The way the Edgar family want to achieve their targets is to automate their dairy farm as much as possible.

Edgar and his wife, Tam, farm in partnership with his parents, Ron and Heather. The main property is 130ha at Timbs Crossing about 5km out of Gormandale, and 100ha at the home farm 'Kingslea' on the outskirts of Gormandale. They also maintain run-off properties about 20km away for cropping.

Ron and Heather came to this property in 1977, at that time they had 36ha and leased the place next door, milking in the ubiquitous walk-through dairy of the time.

"It's interesting," says Ross. "That's the way we started and in a few years we'll be back to that system – with robotics."

Ross Edgar has been involved with the farm partnership since he left school and they now have 8oo milkers, with split calving – autumn and spring. The herd is mainly Holsteins with some crossbreds, but he's "not convinced about the advantages of crossbreds".

"We have a self-replacing herd, but we buy in the odd cow to top up the genetics. We are selecting for a higher percentage of fat and protein and at the moment we are getting over 600kg of solids."

They milk through an 18 double-up shed at Timbs Crossing and an 8 double-up at Kingslea, so not surprisingly milking can take between 5 and 6 hours.

Five full-time staff are employed for milking as well as a couple of other casual workers.

"The major thing is to free us up, so that we can spend time with the family," Edgar says.

They are big grain feeders; 2500kg per cow, per year.

"We buy in a lot of feed, so we operate our own truck, which makes it $40 – 50 per tonne cheaper." Ron drives the truck.

Edgar sums up the philosophy of the partnership; "We want to do the best job we can with what we have, and that's where the electronic and automatic machinery works, to help us out as we've grown."

Their automation started with a couple of Lely CALM calf feeders.

"We got our first in 2005, then the second one a couple of years later. We now have a third about to be installed."

The Edgars feed the calves colostrum for five days, then move them into the calf shed with the automatic feeders.

"This autumn we raised all our bull calves and we have 166 on the automatic calf feeders at the moment. We'll have 200 in spring; we keep all our heifers."

The high demand for beef has created the desirability of raising the bull calves. They mark them at anywhere between two and 10 weeks, depending on the workload.

The automatic calf feeder supplies the correct portion of either milk powder and hot water or fresh milk during the day, resembling the natural behaviour of the calf, instead of the manual system when it is restricted to once or twice a day.

It recognizes the animals from their ID ear tag and knows exactly how much milk the calf should have. Due to this individual recognition, the shed has two groups feeding from each machine.

"We have 85 calves on one machine at the moment and 81 on the other, in pens of about 40. When we turn up after milking, we only have to look after the sick calves, if any. It's a twice-a-day management tool.

"We still think putting up with the downside is worthwhile. I like to set up my own trials with things like fortified milk rations. The calves are fed ad-lib grain in the calf shed and exit it in about six weeks."

The Edgars' focus on automation has seen them now move into two new Lely Cosmix M automatic feeders. They operate in a similar way to the CALM calf feeders, reading the ID tag and rationing out the correct ration of grain and protein (canola and lupins, plus additives) for each calf – after they've 'graduated' from the calf shed.

The Lely Cosmix immediately assesses if the heifer should eat, and how much. No feed is wasted, because feed is dispensed according to her eating speed. Each machine can look after 70 calves.

Ross Edgar says that they will eventually have six on the farm.

"We would love to do robotic milking and we will move that way. We need to be more financially secure, but we've done the budgets and it all stacks up. We were actually ready a couple of years ago, before the dairy crash.

"Voluntary robotic milking is a very logical way to go. In spring we have to lock the cows in the paddock during the day. They're full of milk and want to come up to be milked."

Before that next step is taken, the Edgars have plans to build a 50 stall rotary at Timbs Crossing. All the steel is already there from a disassembled shed. They will retain the rotary and the robots will probably be installed at Kingslea.

"That's in the future. We're not setting too many goals. I'd love to say next year, but the reality is that it's a couple of years off. We're all in agreement regarding the technical progress. It's purely a financial decision – you have to crawl before you run."

Working Clothes will focus on the performance of a new machine in the paddock each month. Send suggestions to Chris Dingle on 0417 735 001 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it