Robots - calving strategy and suitable cow

Green&Red

Hey,
Can anyone point me in the direction of data for a dairy robot? I’m finalising a business plan and I have questions.
Specifically what’s the best calving strategy? Logic would tell me that I’m paying for the robot everyday it sits in the yard, so should I be looking at a split calving season? Should each calving season be spread out to flatten the milk production curve?
If I am looking a split calving should I be looking at a Holstein cow?
We were previously traditional high output cows so I’ve a man at home advising I go that way. The Teagasc adviser has tunnel vision for jerseys and a grass based system.

Timmaay

Green&Red wrote: »

Hey,
Can anyone point me in the direction of data for a dairy robot? I’m finalising a business plan and I have questions.
Specifically what’s the best calving strategy? Logic would tell me that I’m paying for the robot everyday it sits in the yard, so should I be looking at a split calving season? Should each calving season be spread out to flatten the milk production curve?
If I am looking a split calving should I be looking at a Holstein cow?
We were previously traditional high output cows so I’ve a man at home advising I go that way. The Teagasc adviser has tunnel vision for jerseys and a grass based system.

I absolutely would not change the system simply to suit a robot milker. That's the cart before the horse. There are plenty of compact spring calving farms with robots working perfectly fine. You need to be happy to milk over winter (do you have access to sufficient winter contract?), do you have cubicles/winter accommodation that is good enough, do you have a good enough winter diet?, them are all questions that need to be answered before you consider split calving.

And finally, your teagasc tunnel vision for grass based is perfectly fine and should be central to nearly all Irish dairy systems in my view, however this can be achieved no problem at all without jerseys genetics if you don't want.

Mooooo

You need to go and see robotic farms, ideally not on a sales tour.

Green&Red

Mooooo wrote: »

You need to go and see robotic farms, ideally not on a sales tour.

It’s on the to do list. Solid advise

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

I absolutely would not change the system simply to suit a robot milker. That's the cart before the horse. There are plenty of compact spring calving farms with robots working perfectly fine. You need to be happy to milk over winter (do you have access to sufficient winter contract?), do you have cubicles/winter accommodation that is good enough, do you have a good enough winter diet?, them are all questions that need to be answered before you consider split calving.

And finally, your teagasc tunnel vision for grass based is perfectly fine and should be central to nearly all Irish dairy systems in my view, however this can be achieved no problem at all without jerseys genetics if you don't want.

I’m not changing a system, I’m restarting from scratch so I do have the flexibility at this stage.
I suppose when I was looking at a regular 12 unit parlour the selling points for jersey cross and a grass based system were suited to that but I’m presuming (and maybe I’m wrong) that you don’t want ur robot idle for 6 weeks (or any weeks). So how does that tie in?
Any farmer will tell you that their system is best, it’s human nature and probably if you do it right there’s no wrong way

Mooooo

Some say they made no changes to their spring system when robot went in and others have spread calving in spring as robots can only handle so many fresh calvers at a time and then milked them Thu the winter. Imo if you have a winter contract split calving suits robots. The issue is have is that spring calving needs tight calving and full lactations to be most profitable and that's an area where they can get caught trying to handle a tight 6 week calving interval

Mooooo

How many cows are you planning on milking. I'd compare the cost of 16 to 20 unit parlour to the robot. It may be cheaper to put in a larger parlour and have your cow's milked in an hour

whelan2

I would try and talk to someone who has taken out their robots, I know a few. See what they say.

Green&Red

Mooooo wrote: »

How many cows are you planning on milking. I'd compare the cost of 16 to 20 unit parlour to the robot. It may be cheaper to put in a larger parlour and have your cow's milked in an hour

I have loan approval for a 12 unit, I’d intended milking 72.
A ball of work came up, probably four years construction, if I work that it will leave me enough to pay myself a wage for another three after I stop. So it would really set me up long term.
I do know it’s not as simple as not being there. I’d be looking at part time for three months next year to get bedded in and then I’ve a fella lined up that can give me a couple of hours a day.

Looking at 68 now.

cjpm

whelan2 wrote: »

I would try and talk to someone who has taken out their robots, I know a few. See what they say.

How many do you know of? What area?

Lely and Fullwood would prefer if we didn't know about them...

Timmaay

Green&Red wrote: »

I’m not changing a system, I’m restarting from scratch so I do have the flexibility at this stage.
I suppose when I was looking at a regular 12 unit parlour the selling points for jersey cross and a grass based system were suited to that but I’m presuming (and maybe I’m wrong) that you don’t want ur robot idle for 6 weeks (or any weeks). So how does that tie in?
Any farmer will tell you that their system is best, it’s human nature and probably if you do it right there’s no wrong way

I don't buy that "idle for 6wks" line at all, sure the very same problem with your normal 12 unit! The only reason you would might want to avoid spring milking with a robot would be if the June daily peak was going to be a specific problem for your cow numbers, the rule of thumb is each robot maxes out about 2000l/day, let's say your spring herd peaks at 25l/day, that's max 80cows, if your split calving herd only peaked at 23l you could milk 87 cows at peak in the one robot.

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

Green&Red wrote: »

I’m not changing a system, I’m restarting from scratch so I do have the flexibility at this stage.
I suppose when I was looking at a regular 12 unit parlour the selling points for jersey cross and a grass based system were suited to that but I’m presuming (and maybe I’m wrong) that you don’t want ur robot idle for 6 weeks (or any weeks). So how does that tie in?
Any farmer will tell you that their system is best, it’s human nature and probably if you do it right there’s no wrong way

I don't buy that "idle for 6wks" line at all, sure the very same problem with your normal 12 unit! The only reason you would might want to avoid spring milking with a robot would be if the June daily peak was going to be a specific problem for your cow numbers, the rule of thumb is each robot maxes out about 2000l/day, let's say your spring herd peaks at 25l/day, that's max 80cows, if your split calving herd only peaked at 23l you could milk 87 cows at peak in the one robot.

So that’s exactly the kind of info I’d like, to see that would work best. If 2000l/day is the limit what does my herd profile need to look like.
The six weeks off with a traditional milking machine is different because you’ve more time off. You won’t have the same time saving with a robot being idle.

whelan2

cjpm wrote: »

How many do you know of? What area?

Lely and Fullwood would prefer if we didn't know about them...

In louth there's definitely 1. He found it very hard to manage the grazing and would prefer to milk and be done with it.

K.G.

Green&Red wrote: »

Hey,
Can anyone point me in the direction of data for a dairy robot? I’m finalising a business plan and I have questions.
Specifically what’s the best calving strategy? Logic would tell me that I’m paying for the robot everyday it sits in the yard, so should I be looking at a split calving season? Should each calving season be spread out to flatten the milk production curve?
If I am looking a split calving should I be looking at a Holstein cow?
We were previously traditional high output cows so I’ve a man at home advising I go that way. The Teagasc adviser has tunnel vision for jerseys and a grass based system.

whats the story with the old parlour,i take it you are going borrowing so in that case id start and fine tune the cow system and then decide how you ll milk them long term

Green&Red

Old parlour is stripped to the concrete.
Small bit of civil works would be needed but essentially a new fit out

Buford T. Justice XIX

Green&Red wrote: »

I have loan approval for a 12 unit, I’d intended milking 72.
A ball of work came up, probably four years construction, if I work that it will leave me enough to pay myself a wage for another three after I stop. So it would really set me up long term.
I do know it’s not as simple as not being there. I’d be looking at part time for three months next year to get bedded in and then I’ve a fella lined up that can give me a couple of hours a day.

Looking at 68 now.

I was talking to a lad with robots in a while back and he was saying there's an hour a day just cleaning and doing general maintenance on the robots. That's every day so most of 1 milking in a good setup.


And then there is the alarms going off that have to be taken care of as well.

Green&Red

Ya I’d expect that Buford. Like I say the construction work will set me up long term so I think the robot might be a better option than going milking full time. Hard work but I’m doing 2-3 hours every evening as it is with sucklers

Timmaay

Have you considered OAD milking?

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

Have you considered OAD milking?

Briefly, there are benefits to the robot which helped my decision, heat detection and mastitis. I know I could solve the heat detection but it’s more money to do it separately.

Gawddawggonnit

New generation robots work.
Hugely reduced scc and mastitis problems with the new bots.

They really show their usefulness in high yielding indoor herds...so you’d be going totally against the established narrative!
I couldn’t see robots working that well with low input xbred herds.
If I was a good bit younger I’d put in a few, but then I’m farming in a different type of climate.


Cappoquin Estate in W.Waterford put in a few recently and should be quite approchable.

Mooooo

Green&Red wrote: »

Briefly, there are benefits to the robot which helped my decision, heat detection and mastitis. I know I could solve the heat detection but it’s more money to do it separately.

I think the oad conference notes are on the teagasc website, worth a look. With a job may even be better solution than robots.

einn32

British farming forum has a decent section on robots from people using them for many years. All sorts of topics covered.

Timmaay

Green&Red wrote: »

Briefly, there are benefits to the robot which helped my decision, heat detection and mastitis. I know I could solve the heat detection but it’s more money to do it separately.

Heat detection on a compact spring calving system is a piece of piss, 3wks tail paint, draft out during milking for ai, and lob in the bull after that.

jaymla627

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

New generation robots work.
Hugely reduced scc and mastitis problems with the new bots.

They really show their usefulness in high yielding indoor herds...so you’d be going totally against the established narrative!
I couldn’t see robots working that well with low input xbred herds.
If I was a good bit younger I’d put in a few, but then I’m farming in a different type of climate.


Cappoquin Estate in W.Waterford put in a few recently and should be quite approchable.

Watching that project very closely, would work out ideal here in a few years once I get the yard up to scratch to accommodate going indoors full-time, electricity running costs would be the only real sticking point depending on the severity of carbon taxes down the line

einn32

Anyone on here working with robots?

davidk1394

Green&Red wrote: »

It’s on the to do list. Solid advise

If you can. Get a few mobile numbers of farmers and go to them directly instead of going to the open days. I’m at a cross roads between going for 2 robots or a 18 unit parlor. There’s pros and cons for both.

einn32

davidk1394 wrote: »

If you can. Get a few mobile numbers of farmers and go to them directly instead of going to the open days. I’m at a cross roads between going for 2 robots or a 18 unit parlor. There’s pros and cons for both.

Don't let the sales guy bring you either!!

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

Have you considered OAD milking?

This has really got me thinking. The finances for the robot are risky and very dependant on my off farm work situation not changing. Going with OAD and working a 6hr day off site if I could get away with it would work for a while at least. It would take the risk out of losing the OF work

Gawddawggonnit

jaymla627 wrote: »

Watching that project very closely, would work out ideal here in a few years once I get the yard up to scratch to accommodate going indoors full-time, electricity running costs would be the only real sticking point depending on the severity of carbon taxes down the line

Electricity wouldn’t be much of a problem...zero grazing would be much more hassle.

einn32

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Electricity wouldn’t be much of a problem...zero grazing would be much more hassle.

If you could feed up once a day (morning) push in that evening surely it would beat changing your fences 2/3 times a day and pushing cows in. A robotic fence changer would be a game changer if it ever came about.

Gawddawggonnit

I’ve a robot for sale from 15th February.
It’s a Lely and is three years old.
It’s been putting 650 to 700k litres through it since new. It has been under the gold full service contract.
Scc is around 80 to 120k since the start.

Cheap.




I’d also consider leaving it in place and leasing/selling the building and say 100ac (more if required)...building is 2005, auto scrapers, 60 cow cubicles, calf pens and 25 heifer cubicles. All under the one roof and in excellent order.
Pm if interested.

Gawddawggonnit

einn32 wrote: »

If you could feed up once a day (morning) push in that evening surely it would beat changing your fences 2/3 times a day and pushing cows in. A robotic fence changer would be a game changer if it ever came about.

Did the zgrazing thing a while back...

Why move fences 2/3 times per day?

einn32

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Did the zgrazing thing a while back...

Why move fences 2/3 times per day?

The cows need a reason to stay in their allocated area until the next gate change or as close to the time as possible. If you don't allocate fresh grass they'll arrive back up to the collecting yard within an hour. The also need a reason to pass back through the robot.

Cow flow is critical when grazing with robots.

Gawddawggonnit

einn32 wrote: »

The cows need a reason to stay in their allocated area until the next gate change or as close to the time as possible. If you don't allocate fresh grass they'll arrive back up to the collecting yard within an hour. The also need a reason to pass back through the robot.

Cow flow is critical when grazing with robots.

Sorry, I thought that you were talking about standard system.
I wouldn’t be bothered messing with grazing if I’d robots. House them full time and pump milk 24/7/365...

einn32

Gawddawggonnit wrote: »

Sorry, I thought that you were talking about standard system.
I wouldn’t be bothered messing with grazing if I’d robots. House them full time and pump milk 24/7/365...

They move way better indoors. Easier to catch a lame or sick cow. If you had a constant agitation system for slurry it would be a big bonus. I think think single compartment robots have a cow number limit. You would have a lot of work with 4 robots each day and the dealing with any breakdowns for instance

Few second hand robots for sale. They seem to be good value. Once well maintained they will work away for years from what others say.

Timmaay

einn32 wrote: »

If you could feed up once a day (morning) push in that evening surely it would beat changing your fences 2/3 times a day and pushing cows in. A robotic fence changer would be a game changer if it ever came about.

2 Westmeath teenagers already onto that https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/fresh-graze-invention-showcased-at-bt-young-scientist-exhibition/ 3 of these setups for an ABC robotic grazing system could be expensive though ha.

http://stradballyfarmservices.com/automatic-gate-release-timer

The batt latch above could work also.

In any case I'd tend to agree with dwag, robots just aren't there yet in terms of grazing. Having said that definitely worth going directly to 2 or 3 farmers with them in. I'd pick one strict grass measuring chap (who spents longer being very particular about his areas, cleanouts, and getting it right for the ABC system), and one more relaxed chap who say uses just AB, but probably is part time like the OP so time is valuable.

Any more word on the teagasc trial where they were trying to push up to 100 jex grass cows through one robot? Definitely be an interesting option moving forward, and great to see research like that considering our labour issues moving forward.

Mooooo

Green&Red wrote: »

This has really got me thinking. The finances for the robot are risky and very dependant on my off farm work situation not changing. Going with OAD and working a 6hr day off site if I could get away with it would work for a while at least. It would take the risk out of losing the OF work

If you are sourcing stock it may be best to find some of people milking once a day already. With regards working off farm and milking I would view once a day as being ahead of robots

Timmaay

Green&Red wrote: »

This has really got me thinking. The finances for the robot are risky and very dependant on my off farm work situation not changing. Going with OAD and working a 6hr day off site if I could get away with it would work for a while at least. It would take the risk out of losing the OF work

What sort of money is the 12 unit going to set you back? If you are going new it's an absolute no brainer to apply for a grant for the milking machine, bulk tank ,waterheater, platecooler and meal feeding system, very straightforward grant to apply for (no planning needed), just make sure you get your application in afew months beforehand (if your a young farmer you get 60% back, otherwise 40%). Only minor stumbling block with the grant is if you got any internal slatted tank manholes in the same shed as the parlour, they will have to be removed and replaced with a normal slat.

Assuming you can escape with like 50k for the 12 unit (after grant's etc) then yep defo less risky than a robot. You always have the option of going TAD down the line if your work changes also, which would work out more profitable than OAD. There are various other combinations of OAD and TAD, milk OAD until paddy's day to reduce the workload while calving, TAD from then until Sept or Oct, and OAD from then on.

einn32

If you're working off farm you'll need someone to deal with the alarms and breakdowns in the robot. If you lose a hour or two of milking time it can really cause mayhem for the day.

farisfat

Green&Red wrote: »

This has really got me thinking. The finances for the robot are risky and very dependant on my off farm work situation not changing. Going with OAD and working a 6hr day off site if I could get away with it would work for a while at least. It would take the risk out of losing the OF work

Part time dairy farming is not easy,the milking is the easy part.
I done it and you never stop life is short.

Green&Red

Timmaay wrote: »

What sort of money is the 12 unit going to set you back? If you are going new it's an absolute no brainer to apply for a grant for the milking machine, bulk tank ,waterheater, platecooler and meal feeding system, very straightforward grant to apply for (no planning needed), just make sure you get your application in afew months beforehand (if your a young farmer you get 60% back, otherwise 40%). Only minor stumbling block with the grant is if you got any internal slatted tank manholes in the same shed as the parlour, they will have to be removed and replaced with a normal slat.

Assuming you can escape with like 50k for the 12 unit (after grant's etc) then yep defo less risky than a robot. You always have the option of going TAD down the line if your work changes also, which would work out more profitable than OAD. There are various other combinations of OAD and TAD, milk OAD until paddy's day to reduce the workload while calving, TAD from then until Sept or Oct, and OAD from then on.

Have the grant approval for €70k, I used €10k of my allowance in 2017, do it would be coming in at €40k plus whatever civils I need, a lot of which I’d hope to do myself. No slats but I’d need to divert the wash water from the slurry tank

Green&Red

farisfat wrote: »

Part time dairy farming is not easy,the milking is the easy part.
I done it and you never stop life is short.

It’ll take a lot of discipline to stop but I’ll have to set a Time limit to it, that or the construction work drying up and the need for an engineer

jaymla627

davidk1394 wrote: »

If you can. Get a few mobile numbers of farmers and go to them directly instead of going to the open days. I’m at a cross roads between going for 2 robots or a 18 unit parlor. There’s pros and cons for both.

Biggest pro for lely is the no questions asked finance deals they are doing, they’ll have two robots up and going in your yard, before the bank even get back to you about weather they will lend the money our not all after looking for mountains of paperwork and sets of accounts

freedominacup

I was supposed to bring the youngest lad here to a rugby game in kilkenny on Sunday morning. Things went sideways because of a power failure and a couple of other issues. I thought I'd meet one of the neighbours up there. One of his lads is a good friend of my lad. In school together as well as on a couple of teams. Our wives had a bit of a natter at the match about the joys of being a dairy farmers wife in the spring time. We have as basic a parlour as you'll find. He installed 2 robots 14 months ago. No amount of automation will cover all the bases and minor crises that will arise on a dairy farm. That said he's well pleased with his investment and the more of them that go in around here the more I think they are up for consideration whenever we upgrade.

Keepgrowing

jaymla627 wrote: »

Biggest pro for lely is the no questions asked finance deals they are doing, they’ll have two robots up and going in your yard, before the bank even get back to you about weather they will lend the money our not all after looking for mountains of paperwork and sets of accounts

If that’s their biggest advantage, I’d certainly be considering my future as in dairy farming very carefully. The decision to go robot needs robust consideration and plenty of planning so I’d imagine a loan application would hardly cause much delay to the process.

It really shows how marketing works, offer a full finance package, a few farm visits and bingo you’re robot milking. The change in system follows after their installation but by then your fully committed.

A really good farmer near us has installed 2 bots and despite his best efforts is finding grazing a challenge. If you visit he’s achieving good residuals and utalisation but it’s constant work.

He will tire of the effort and house his cows. Then zgrazing will start and he’s chasing his tail before he knows it. Nothing wrong with that system but the bots were installed to milk and end up slowly changing the entire system.

In my view no matter what the salesmen say indoor Ayr calving is where they work best.

freedominacup

Keepgrowing wrote: »

In my view no matter what the salesmen say indoor Ayr calving is where they work best.

The lads who have them installed around here seem to be getting on ok with grazing management. Seems to be a good bit of work with fences alright. Both are on underpasses. One in Stan territory yield wise. The other a very good bf herd doing 7k litres. One has had a contractor zging over the past 10 days but had his cows out prior to that. They could still be out tbh on part of the farm not visible from the road.

jaymla627

Keepgrowing wrote: »

If that’s their biggest advantage, I’d certainly be considering my future as in dairy farming very carefully. The decision to go robot needs robust consideration and plenty of planning so I’d imagine a loan application would hardly cause much delay to the process.

It really shows how marketing works, offer a full finance package, a few farm visits and bingo you’re robot milking. The change in system follows after their installation but by then your fully committed.

A really good farmer near us has installed 2 bots and despite his best efforts is finding grazing a challenge. If you visit he’s achieving good residuals and utalisation but it’s constant work.

He will tire of the effort and house his cows. Then zgrazing will start and he’s chasing his tail before he knows it. Nothing wrong with that system but the bots were installed to milk and end up slowly changing the entire system.

In my view no matter what the salesmen say indoor Ayr calving is where they work best.

I reckon you need to be hitting 700kgs/ms plus a cow delivered and as you said calving all year round to keep a good constant flow of milk through the robots and avoiding the capacity issues block calving presents with them, running the figures here I’d need milk solids per cow to increase from 610kgs ms delivered to 730 plus just to cover repayments/electric/ and maintaince costs over the current system and that’s without factoring in like you said having to go tmr/fully housed 365 to achieve them solids which will further ramp up costs

whelan2

Are they hard on electricity, considering they are probably going most of the day and night?

Timmaay

jaymla627 wrote: »

I reckon you need to be hitting 700kgs/ms plus a cow delivered and as you said calving all year round to keep a good constant flow of milk through the robots and avoiding the capacity issues block calving presents with them, running the figures here I’d need milk solids per cow to increase from 610kgs ms delivered to 730 plus just to cover repayments/electric/ and maintaince costs over the current system and that’s without factoring in like you said having to go tmr/fully housed 365 to achieve them solids which will further ramp up costs

Took the oppose road here, delivered MS have dropped slightly to 430kg, we don't go after any marginal litres at all. However profits are well up and workload hugely down with the change from ayr to spring only calving. I still like the idea of a robot down the line if labour becomes a serious issue and when I'm sick of milking, but if it meant changing my system to that degree then I'm definitely out.

jaymla627

Timmaay wrote: »

Took the oppose road here, delivered MS have dropped slightly to 430kg, we don't go after any marginal litres at all. However profits are well up and workload hugely down with the change from ayr to spring only calving. I still like the idea of a robot down the line if labour becomes a serious issue and when I'm sick of milking, but if it meant changing my system to that degree then I'm definitely out.

800 euro a cow needed here every year just to meet rent,debt and interest repayments, if I had access to a big block of free-draining land with parlour and sheds and all I’d be running your system, but you’d get it very hard to make the figures stack up, of course the nutty professor simply dosent add in any of this when preaching about marginal milk but how and ever

Timmaay

jaymla627 wrote: »

800 euro a cow needed here every year just to meet rent,debt and interest repayments, if I had access to a big block of free-draining land with parlour and sheds and all I’d be running your system, but you’d get it very hard to make the figures stack up, of course the nutty professor simply dosent add in any of this when preaching about marginal milk but how and ever

Agreed fully that I'm very lucky to be in the low debt situation I am in. Having said that the tax man here would of gone off with 500/cow this yr other than we income averaged, and all I'm doing by income averaging is kicking the can down the road.