David's going Dairying.

davidk1394

The first morning in the parlor. Up to yesterday I was using a single unit machine in a crush to milk 15 cows. 20 calved so far with very little difficulty. Cows and calves are good and healthy. There's a few more things to finish but in 2 weeks everything should be done.

Images aren't too clear they were taken very quickly while some of the clusters stayed on

Water John

Get a doc to prescribe valium for the week, good luck.

funkey_monkey

All starts now!
Best of luck with the venture.

timple23

Give the floors/bottoms of walls a good wetting of power hose before milking, it makes washing parlour out much easier.

Reggie.

Very best of luck kid

jimmy G M

Reggie. wrote: »

Very best of luck kid

+1.

mr.stonewall

Well done David. Great to follow your journey here on boards and the best of luck in the coming years

Danzy

Well done, followed this thread from the start. Best of luck lad. It's been a great trip.

cjpm

The very best of luck Dave.

tismesoitis

Very best of luck!! Keep us up dated on how you getting on!

Tileman

tismesoitis wrote: »

Very best of luck!! Keep us up dated on how you getting on!

The very best of luck David. It’s being an enjoyable thread. Quick 2 years. At least your making money now rather than spending money.😀

roosterman71

Best of luck with the cows. Have to say the parlour looks the business with the light flooding in from the roof. Brilliant idea to lighten up a place you'll spend hours in

squinn2912

Congratulations a fantastic achievement! Best of luck with it all. Saw a fella Wilson on Ear to the Ground there this evening and it reminded me of this thread. Thanks for all the updates it’s been great reading about your journey.

jayc12

The best of luck David, great to see the end product.

Cushtie

Fair play David. Been following your thread since the beginning. Best of luck with the dairying.

I grew up on a farm but didn't have much interest in it. Tipped away, mostly against my Will. Funnily enough the farming forum on boards has been the one I probably most frequent now. Armchair farming I suppose!!!

davidk1394

I'll stick up more information and photos when its fully finished. I just got it up and running to milk. Cows trained into the routine quick enough. I think milking them individually helped.

In the summer I'll put up the final figures for everything. As of now I'm gone over budget by 15k. However I had no cost for digging or stone. I also sold building stone, flagstones and slates which will bring the 15k back to about 8k. At the moment I'm just enjoying the journey even though the weather is brutal.

JustJoe7240

squinn2912 wrote: »

No call for that it’s only the man’s opinion. I wanna hear more from David too though

And it's not appropriate for this thread. Not that that bothers me anymore now that the ignore button is being used.

Finally back on topic, Excellent thread David,been following from the start and great to see it up and running. The place I work for runs the wash trough into the wash down tank after washing. Seems to prevent any moss or algae growing.

davidk1394

davidk1394 wrote: »

I'll stick up more information and photos when its fully finished. I just got it up and running to milk. Cows trained into the routine quick enough. I think milking them individually helped.

In the summer I'll put up the final figures for everything. As of now I'm gone over budget by 15k. However I had no cost for digging or stone. I also sold building stone, flagstones and slates which will bring the 15k back to about 8k. At the moment I'm just enjoying the journey even though the weather is brutal.

looks a fine setup,great to see someone set themselves up and go at it

Best of luck with it

Base price

David, much problems getting the heifers used to the clusters. I remember years ago when the Uncle was still milking that heifers were always a nightmare and you'd be afraid of getting your wrist/fingers broken.

wrangler

Base price wrote: »

David, much problems getting the heifers used to the clusters. I remember years ago when the Uncle was still milking that heifers were always a nightmare and you'd be afraid of getting your wrist/fingers broken.

Yea, a friend had a heifer was so good that she broke his arm twice before he pulled it out

davidk1394

Base price wrote: »

David, much problems getting the heifers used to the clusters. I remember years ago when the Uncle was still milking that heifers were always a nightmare and you'd be afraid of getting your wrist/fingers broken.

Only 2 clusters were kicked off this morning. So far most of the heifers are fine. One heifer has a nasty right leg alright.

Mooooo

The run thru pre calving can help get em used to it, but if you were milking them already with the bucket plant they would be used to clusters. I find a narrow rope the best with ones that must be tied as they leg can be properly secured. Reducing the space they have can help as well so if an extra cow goes into the row for a milking or two what about it.

blue5000

tanko wrote: »

Can a separate thread be set up for this shyte???

Yes it can. What do want to call it?

Edit, just closing this one for a few minutes to tidy it up, bear with me.

New thread https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=116352149#post116352149

Danzy

davidk1394 wrote: »

Only 2 clusters were kicked off this morning. So far most of the heifers are fine. One heifer has a nasty right leg alright.

Often tied the leg to a bar, quickly and cagely.

einn32

Danzy wrote: »

Often tied the leg to a bar, quickly and cagely.

Climbing rope is very hand for the quick release and is soft. . It's one advantage of robots....watching the robot get the ****e kicked out of it made my day!

davidk1394

This is the collecting yard for the minute. A wall going parallel with the tank, this will be built 7ft to the left, and another wall going between the pillars of the shed will be built during the summer. The fence is doing fine for the moment.



The cows closest to calf are in a large loose bedded shed. We set up a calving gate temporarily in this shed for the spring. It works just fine and we only used the head gate once so far. This shed and the one to the right of it will be turned into cubicles during the summer.

davidk1394

This is the calf shed for this spring. It was a sheep shed with a center passageway and barriers either side. The barrier were removed and I used the sheep hurdles to make pens. It's a simple setup. Each pen holds 5 calves. This week we will put them into groups of 10.

Each calf goes into an individual pen for the first 24 hours and them moves into a group. It works fine for this year with the small number of animals and I'd like to do it for the next few years if I can. Each calf gets their mothers colostrum.

Base price

davidk1394 wrote: »

This is the calf shed for this spring. It was a sheep shed with a center passageway and barriers either side. The barrier were removed and I used the sheep hurdles to make pens. It's a simple setup. Each pen holds 5 calves. This week we will put them into groups of 10.

Each calf goes into an individual pen for the first 24 hours and them moves into a group. It works fine for this year with the small number of animals and I'd like to do it for the next few years if I can. Each calf gets their mothers colostrum.

The sheep hurdles are fierce handy. I've seen a few set up's with dairy farmers using them for penning calves. They are easily removed and the shed can be used for other stuff like storing bales of hay/straw during the Autumn/Winter.

squinn2912

davidk1394 wrote: »

This is the collecting yard for the minute. A wall going parallel with the tank, this will be built 7ft to the left, and another wall going between the pillars of the shed will be built during the summer. The fence is doing fine for the moment.

The cows closest to calf are in a large loose bedded shed. We set up a calving gate temporarily in this shed for the spring. It works just fine and we only used the head gate once so far. This shed and the one to the right of it will be turned into cubicles during the summer.

What make of head gate is that?

davidk1394

squinn2912 wrote: »

What make of head gate is that?

It's a Condon head gate.