We have been dairy farming with this pioneering system for six years, and in that time much has been published about these systems. The following story, not a bad read, has been prepared by Bill, our project manager with 3 years experience on the farm as the robot maintenance technician. You can also go to our Links page for more information. Max.

Milking with robots, a view from the farm.

After six years of automatic milking on their farm in Gippsland, Max and Evelyn Warren are optimistic for the future of the dairy industry and recognize the enormous changes farmers will face through the introduction of innovative technology. A total change in dairy farming practices is about to face the countries farmers, and they will need help and assurance in coping with these radical changes to the total farming system being introduced with automatic milking. Issues around “cow flow”, fertility management and animal health all need to be addressed. Realignment of labour skills and retraining for farm owners/managers will become a priority and the industry needs to be made ready to guide the implementation of this quantum leap forward.

Automatic Milking Systems (AMS) are not only about milk harvesting, they provide a total farm management system which is different to any methods of dairy farming used in the past. Cows are “in control of their day” and are guided by the farmer through infrastructure, incentives and training. The farmer uses the system to monitor cow behaviour, adjusting the infrastructure and incentives, thereby changing cow behaviour to optimize production and productivity.

Imagine a cow that is free to travel around the farm without any direct control by the farmer, no herding to the dairy or the pasture. However we do want the cow to be milked, properly fed and watered, remain in good health and be generally contended. By providing infrastructure in the form of lanes, automatic control gates and strip grazing fences, then managing the incentives, a trained cow will be guided to “freely” be a productive unit on the farm.

So what are the key components of a successful transition to AMS?

1. Supplier backup and peer group support.
2. Training, for owners, managers, labour and the cows.
3. Infrastructure design including, farm layout, laneways, position of dairy, yards, crush and ramp, automatic control gates and strip-grazing layouts.

 Backup and support.

This is possibly the most important component considering the quantum change that farmers face with the system. The change is not so much difficult as it is different, and as Max and Evelyn found it is a lonely place to be when you are the only ones. Lely have provided excellent supplier support, working closely with Max and Evelyn in developing applications specific to Australian grazing conditions. Sadly local industry support has not been there, which in hindsight should have been expected because of the pioneering nature of being the first ones. There is no local knowledge to call on and other farmers being generally conservative are reluctant to get too close in case it turns out to be a fizzer. The reality is so different, after six years of operation the system has proved to work so well it's a shame that the industry did not embrace the concept from day one by working with the farm and keeping farmers informed on the progress of the technology.

Training.        

The management control software for the AMS is the heart of the system and needs to be mastered by the farmer. The main areas in the program are Animal, Calendar, Feeding, Milking, Separation, Health and System. All this data can be viewed at different levels, e.g. Herd, Group and Cow.

AMS unit is made up of hardware parts mostly familiar to farmers. These include variable speed vacuum pump, teat-cup inflations and rubbers, pulsation unit, milk pump and control valves, cleaning tank and chemicals delivery units. Parts new to farmers include electronic controls and readout panel, programming buttons, attachment control laser, quality control unit and arm movement air rams.

Infrastructure.

Farm layout and dairy location should be considered in an AMS installation. In a green-fields site which the Warren farm was the dairy is best centrally located to the pasture, but this is not a firm requirement. Experience in New Zealand and at the Future Dairy Project in Camden cows travel some distance between dairy and pasture. Laneways leading from the dairy should fan out from a central control area; intersections need good controls (electrified gate breaks) and allow room for tractor traffic. Automatic control gate areas should be positioned to allow for good cow flow and be easy to keep clean. Strip grazing systems need to be easy to apply and be secure.

The Warren farm consists of 300 acres of irrigation land gently slopping from north to south. The dairy is located in the centre of the farm, with lanes radiating north, south east and west, accessing paddocks which can be arranged by gate breaks into three main sectors. Sector A to the north, sector B to the east and sector C to the south. (Photo shows the dairy and paddocks to the north). Sector A consists of 4 main paddocks each divided into 5 sections of approx 2.4Ha. Sectors B and C are similar with some variations; sector B paddocks are smaller and on average closer to the dairy.

The dairy layout consists of 4 automatic milking units (robots), holding yards with feed alley in front of robot entry gates, holding yards with feed station behind robot exit gates and a drafting yard with race and crush. All three of these holding yards are under roof and have water troughs; which provide the only water available to milking cows in the system, there are no water troughs in the paddocks. Exit from the yard behind the robots is via an automatic gate which identifies each cow (cows have a respactor collar with unique number) and can direct her to either, sector A,B,C or into the drafting yard. This gate is called the Grazeway System and is controlled by software designed to send the cows to the desired location. Setting the times for gate changes is done by the farmer depending on available pasture in the sectors. For the major part of the year we operate three way grazing, sending cows to sector A at 4am, sector C at 12pm and sector B at 8pm, giving cow’s a new strip of pasture each 8 hours. During times of low pasture growth and particularly in the current drought the Grazeway time setting are constantly changing to maintain cow flow.

The least busy times in the dairy is between 2am-4am and between 10pm-11pm. This pattern can be changed by altering the grazeway gate times and the amount of available feed combined with times that hay/silage is fed in the paddock. This process is called manipulating cow- flow and is the key to successful automatic milking. Because the cows are free to flow, the farmer manages the key motivating factors by incentives, e.g. water, pasture available, hay/silage and supplementary feeding in the dairy. Lanes and farm layout also play a part in achieving good cow- flow.

Lely Astronaut Milking Robots. The unit is a stand alone construction which needs connections to water, power, compressed air, feed augers and a milk-line to the vat. The main components are; cow cubicle with entry and exit gate, feed bin with three feed type inputs, variable speed vacuum pump, pulsation unit, quality control measurement device (MQC), milk jar with litre measure float, milk pump and filter sock housing, hot water service (45Litre) and cleaning chemical pumps, robot arm with 4 teat cups, control electronics and display key pads.

 An idle robot awaits a cow with entry gate open, on entering the cows collar is identified, entry gate closes and detailed information about this cow is provided by the central controller. Feeding begins and the robot arm moves under the cow to brush the teats, once completed the laser scanner locates the teat positions and the cups are attached one at a time, the rear teat which took longest to milk last time is attached first. When all cups are attached the robot checks for milk flow to confirm correct attachment, then continues to monitor each quarter for, milk flow rate, colour and conductivity, milk time and time between attachment and first milk flow. All this information is recorded at every milking of each cow and stored in the system. As milk flow reduces below a predetermined rate, the quarter teat-cup is removed, this is repeated until all quarters are milked, then teat spray is applied, the robot arm extracts, the teat-cups are flushed and the cow is released through the exit gate. The exit gate closes and the entry gate opens for the next cow, While the next cow teats are being brushed the total litres is recorded then the milk is pumped to the vat via the valve bank and filter sock. The bank of 3 valves controls milk and wash water direction, 1 to milk separation set by robot quality control system, 2 to milk separation set by farmer due to health treatment etc, 3 to sewer for wash water, all valves normal milk to vat.

The process is repeated 24 hours a day with two or three automatic cleaning cycles during which time all robots stop milking and do a full hot wash including the milk-line to the vat. There is a main vat and buffer vat, the milk-line is switched from the main to buffer vat by the tanker driver, once the main is pumped out the vat wash cycle is started and some time later the buffer vat is pumped across to the cleaned main and the buffer vat is washed.

It is very satisfying to arrive for work at 8am knowing that the machines have been milking cows all night unassisted. So what does the farmer have to do in this "new generation farming system"?

The two questions most asked by farmers are "how do you know if a cow has mastitis and how do you know when to join cows"?

Lets take a detailed look at a spring calving heifer, her personal number is 4233. The software program that the farmer uses to control the system is called T4C (time for cows). The windows based program is very user friendly, operated by the browser, different levels can be viewed. These levels include Farm, Herd, Group and Cow details. In each level, Animal, Calendar, Feeding, Milking, Separation and Health details are accessed. Milking overview. The screen to the right shows that our cow 4233 is in group 4 Heifers, and under Milking - Overview we see that her milk is being separated (not put in the vat) until 25/1/07 at 12:07pm for medical reasons. There are details about her last milking and the robot number. Milk dead times (time taken between attachment and first milk flow), Milk times, Conductivity and Colour details for each quarter are recorded.

Click to see.

Health. The reason that this cows milk is being separated can be found under the Health section of the system where a permanent record of all health treatments is stored. In this screen we see the cow was treated on the 19/1/07 in the Right/Rear quarter for blood, by administration of Antibiotics in the form of Mastelone. Her milk separation to be effected until the 25/1/07 at 12:07pm.

Click to see.

So how was this problem with the R/R quarter detected? The Lely Astronaut system has an advanced technology system called MQC (Milk Quality Control) which monitors the conductivity and colour (red-green and blue) of each quarter every milking and records the results. The MQC can detect mastitis and blood using this sophisticated technology and automatically separate milk which has a quality issue such as blood or mastitis. Each day the system generates output reports called Attention Lists which alert the farmer to any issues that cows may have.

Activity. In this screen, under Calendar Activity each reading is recorded and the farmer uses this information to select insemination timing

Click to see.

One question that people often ask is, "if cows can visit the dairy as often as they like, how often are they milked?" The system regulates the amount of times that a cow can be milked and also the daily ration of supplementary feed offered. The parameters for milkings per day and feed rations are controlled by the farmer through the T4C program.

Milkings per day. The herd is divided into groups for the purpose of setting milking and feed rates. These groups include, Carry Over, Autumn Calve, Spring Calve, Heifer plus other groups for Drying and Dry cows. Milkings and feed rates for each group can have different settings, and the farmer can have as many groups as he likes, we conducted feed trials for Ridley and used a total of eight groups, splitting the total herd in half feeding two different ration mixes. Access to the robot for milking is controlled by the Astronaut Access table set by the farmer. After the first 20 days of lactation cow access to milking is determined by the table show to the right. On the left is the litre production levels, 0-10, 10-18, 18-25, 25-100. The numbers in the pink section are the milkings allowed up to 20 days after calving. The orange section, from 20 days after calving until 40 days before dry off, from the left is the number of milking allowed, actual milkings per day, number of cows. Example: in the 18-25 litre range, milkings allowed is 2.9, actual milking is (2.2) and there are 8 cows currently in this range. The third section shows that a total of 11 cows are within 40 days of dry off.

Click to see.

Feed. To understand how the feed tables work we can look at an individual animal, number 1200. In the T4C system under the feeding overview for our cow, we see that yesterday feed type 2 (fed in robot box) allocation was 4.3kg and she left 0.2kg (4%). Feed type 5 (fed in feed station) allocation was 1.3kg and there was nil left. Today to date she has 63% left to consume. Total consumed for the lactation is also shown on this overview. For details of this cows daily feed intake for the lactation there is a graph view. The feed amounts are set in the system for each group, (individual cows can be fed set rations also), and the milk-feed table is used to ration feed based on the cows production and stage in lactation. Milk feed table. Feed type 2 is fed in the robot box and feed type 5 is fed in the feed station, from the table the settings are, at 0lt = 1kg + 0.5kg, at 15lt = 3kg + 1.3kg, at 25lt = 6kg + 1.8kg, at 30lt = 8kg + 2kg, at 40lt = 10kg + 2kg, at 50lt = 12kg + 2kg.

Click to see. Click to see.

This article covers some of the important aspects of milking with robots on a daily basis at the farm level, for more specific information about the Lely System follow this link. I would challenge all dairy farmers to seek out the details about the advantages of milking with robots, you might like to call Bill (email or mobile 0409992531) and arrange a visit to our farm to see for yourself. Max.

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