hr paddock size etc.

This discussion reminds me of the wagon vs precision chop argument. Just cause a wagon doesn't suit you or your farm they are ****e and unreliable and make bad silage which is probably full of 'the black slugs'

yellow50HX

st1979 wrote: »

I agree with you. But I use to be one of these people who taught it was only for indoor high yield systems. From having the talk from lely I stand corrected. I think they are definitely worth looking at before investing in a new parlour. As stated I have invested in a parlour already so will stick with it, but if I was doing it again I would definitely consider the robot. And it will suit certain farms and not others.
From what i saw you want to be a good grassland manager because it is the taught of fresh grass that drives the cow to leave the paddock and go to be milked cause she knows when she does she will return to a new paddock. So you need to allocate correctly the 12hr paddock size etc.

This discussion reminds me of the wagon vs precision chop argument. Just cause a wagon doesn't suit you or your farm they are ****e and unreliable and make bad silage which is probably full of 'the black slugs'

horse's for course's, just like the baled silage vs pit, ford vs massey, contractor vs own gear, black wellies v greens wellies.......etc etc

PMU

yellow50HX wrote: »

horse's for course's, just like the baled silage vs pit, ford vs massey, contractor vs own gear, black wellies v greens wellies.......etc etc

you forgot jersey v Holstein....

Tipp Man

st1979 wrote: »

I agree with you. But I use to be one of these people who taught it was only for indoor high yield systems. From having the talk from lely I stand corrected. I think they are definitely worth looking at before investing in a new parlour. As stated I have invested in a parlour already so will stick with it, but if I was doing it again I would definitely consider the robot. And it will suit certain farms and not others.
From what i saw you want to be a good grassland manager because it is the taught of fresh grass that drives the cow to leave the paddock and go to be milked cause she knows when she does she will return to a new paddock. So you need to allocate correctly the 12hr paddock size etc.
'

Just on the bit on bold, the main issue that i see is how do you get cows to graze a paddock hard, and really get down on it - once they get the idea that going through robot will give them fresh grass then they'll be through the robot as soon as the top of the grass is eaten. Especially at this time of year when covers are high and some paddocks are giving an extra grazing or so

How do you get the cows to skin the paddock is my main question?

yellow50HX

Tipp Man wrote: »

Just on the bit on bold, the main issue that i see is how do you get cows to graze a paddock hard, and really get down on it - once they get the idea that going through robot will give them fresh grass then they'll be through the robot as soon as the top of the grass is eaten. Especially at this time of year when covers are high and some paddocks are giving an extra grazing or so

How do you get the cows to skin the paddock is my main question?

i have seen a fella use water as the reason for the cows to come to the robot. That way he can leave them back to the same paddock. although he did say its fine for his set up as all the paddock are close to the shed and he is only milking 70 cows so they are not walking huge distances a couple of times a day. The cows must go through the robot to get to the water trough. It also means he dosent have to use as much meal as other fellas use that as the enticement to get the cows to the robot. I reckon is a good idea as it makes the cows graze down the paddock and also means you can give more room to prevent poaching in wet weather

jaymla627

yellow50HX wrote: »

yes it needs a high input/output system to make it viable. i think the grant is also applicable to robots too so there should be a reduction on the oveall cost too.

quick question how does a 20 unit work out with one person? is it tough getting from one end to the the other. Worked a 14 unit before and i was flat out up and down, that said it didnt have auto cluster removers.

Its 14 units ive got at the min its pretty manageable ,have milked in parlours with 24 units plus before and at this number cluster removers are a must, proberly the most important thing is cow flow though leave plenty of room at the front of the parlour and make sure cows entering the parlour arent coming in at 90 degree turns our up ramps etc it really slows the whole thing up have to say have seen some really nice parlours put into buildings where it was a total non-runner cow flow was shocking spent more time getting cows into the parlour then milking, good comparsion would be milked in a 16 unit dairymaster that had the works acrs/air gates automatic feeders etc putting through 80 cows used to take 50 mins cups on to cups off constanly hunting cows really bad cow flow
On another farm with a basic 10 unit same cow numbers 80 cows was doing it in 50 mins also the only thing was this parlour had really good cow flow you never had to leave left the pit.

20silkcut

Tipp Man wrote: »

Just on the bit on bold, the main issue that i see is how do you get cows to graze a paddock hard, and really get down on it - once they get the idea that going through robot will give them fresh grass then they'll be through the robot as soon as the top of the grass is eaten. Especially at this time of year when covers are high and some paddocks are giving an extra grazing or so

How do you get the cows to skin the paddock is my main question?

There is always going to be a bit left over. How much grass goes un-utilised around dung pats???? You look into some fields after a dairy herd has been in and you could have 20 per cent of the grass un-eaten.

I think robots work best on a zero grazing system.

Both are gaining ground in Irish farming methods.

I have noticed a good few farmers in my area have bought zero grazers. And many more have gotten a lend of one or hired one in.

Potentially in the full zero grazing system you have no need of roadways no fencing no expensive piping of water here there and everywhere no wasteage of grass around dung pats. Farm can be fragmented to hell. You can graze anyone's field without maps or transferring cattle.
Put that system with a robot and you can stay in bed on a Sunday morning go to an all Ireland final without having to worry about an unknown relief milker handling your cows, go to weddings wakes and funerals at your pleasure and monitor everything on your I phone.
To me this is reminiscent of the tractor versus horse and plough scenario of 50/60 years ago.

Some guys just don't believe/don't want to believe you can have it handy milking cows.

Actually a lot of guys milking cows baulk at the idea of a handy life and would rather do it the hard way. Let them off.

JimP_Cork

I looked at them in Holland not long ago and there is a sizeable move away from them too...

Maintenance costs are crazy.

You either have to turn off water or do other trickery to get the cows through them. There is some hope in zero grazing but difficult for Irish conditions.

Normally there is 5-15% of cows that will need to be brought through manually. If you think about this in a 60 cow herd this is between 3-9 cows twice per day. If between milking each of these and putting them through you are talking 6-10 mins per cow. Now if you think how long this would take you in you'd have a lot of cows milked in a regular parlour. This assumes you don't have to go and find them.

For the same investment we have decided that we can get a much bigger output from the farm going down the conventional route, ACRS and drafting are also top of our list.

Pacoa

Since yee mentioned zero grazing i just spoted this on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fVRjfk-W4HA

Timmaay

JimP_Cork wrote: »

Maintenance costs are crazy.

On the maintenance thing, from reading up on the british farming forum I think some of the fullwoods are meant to share quite a few parts with normal parlours, and when you look inside one you'd have a decent chance of understanding the way its works, and how to repair simple problems. I'm fairly sure some lads said they were doing most of the repairwork themselves. The Lelys are supposedly a different story, looking inside one is like looking into the spaceshuttle, not a hope of you fixing anything yourself.

2pack

Happy farmers wife wrote: »

I can't understand this negativity about Robots,it seems to have started overnight.I am a farmer's wife we are the owners of two robots.It is the best thing that has happened in our lives.We are not slaves anymore.Our herd of cows have never yielded as much milk.They have a life span of 20 years plus.They are much cheaper to install than a state of the art milking parlour. No need for big fancy sheds and passageways etc and absolutely no need for planning permission. Someone is trying to create a fog here throwing issues about planning permission into the mix absolute bull crap.They are are a very viable efficient machine.You can hold down a job outside the farm and your cows will be more than adequately catered for and you can get the sort of information feedback instantly that you would never get in a conventional system.

I really dont think its anyone's intention here to create a fog on this matter at all, its all very new around our area and just looking a bit deeper into the pro's and con's of it.
Nothing is Perfect, what suits one farmer may not suit another.......

Tipp Man

20silkcut wrote: »

There is always going to be a bit left over. How much grass goes un-utilised around dung pats???? You look into some fields after a dairy herd has been in and you could have 20 per cent of the grass un-eaten.

I think robots work best on a zero grazing system.

Both are gaining ground in Irish farming methods.

I have noticed a good few farmers in my area have bought zero grazers. And many more have gotten a lend of one or hired one in.

Potentially in the full zero grazing system you have no need of roadways no fencing no expensive piping of water here there and everywhere no wasteage of grass around dung pats. Farm can be fragmented to hell. You can graze anyone's field without maps or transferring cattle.
Put that system with a robot and you can stay in bed on a Sunday morning go to an all Ireland final without having to worry about an unknown relief milker handling your cows, go to weddings wakes and funerals at your pleasure and monitor everything on your I phone.
To me this is reminiscent of the tractor versus horse and plough scenario of 50/60 years ago.

Some guys just don't believe/don't want to believe you can have it handy milking cows.

Actually a lot of guys milking cows baulk at the idea of a handy life and would rather do it the hard way. Let them off.

How many cows do you milk silkcut?? Surely you agree that getting the cows down on the grass is how you keep your protein up and your grass under control?? This has got to be the way forward for Irish dairy farmers

This is nothing like the horse v tractor scenario, Robots have been going for what 25 years now and haven't taken over the milking world yet - even in countries such as Holland where cows are indoors all the time and herds are reasonable size. Countries such as NZ which have a similar grass based focus as ourselves haven't taken to them at all.

You highlight some good points about zero grazing and robots - and no doubt they have a place and some advantages

However with the zero grazer you still have a daily job - so you are replacing milking cows with driving a tractor - its still a job that has to be done every day

While you think that dairy farmers are backward/old fashioned for their hesitence with robots - I approach it from a different angle in that i see a load of fellas now who don't want the work that associated with cows but want the milk cheque every month. As i've said before milking cows is the easy part - some of these guys are in for a big shock in 2015 and beyond