robot milking for smaller herds

grazeaway · 18-04-2013 04:24PM #1

A mad notion came over me recently to go back into cows. we used to milk cows up to about 10 years ago and i was thinking of maybe going back into them. If i do i wont be giving up teh day job and i dont think it would make sense to pay some twice a day to do it either. i have a cubicle house for about 50 cows and good slatted feed area (currently used for sucklers. We sold most of the old milking machine and tank a few years back but still have the building. All the filds are in paddocks but he main walk way could do with an up grade.

anyway i was thinking of maybe milking about 40-45 cows (home farm could proably take about 60-70 but i'd proably need to buy/grow silage somewhere else so that mightnt be feasible a round here) and i'd need to do sizeable increase in slurry storage. I have looked read a bit about machines like the lely's but these seem to matched to herds of about 65-75 per machine. Are there any manufactures with smaller units which would cater for herds of about 40-45?

Mulumpy · 18-04-2013 04:32PM

Hi Grazeaway. I dont know a lot about about robotic systems except they are difficult to set up and expensive to maintain. I have a full time job and milking 60 cows as well. I have a neighbour to help me in the spring and milks a good bit for me as well. Its an old seven unit badic parlour. Id think long and hard before committing yourself cos I know in my situation ill only stick with it a few more years and it'll be the cows that go before the job.

F.D · 18-04-2013 04:56PM

think theres an open day in neangh tomorrow you should go and look see what the farmer that has them has to say about them.... sounds like a good plan if you are going to keep working hard to justify though out of the milk price alone i would guess, was often thinking of the same idea myself, at least when i would give up the day job the robot would be paid for and have a good set up, on the other hand for 60 cows if you put in a 15 unit straight through parlour 4 runs and your done, an hour morning and evening.

ciaran kinvara2012 · 18-04-2013 05:16PM

hi grazeaway, funny u mentioned this today, just looked at this on youtube this morning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jazPK3qvH4Y

lely robotic milking machines in ireland and the farments who use them comment on them, interesting for u i think. love to have one, milking 60 cows as well, but it wud be great to be able to go away for weekend and not have to rely on someone else. they are expensive i gather, but you would definatley have higher yields, quieter animals and more time for yourself to do other work. i dunno, maybe they might get more affordable in a few years time maybe......hopefully!!!!

Pacoa · 18-04-2013 08:05PM

Theres a grant system in place now isn't there? Think you can get up to 40k for milking equipment including robots. Should bring the cost under 100k if you can get the grant.

grazeaway · 18-04-2013 09:10PM

Yeah I seem to be getting those lely texts every now and again.

Well it's only an idea for the moment. Running about 50 sucklers at the moment and I reckon it'll take me as much time other than the milking as i take up around now. We had an 8 unit milking machine and it took us about an hour and a half morning and evening to milk them. I reckon the money spent to re built the parlour and dairy paying someone to milk them for me would be around the same after a few years. If it costs about €450/week for a milker that's about 18k a year. The cost of upgrading the sheds and facilities would be around the same.

Man_chest_hair · 18-04-2013 09:49PM

Pacoa wrote: »

Theres a grant system in place now isn't there? Think you can get up to 40k for milking equipment including robots. Should bring the cost under 100k if you can get the grant.

The way i understood that scheme was the maximum investment you could make on the milking equipment was 40k. And the grant would cover 40% of that so you'd get back 16k.. anyone know if this is right or wrong?

I'm in a very similar situation to yourself grazeaway .. getting back into dairying and looking into robots. I'm sold on the benefits of them, increased milkings, better lifestyle, less health problems etc. The main problem is the set up cost. Between 120 & 150 for a single machine. at that price you'd want to get as many cows through as possible so 45 cows might not make the most of it. As far as i know all the robot brands are capable of milking 65-70 with none geared towards smaller numbers

Pacoa · 18-04-2013 09:52PM

Would it cost 450/week for a milker? My fella charges 30 a milking so 60 a day and say you work 5 day week thats 300 a week, 15k/year. Still if he decides one day to pack it in you could be in right trouble trying to find a replacement so robot mightn't be worst idea.

mahoney_j · 18-04-2013 09:56PM

Robot very expensive,The lely one could set u back 120 k and will only milk 70 cows.Also a 6k a year service contract plus esb costs etc,Youl really need 3 phase.So in reality its a lot of money for you to cough up unless that is u have a very good off farm job!!

Man_chest_hair · 18-04-2013 10:01PM

I met with a lely rep recently and he told me 2000 a year for the service contract including parts

grazeaway · 18-04-2013 10:30PM

Pacoa wrote: »

Would it cost 450/week for a milker? My fella charges 30 a milking so 60 a day and say you work 5 day week thats 300 a week, 15k/year. Still if he decides one day to pack it in you could be in right trouble trying to find a replacement so robot mightn't be worst idea.

I was thinking that most robots were for about 60-70 cows.
According to fullwood they can do a automated milking from 30 cows up, hence my query. I reckon I could be able manage about 40 cows and still keep the day job but there would need to cost lot less then the lely ones.

http://www.fullwood.com/t/robotic-milking

F.D · 19-04-2013 09:26AM

I think the key to the robotic milking is not the numbers of cows on the system its the quantity and quality of the milk and the information you get back from the system, so for the part time farmer senario, its ideal because the information is there all the time its up to you how you use it, for example you could say its milk recording every cow for every milking, which you wont do in most existing parlours, so you can build a quality herd over time by replacing the lower yielding/solids cows, based on fact, and breed from your better animals

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 09:57AM

F.D wrote: »

I think the key to the robotic milking is not the numbers of cows on the system its the quantity and quality of the milk and the information you get back from the system, so for the part time farmer senario, its ideal because the information is there all the time its up to you how you use it, for example you could say its milk recording every cow for every milking, which you wont do in most existing parlours, so you can build a quality herd over time by replacing the lower yielding/solids cows, based on fact, and breed from your better animals

yeah thats the way i was thinking too. My dad had a very good set-up here before and we have been trying to keep the sucklers going in the same grazing pattern as we had with the milking cows, so i wouldnt need to do a massive amount of re-seeding or fencing work to convert the garssland. i would need to rebuild the roadway through the paddocks but i was planning on doing that anyway. its just that at the moment i reckon i'm doing pretty much the same amount of work with the sucklers as i would with milking cows (other then the milking).

being in the parlour to know how the cows are doing and being able to judge their performance is a key thing. if i built a basic parlour and was paying a milker then its very hard to gauge a cows performance as that knowledge would be with the milker. the robot would have that kinda info.

i dont on getting into it by 2015 when everyone and his dog will be vying for it. i think i might wait a few years and wait for everything to settle down and then try my options. it might be a more attrive option in 5 years time of the market may be saturated and dry stock may be more productive. but if i do go down that route i'd say it would need to be with a robot but i dont think i would be able to run a herd big enough for a 60-70 cow robot. i'f i had another 20-30 acres on the block it would be doable

st1979 · 19-04-2013 10:26AM

I will be shot for saying this but

You could run 60 cows with robot. forget about new zealand model etc with the robot. Go for high yielding cows with a more spread out calving pattern. so your making best use of your robot. buffer feed and you will be feeding meal anyway to get them into robot. Cows will be milked 3 times a day. Maybe look at pedigree breeding/selling .
Find out from your milk buyer if you can get liquid contract or winter bonus.
Its not going to be much use to you producing milk really cheaply off grass from 40 cows (@5000L/cow) if you don't have the volume of output to cover fixed costs. Where as 60 cows at 9000l/cow might be more feasible even though cost per litre will be higher. And with your land base you are always going to have that problem.
Lads around me grow maize under contract for dairy guys at a €/ton price relative to the quality. Might suit your farm.

Its just another way of looking at it

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 11:47AM

st1979 wrote: »

I will be shot for saying this but

You could run 60 cows with robot. forget about new zealand model etc with the robot. Go for high yielding cows with a more spread out calving pattern. so your making best use of your robot. buffer feed and you will be feeding meal anyway to get them into robot. Cows will be milked 3 times a day. Maybe look at pedigree breeding/selling .
Find out from your milk buyer if you can get liquid contract or winter bonus.
Its not going to be much use to you producing milk really cheaply off grass from 40 cows (@5000L/cow) if you don't have the volume of output to cover fixed costs. Where as 60 cows at 9000l/cow might be more feasible even though cost per litre will be higher. And with your land base you are always going to have that problem.
Lads around me grow maize under contract for dairy guys at a €/ton price relative to the quality. Might suit your farm.

Its just another way of looking at it

actually that was what i was thinking. The robot would give me the flexibility to do winter milking and to be in a position take advanage of the bonus available rather then queing up with everyone else for the summer surge.

st1979 · 19-04-2013 01:20PM

I would be looking at farmingforum.co.uk or thefarmingforum.co.uk bit on them about robots. Guy called chips is farming on rented land with high yielding holsteins and 1 robot. He does zero graze as well and probably gets more milk from grass than most people on here. But don't think the zero grazing would suit you with an off farm job. I think it suits a perfectionist type of personality as they can strive for the last % of efficiency from there system . Which is not me

19driver83 · 19-04-2013 01:31PM

Ive been looking into lely alot lately aswel. Spoke with rep a few weeks ago. He claims 180 milkings a day....id like to see it though! Its 120K-140K depending on what extras you require.

There are alot of videos and interviews on you-tube but you have to take everything with a pinch of salt. The farmers being interviewed may be getting a cheaper service deal for doing some promotional work.

If I am to invest I plan to go to yard with a robot and sit watch it in action for a couple of days / nights. Its alot of money to invest, you have got to be sure of what you are buying.

I plan to build a cubicle shed this year for 60-70 cows and build it so I can add robot in later.

Tipp Man · 19-04-2013 04:10PM

Milking cows is the easy part i think

the rest is where the work is

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 04:26PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

Milking cows is the easy part i think

the rest is where the work is

there is lot more to milking the cows then taking on and off clusters. This time is used to check the cows, does she have mastistis? how fast is she milking? what are yeilds like? is she lame? how much feeding does she need? seperating for AI/vet etc? will i need to cull her? etc etc

the advances in technolgy allow for some of this to be automated, milk flow rates, conductivty testing, weighting the cow, auto drafting, indivdual feeding etc etc. much of this info is lost (IMO) with relif milking as you may have a number of different lads doing it for you.

Timmaay · 19-04-2013 04:29PM

Tipp Man wrote: »

the rest is where the work is

+1 to that, a dairycow has to work a hell of alot harder than a suckler, milk 20/30L for 300days and walk to and from the parlour twice a day, so usually much more issues to deal with like lameness/mastitis, and then all the specific dairy things like milk quality, feeding the dairycow etc. I know the better suckler farmers probably spend as much time with their herd as the dairyfarmers, but robot or no robot, trying to jump straight into dairying part time and expecting it to be a similar workload to part time sucklers will quickly land you in trouble. Best way it would work would be to take a year out of the full time job, get the dairyfarm up and running, after that you'd have a years experience and be able to be more efficient and scale back the hours.

On the Robot front, I'd love the freedom from milking twice a day, every day, but I see it being 5/10years before the price will have come down to a more sensible amount. The biggest problem now is the capital required, putting in a cheap enough 2nd hand herringbone, and paying a man to milk would be much easier from a capital point of view.

Tipp Man · 19-04-2013 04:45PM

grazeaway wrote: »

there is lot more to milking the cows then taking on and off clusters. This time is used to check the cows, does she have mastistis? how fast is she milking? what are yeilds like? is she lame? how much feeding does she need? seperating for AI/vet etc? will i need to cull her? etc etc

the advances in technolgy allow for some of this to be automated, milk flow rates, conductivty testing, weighting the cow, auto drafting, indivdual feeding etc etc. much of this info is lost (IMO) with relif milking as you may have a number of different lads doing it for you.

I'm not necessarily talking about information

I'm talking about physical and actual work - it still needs to be done

ciaran kinvara2012 · 19-04-2013 05:31PM

does anyone think the initial cost of these machines might drop in a few years or will it still be expensive. also maybe in 5 yrs the techology in them may have improved more. i dunno, its risky investment, but it could also save huge amounts of time like the lads were saying for other things.

whelan1 · 19-04-2013 07:40PM

ciaran kinvara2012 wrote: »

does anyone think the initial cost of these machines might drop in a few years or will it still be expensive. also maybe in 5 yrs the techology in them may have improved more. i dunno, its risky investment, but it could also save huge amounts of time like the lads were saying for other things.

20 years ago-:eek:- when i was in college in england we went to holland, lots of robots there at the time, afair the price is similar now to what it was then, so wouldnt be relying on a drop in price any time soon

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 08:35PM

whelan1 wrote: »

20 years ago-:eek:- when i was in college in england we went to holland, lots of robots there at the time, afair the price is similar now to what it was then, so wouldnt be relying on a drop in price any time soon

From what I have been hearing is that prices here are higher then on the continent

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 08:38PM

ciaran kinvara2012 wrote: »

does anyone think the initial cost of these machines might drop in a few years or will it still be expensive. also maybe in 5 yrs the techology in them may have improved more. i dunno, its risky investment, but it could also save huge amounts of time like the lads were saying for other things.

That's what I'm thinking too. I think the manufactures are expecting a surge in milking for post 2015. I would be waiting for a few years for things to settle down.

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 08:51PM

Timmaay wrote: »

+1 to that, a dairycow has to work a hell of alot harder than a suckler, milk 20/30L for 300days and walk to and from the parlour twice a day, so usually much more issues to deal with like lameness/mastitis, and then all the specific dairy things like milk quality, feeding the dairycow etc. I know the better suckler farmers probably spend as much time with their herd as the dairyfarmers, but robot or no robot, trying to jump straight into dairying part time and expecting it to be a similar workload to part time sucklers will quickly land you in trouble. Best way it would work would be to take a year out of the full time job, get the dairyfarm up and running, after that you'd have a years experience and be able to be more efficient and scale back the hours.

On the Robot front, I'd love the freedom from milking twice a day, every day, but I see it being 5/10years before the price will have come down to a more sensible amount. The biggest problem now is the capital required, putting in a cheap enough 2nd hand herringbone, and paying a man to milk would be much easier from a capital point of view.

I reckon I would need to make about €18-20k to pay a fella to milk them. I'm not sure it would make sense for me to do it for a few years and then change it all again. Realisticly the only thing I could swap over would be the cows, tank and cooler. I would have to spend a bit a fixing up the old parlour, extending a roof over the collection yard and putting in another tank or a sump to pump to the main tank and this would then obsolete.

As for the "the other work" I would still need to do robot or not. Keeping within the size of the farm at present I reckon it would be doable.

mf240 · 19-04-2013 08:59PM

Technology always comes back in price when more companies create competition ect. For example when vcrs came out first they were something like 600 pounds when money was money.

Dairy farming isnt the gravy train some people think it is, and it takes a certain type of farmer to make a real go of it. Its also a full time job. Robot or not.

Tipp Man · 19-04-2013 09:03PM

mf240 wrote: »

.

Dairy farming isnt the gravy train some people think it is, and it takes a certain type of farmer to make a real go of it. Its also a full time job. Robot or not.

Well i will second all of that

grazeaway · 19-04-2013 09:09PM

mf240 wrote: »

Technology always comes back in price when more companies create competition ect. For example when vcrs came out first they were something like 600 pounds when money was money.

Dairy farming isnt the gravy train some people think it is, and it takes a certain type of farmer to make a real go of it. Its also a full time job. Robot or not.

Yeah it's only about 10 years since my dad stopped milking. He was able to combine milking cows with doing some tillage and vegetables as well as the school run so I reckon there is scope to do both once I don't go too big.

st1979 · 20-04-2013 09:06AM

I think you can all dream on about the price drop in robots. They have been about more than 20yrs. Do you see tractors cheaper today than 20yrs ago. No. What is happening is the technolgy just keeps improving whether it be tractors robots etc. The one huge advantage of the robot is resale value compared to a normal parlour. They are a self contained unit that is relatively easy to transport. And your market is the whole of Europe.

Massey10 · 20-04-2013 07:23PM

grazeaway wrote: »

Yeah it's only about 10 years since my dad stopped milking. He was able to combine milking cows with doing some tillage and vegetables as well as the school run so I reckon there is scope to do both once I don't go too big.

ive looked it to robots as well and i think you would save yourself the evening milking ,the dry off tubes are the hard part you will end up doing them in the crush which has its own dangers. For the money it costs i feel it not worth it for me the the yearly running costs alone would pay for a fair bit of labour

robot milking for smaller herds

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