robot milking for smaller herds

Pacoa · 20-04-2013 09:03PM

Some cheap second hand robots in france.

http://www.agriaffaires.co.uk/used/milking-parlour/3059434/robot-traite-lely.html

grazeaway · 20-04-2013 09:44PM

As a few people have pointed out it there is more of a market across the water. I reckon if the likes of lely get a foothold here they might be able to offer good second hand units. If you could get a second hand refurb that was good for ten years for a 1/5 of the price it would make a big difference on outlay.

whelan1 · 20-04-2013 09:51PM

realistically could you have an off farm job and use a robot?

moy83 · 20-04-2013 10:00PM

whelan1 wrote: »

realistically could you have an off farm job and use a robot?

I dont know if I would fancy an off farm job when milking at all , in fact it would be a perk to me to be able to take a wage from not having to leave home . I milked mornings before heading out to work for a few years and did about half the evening milkings in the week aswell , it was alright but when the kids came along it had to stop as I wouldnt have spent anytime at home at all .
I'm sure with the robot you will still have to spend plenty of time around the yard , nothing runs smoothly all the time especially where cows are concerned

Pacoa · 20-04-2013 10:34PM

I did ai for a company 2 years ago while still milking my cows. Was getting up at 6am and finishing at 9-9.30pm 7 days a week for 70 days on the trot. Was i ever glad when it finished and i haven't gone back since. I'd hate to be doing it this weather what with drawing silage and slurry etc. Only way i'd do it again would be if i put in a robot. Still i remember reading about a guy in waterford that milks 70 cows and does ai for munster, don't know how he sticks it.

delaval · 20-04-2013 11:40PM

Pacoa wrote: »

I did ai for a company 2 years ago while still milking my cows. Was getting up at 6am and finishing at 9-9.30pm 7 days a week for 70 days on the trot. Was i ever glad when it finished and i haven't gone back since. I'd hate to be doing it this weather what with drawing silage and slurry etc. Only way i'd do it again would be if i put in a robot. Still i remember reading about a guy in waterford that milks 70 cows and does ai for munster, don't know how he sticks it.

70 days most of us do 300 all be it we finish at 6.30 though. I know it's a big commitment having a job and milking

Massey10 · 21-04-2013 10:06AM

grazeaway wrote: »

As a few people have pointed out it there is more of a market across the water. I reckon if the likes of lely get a foothold here they might be able to offer good second hand units. If you could get a second hand refurb that was good for ten years for a 1/5 of the price it would make a big difference on outlay.

The refurb lely are hard to get here as they dont want to stock the parts for them in some lely centers and harder to train the cows to use them as they .I asked about price and was told around 3/4 the new price but that was a lely center that didnt sell refurb yet .

delaval · 21-04-2013 11:27AM

This my Dutch friends one in operation Delaval

PMU · 21-04-2013 11:48AM

Pacoa wrote: »

Some cheap second hand robots in france.

http://www.agriaffaires.co.uk/used/milking-parlour/3059434/robot-traite-lely.html

seems too cheap !

farmertipp · 21-04-2013 02:33PM

With the weather we are getting i would think the high input/high output system would work and get guy with zero grazer to draw a few loads if you run tight or it is v wet

grazeaway · 21-04-2013 03:19PM

farmertipp wrote: »

With the weather we are getting i would think the high input/high output system would work and get guy with zero grazer to draw a few loads if you run tight or it is v wet

One of my friends got his old single chop harvester out of the shed last year and used it as a zero grazer. Was talking to him last week and he was using it again.

Pacoa · 21-04-2013 08:11PM

seems too cheap !

Not cheap enough if you ask me. I'd stay away from ten year old a2's if i was buying secondhand, a3 or better but they're 50k plus. With the grant available for new robots only, it really makes secondhand a non runner. Looks like there's a lot of hoops to jump through in order to get the grant though.

delaval · 21-04-2013 08:16PM

How much for Lely or Delaval new? Do the companies not do a monthly deal on new machines. They may not be as outrageous as you think.
I certainly will not be buying one yet but my Dutch friend would not touch a second hand unit

Pacoa · 21-04-2013 08:19PM

How does he find the delaval robot? i've seen stories on the net that they're troublesome.

delaval · 21-04-2013 08:36PM

Pacoa wrote: »

How does he find the delaval robot? i've seen stories on the net that they're troublesome.

He has 5 in total and the only problem so far is milk lines freezing on way back to tank room. It was a huge issue in winter 10. He would be very on the ball with servicing etc a has told me of no other problems.

Farmer Ed · 22-04-2013 01:17AM

Farmers are finding cows dont do as much damage grazing with robots as they are not being herded in and out and also they tend to have access to shelter in the shed a bad day rather being locked in to a padock digging it up.
Plesent unexpected plus side to robot milking. Also Delaval arm does not remain under the cow during milking. Only Lely and Fullwood have a patent to do this. Those arms can take a lot of abuse during training and if they weren't there the pipe work wouldn't have any protection. I would be very worried having a robot that didn't have an arm to protect the tubing. I would think a lot of alarm calls? Was talking to a French student over here who was opperating 2 Delavals on his home farm. I forget the exact figure he told me but according to him, the box times (time it took to milk each cow) was much slower than the lely's over here.

bbam · 22-04-2013 10:03AM

whelan1 wrote: »

realistically could you have an off farm job and use a robot?

Maybe as OP suggested for a small herd.
But even with. Robot I'd see it hard to do the dairy well and have an off farm job. Say 100 cows, there's a she'd load of work outside the parlour that would just get neglected if you were off farm.

You'd probably have lads in doing lots of the work. Then your paying for a robot, paying labour and away working. Hardly too attractive. You'd be better with a decent parlour and enjoy being on farm 100% of the time, and do it well.
IMHO when quotas go, only lads doing things well will make a decent living.

jfh · 22-04-2013 10:16AM

bbam wrote: »

Maybe as OP suggested for a small herd.
But even with. Robot I'd see it hard to do the dairy well and have an off farm job. Say 100 cows, there's a she'd load of work outside the parlour that would just get neglected if you were off farm.

You'd probably have lads in doing lots of the work. Then your paying for a robot, paying labour and away working. Hardly too attractive. You'd be better with a decent parlour and enjoy being on farm 100% of the time, and do it well.
IMHO when quotas go, only lads doing things well will make a decent living.

have to agree with whelan1 here, know there's guys doing both milking & off farm job but i think you'd be better off with one of the other. long term it will drain you & you wont be given either 100%.
of course it all depends on the flexibilty of your off farm job, another poster said he was doing AI so at least you could spin home when you got an alarm etc. there's a great thread on the BFF on this, best of luck & fair play to you for exploring different alternatives.
i think if you were adament on going down the milking route, you might be better off putting in a basic parlour & getting a guy in to manage it.
would 35 cows pay his salary?

grazeaway · 22-04-2013 10:22AM

Farmer Ed wrote: »

Farmers are finding cows dont do as much damage grazing with robots as they are not being herded in and out and also they tend to have access to shelter in the shed a bad day rather being locked in to a padock digging it up.
Plesent unexpected plus side to robot milking. Also Delaval arm does not remain under the cow during milking. Only Lely and Fullwood have a patent to do this. Those arms can take a lot of abuse during training and if they weren't there the pipe work wouldn't have any protection. I would be very worried having a robot that didn't have an arm to protect the tubing. I would think a lot of alarm calls? Was talking to a French student over here who was opperating 2 Delavals on his home farm. I forget the exact figure he told me but according to him, the box times (time it took to milk each cow) was much slower than the lely's over here.

yipp have heard that from lads in norway, sweden and germany too. in parts of scandivina the farmers have to have the cows grazing outside for a couple of months of the year (they have much nicer summers in finland and sweden then we do but norway can be very like here). so not all herds are zero grazed all year round. its in the spring and authunm that the ability to let the cows into the shed for shelter and reduce the poaching that they really find a benifit. a number of places are moving to partial grazing espically during the summer months to reduce costs due to the increase in diesel prices. also in holland the cermeray's are paying an extra premium for milk from grazed herds.

i was doing out sums over the weekend so heres what i have figured out;

Cost of improving road ways and fencing will be the same.
Cost of new tank and colling system will be the same.
Cost of upgrades to housing (scrapers, feed barriers, etc) will be the same.
cost of buying the cows will be same.

The simplist and cheaper way to milk them would be to upgrade the existing parlour, this is an 8 unit parlour that was bulit in the early 80's. The collection yard and structure its self are in good contion, but would need to be covered and a new holding tank built (the tank where the washing and claendown from the yard was removed a few years ago. Also the building is quite narrow so in order to fit things like couning jars or auto meal feeding as well as room to work the space wold be too tight.

In reality a new parlour would need to be built, ecause of space and loction it would need to be at the other side of the cubilces sheds (area is where the silage is stored so a new location for that would need to be built for that too).

The reality of me getting back into milking would require a good bit of capaital investment one way or another, either building a brand new milking parlour, dairy and holding yard (extenstion of existing feed passage), or getting a robot.

I'm not sure of the building costs but i'm sure ye'll be able to give me a ball park figure, but for agurmants sake it cost 100k for a new parlour, dairy and yard and 150k for the robot, thats a 50k difference. If i need to spand another 18k a year for a milker then the savings would be wiped out in 3 years.

If i was to go full time and look to earn a decent wage then its higly unlikely to be able to do it without increasing herd size and therfore increasing the farm size. One of neighbouring farms is avaible for letting but its in tillage at the moment but i'm not sure of the owners long term plans for it ( it might get sold or it could be leased for the next 30 years, no-one is quite sure) so it wouldnt make too much sense to take it on long term. I reckon it'll take about €150-200k bewetten capital investment and stock to get milking.

The average yeild for irish cows is around 4500ltr/yr, 45cows is about 202500/yr. after costs I would need to be making 11c/ltr just to pay the milkers. it would be intresting to see how much of the labour cost the increased yeild in the cow is reported to elimanate. If a robot milked cow can get up to 5500/6000ltr/yr then things start to change.

Tipp Man · 22-04-2013 10:59AM

grazeaway wrote: »

yipp have heard that from lads in norway, sweden and germany too. in parts of scandivina the farmers have to have the cows grazing outside for a couple of months of the year (they have much nicer summers in finland and sweden then we do but norway can be very like here). so not all herds are zero grazed all year round. its in the spring and authunm that the ability to let the cows into the shed for shelter and reduce the poaching that they really find a benifit. a number of places are moving to partial grazing espically during the summer months to reduce costs due to the increase in diesel prices. also in holland the cermeray's are paying an extra premium for milk from grazed herds.

i was doing out sums over the weekend so heres what i have figured out;

Cost of improving road ways and fencing will be the same.
Cost of new tank and colling system will be the same.
Cost of upgrades to housing (scrapers, feed barriers, etc) will be the same.
cost of buying the cows will be same.

The simplist and cheaper way to milk them would be to upgrade the existing parlour, this is an 8 unit parlour that was bulit in the early 80's. The collection yard and structure its self are in good contion, but would need to be covered and a new holding tank built (the tank where the washing and claendown from the yard was removed a few years ago. Also the building is quite narrow so in order to fit things like couning jars or auto meal feeding as well as room to work the space wold be too tight.

In reality a new parlour would need to be built, ecause of space and loction it would need to be at the other side of the cubilces sheds (area is where the silage is stored so a new location for that would need to be built for that too).

The reality of me getting back into milking would require a good bit of capaital investment one way or another, either building a brand new milking parlour, dairy and holding yard (extenstion of existing feed passage), or getting a robot.

I'm not sure of the building costs but i'm sure ye'll be able to give me a ball park figure, but for agurmants sake it cost 100k for a new parlour, dairy and yard and 150k for the robot, thats a 50k difference. If i need to spand another 18k a year for a milker then the savings would be wiped out in 3 years.

If i was to go full time and look to earn a decent wage then its higly unlikely to be able to do it without increasing herd size and therfore increasing the farm size. One of neighbouring farms is avaible for letting but its in tillage at the moment but i'm not sure of the owners long term plans for it ( it might get sold or it could be leased for the next 30 years, no-one is quite sure) so it wouldnt make too much sense to take it on long term. I reckon it'll take about €150-200k bewetten capital investment and stock to get milking.

The average yeild for irish cows is around 4500ltr/yr, 45cows is about 202500/yr. after costs I would need to be making 11c/ltr just to pay the milkers. it would be intresting to see how much of the labour cost the increased yeild in the cow is reported to elimanate. If a robot milked cow can get up to 5500/6000ltr/yr then things start to change.

Have you factored in the annual service fee on the robot?

Sold calves to a guy in cork who is putting in a robot in 2015 - leasing it and service fee come in at 12k per annum - don't know the breakdown between service and lease

F.D · 22-04-2013 11:30AM

Good points Grazeaway on the infrastructure
One thing that is been over looked with labour is the lack of quality cow people out there, yes you will get anyone to throw on clusters but for someone that knows cows you will pay well for them, also in say 7 years the robot is paid for, you have no wage bill and it will probably milk on for another 7 before it needs changing,
I think if you had an off farm job you could really make it work, and pay it off quicker, and know you can spend 8-10 hours on a saturday doing all the big jobs that need tidying up, even if you had to pay 50 quid to some casual labour the odd weekend if you needed a hand

Final point, it might be 150 K to spend on a milking machine how many dairy men have spend 70- 100k on tractors and diet feeders/ zerograzers, that might clock up 500-1000 hrs per year
But still they stand in a parlour say 3 hrs per day for 300 days a year, so 900 hrs
Think i would rather spend my money on a Robot !!

farmertipp · 22-04-2013 11:40AM

Tipp Man wrote: »

Have you factored in the annual service fee on the robot?

Sold calves to a guy in cork who is putting in a robot in 2015 - leasing it and service fee come in at 12k per annum - don't know the breakdown between service and lease

Are you saying that he is leasing rather than buying it?interesting

farmertipp · 22-04-2013 11:42AM

F.D wrote: »

Good points Grazeaway on the infrastructure
One thing that is been over looked with labour is the lack of quality cow people out there, yes you will get anyone to throw on clusters but for someone that knows cows you will pay well for them, also in say 7 years the robot is paid for, you have no wage bill and it will probably milk on for another 7 before it needs changing,
I think if you had an off farm job you could really make it work, and pay it off quicker, and know you can spend 8-10 hours on a saturday doing all the big jobs that need tidying up, even if you had to pay 50 quid to some casual labour the odd weekend if you needed a hand

Final point, it might be 150 K to spend on a milking machine how many dairy men have spend 70- 100k on tractors and diet feeders/ zerograzers, that might clock up 500-1000 hrs per year
But still they stand in a parlour say 3 hrs per day for 300 days a year, so 900 hrs
Think i would rather spend my money on a Robot !!

Spot on.well worth checking this option out

Farmer Ed · 22-04-2013 06:05PM

grazeaway wrote: »

yipp have heard that from lads in norway, sweden and germany too. in parts of scandivina the farmers have to have the cows grazing outside for a couple of months of the year (they have much nicer summers in finland and sweden then we do but norway can be very like here). so not all herds are zero grazed all year round. its in the spring and authunm that the ability to let the cows into the shed for shelter and reduce the poaching that they really find a benifit. a number of places are moving to partial grazing espically during the summer months to reduce costs due to the increase in diesel prices. also in holland the cermeray's are paying an extra premium for milk from grazed herds.

i was doing out sums over the weekend so heres what i have figured out;

Cost of improving road ways and fencing will be the same.
Cost of new tank and colling system will be the same.
Cost of upgrades to housing (scrapers, feed barriers, etc) will be the same.
cost of buying the cows will be same.

The simplist and cheaper way to milk them would be to upgrade the existing parlour, this is an 8 unit parlour that was bulit in the early 80's. The collection yard and structure its self are in good contion, but would need to be covered and a new holding tank built (the tank where the washing and claendown from the yard was removed a few years ago. Also the building is quite narrow so in order to fit things like couning jars or auto meal feeding as well as room to work the space wold be too tight.

In reality a new parlour would need to be built, ecause of space and loction it would need to be at the other side of the cubilces sheds (area is where the silage is stored so a new location for that would need to be built for that too).

The reality of me getting back into milking would require a good bit of capaital investment one way or another, either building a brand new milking parlour, dairy and holding yard (extenstion of existing feed passage), or getting a robot.

I'm not sure of the building costs but i'm sure ye'll be able to give me a ball park figure, but for agurmants sake it cost 100k for a new parlour, dairy and yard and 150k for the robot, thats a 50k difference. If i need to spand another 18k a year for a milker then the savings would be wiped out in 3 years.

If i was to go full time and look to earn a decent wage then its higly unlikely to be able to do it without increasing herd size and therfore increasing the farm size. One of neighbouring farms is avaible for letting but its in tillage at the moment but i'm not sure of the owners long term plans for it ( it might get sold or it could be leased for the next 30 years, no-one is quite sure) so it wouldnt make too much sense to take it on long term. I reckon it'll take about €150-200k bewetten capital investment and stock to get milking.

The average yeild for irish cows is around 4500ltr/yr, 45cows is about 202500/yr. after costs I would need to be making 11c/ltr just to pay the milkers. it would be intresting to see how much of the labour cost the increased yeild in the cow is reported to elimanate. If a robot milked cow can get up to 5500/6000ltr/yr then things start to change.

With robots there are a few different type of systems and cows. ie. If you go for the NZ/Moorepark system milking 4500 kg cows 1.8 times per day. You could be looking at milking 90 cows on a Lely. If you go for the 8000kg plus cow milking her 2.6 to 3 times a day then you would be looking at milking 60 to 70 cows per robot, even when grazing. What ever rocks your boat. But I've seen both systems to work. I guess it's up to everyone to make up their own mind what suits their own farm.

Timmaay · 22-04-2013 07:45PM

Farmer Ed wrote: »

With robots there are a few different type of systems and cows. ie. If you go for the NZ/Moorepark system milking 4500 kg cows 1.8 times per day. You could be looking at milking 90 cows on a Lely. If you go for the 8000kg plus cow milking her 2.6 to 3 times a day then you would be looking at milking 60 to 70 cows per robot, even when grazing. What ever rocks your boat. But I've seen both systems to work. I guess it's up to everyone to make up their own mind what suits their own farm.

I remember reading up on the uk forum about robots that they suggest all year around calving suits the robot best also, as you'd be able to have 60/70 high yielding cows all year around, so a total herd of 80 or so.

Mulumpy · 22-04-2013 09:31PM

jfh wrote: »

have to agree with whelan1 here, know there's guys doing both milking & off farm job but i think you'd be better off with one of the other. long term it will drain you & you wont be given either 100%.
of course it all depends on the flexibilty of your off farm job, another poster said he was doing AI so at least you could spin home when you got an alarm etc. there's a great thread on the BFF on this, best of luck & fair play to you for exploring different alternatives.
i think if you were adament on going down the milking route, you might be better off putting in a basic parlour & getting a guy in to manage it.
would 35 cows pay his salary?

Im in my third year running dairy farming with a full time job. Gets a bit easier every year when ya learn how to make life easier for yourself. Most important things I find necessary are. Good relief milker. Reliable contractor. Good roadways and fences. A lot of luck and most importantly someone to keep an eye out while your gone. I dunno how many calves my mother saved this spring. Biggest obstacle of all is balancing work with family life.

noworries2004 · 09-08-2016 02:18PM

Bringing up this issue again to see if there is anyone who has installed a robotic milking and has experience to share ?

mahoney_j · 09-08-2016 02:57PM

noworries2004 wrote: »

Bringing up this issue again to see if there is anyone who has installed a robotic milking and has experience to share ?

Are u on Twitter ???.could point unto a few over there if u are

Command · 09-08-2016 04:47PM

noworries2004 wrote: »

Bringing up this issue again to see if there is anyone who has installed a robotic milking and has experience to share ?

Yea we hav one in it will be in 2years this month very happy wit it

Farmer Ed · 09-08-2016 06:50PM

The robot is dead handy but can be a bit stressful until you get used of it. Also you are always on call with a robot. Wouldn't say it gives any extra milk in a typical grass based system inspite of some who say it does. It will milk cows and will reduce labour, it will reduce lameness and possibly feed bills or at least feed to yeild. but just like any other investment you are thinking of making in dairying, just be sure you are not exposing your self too much financially, we live in an environment where loan repayment capacity is impossible to predict.

robot milking for smaller herds

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