Robots slash on-farm labour

Their most recent installation was swapping from a 40-unit rotary dairy on their home farm, installing A5 Lely robotic units.

Leesa and Grant milk 600 cows in two dairy sheds, off 270 hectares of hill country. The herd is seasonal calving.

Their first installation of the automatic milking system was in 2009, when they installed three A3 Lely robotic units.

They had bought a neighbouring farm in 2008, with a 20-a-side herringbone unit, which they decided to decommission and install automatic milkers.

It was a retrofit. The pit was filled in and the shed floor and undercover yard were used to house the three robotic units.

A key reason for the change was to centralise labour units to their home farm, where they milked through a rotary dairy. While they were milking 280 cows in the rotary dairy, they were able to grow the milking herd to 180 cows, with capacity for 210, on the second farm.

In 2013, they upgraded the shed on their second farm and put in four A4 Lely robots. Prior to the upgrade, Grant and Leesa had quantified a 10 per cent production improvement from the cows accessing the robot system, compared to the cows milked in the rotary dairy.

Leesa continued to milk cows twice-a-day in the 40-unit rotary dairy on their home farm, but the couple re-assessed their priorities for a number of reasons, including wanting to spend time with their grandchildren.

This led them to install six A5 Lely robots into a new build positioned next to the rotary unit.

Once the cows transitioned and the robots were fully operational in September 2021, Leesa and Grant closed the rotary unit to daily milking. Leesa said they keep it operational to use for springers, transitioning them into the robot units.

“The heifers don’t go on the rotary, they go directly through the robot units,” she said.

Transition for the cows from the rotary dairy to the AMS units was easy, Leesa said.

“We’d been walking them through the robots on their way to the rotary milking shed,” she said.

“I think they were doing that for about four days, and it helped. The cows experienced walking through the robot units during the building work, so they weren’t scared of them.

“We were calving at the same time as they were transitioning, and we wanted it all to go as smoothly as possible, given the additional work.”

The herd now milks through two dairies, which are both fitted with Lely robots.

“The reason we went down the AMS milking system initially was to try and keep it as a family-run business,” Grant said.

“We like farming and we wanted to be able to keep doing it.

“We like the relaxed, voluntary nature of the whole milking system. The cow flow is entirely voluntary.

“It’s still farming, but we’re not having to put cups on cows while they’re kicking at us, and you’re stretching to reach their udders. We didn’t want to be doing the physical slog of putting cups on for another 20 years.

“I still have to work as a farmer, doing those routine jobs. I’m still fencing, or sowing paddocks, or fertilising.”

The cost of installing robots is offset by savings in labour costs.

“Labour is hard to get these days and it’s expensive,” Grant said.

Prior to transitioning in 2009, the couple looked at what was available and have continued to be happy with their choice.

“When we first started looking at installing robots, we knew they would work for us,” Leesa said.

“The robot units have enabled us to have a better quality of life physically and mentally.

“In a number of ways, it’s quite draining to know that in a conventional dairy system you have to be in the milking shed, whether it’s 5.30am in the morning, or 3.30/4pm in the afternoon.

“This style of milking cows gives us more flexibility and it’s better on our bodies.”

Leesa is able to spend time with their grandchildren, something she enjoys doing.

Grant is able to commit himself to supporting local sports and community groups as an administrator and community leader.

Leesa and Grant adapted easily to the technology involved in using robot units and in analysing data about cow health. For Leesa, in particular, managing herd health through the Lely system has saved her a lot of worry.

“We get so much data from the system,” she said.

“The information about cow health is amazing. Using the data we can pick up cows that are sick pretty quickly.

“In our old rotary system, we definitely had to be watching cows all the time.

“It used to worry me, but now I’m confident that anyone can look at the information on the Lely system and pick up a cow that’s sick.”

Whichever dairy the cows choose to be milked in, they all pass by a feed pad that Grant fills every day.

The feed pad was built for 420 cows when Grant and Leesa were milking about 340, and planning growth.

Since switching to robot units in the two dairies, they have now found only one side of the feed pad needs to be made available to the cows, as they transition between milking and grazing.

“We load up the feed pad with fodder in the morning, and that quantity usually lasts until the next day,” he said.

“We use the feed pad most of the year.

“Maybe in the spring peak growth time for pasture, we might not use it every day, or I’ll put out less fodder for the cows.”

Keeping only one side of the feed pad accessible to the cows means only one side needs to be flood washed daily.

Pasture management is a challenge on the farm, with steep country and a high rainfall and wet winters in most years.

A junction of the Lang Lang River runs through the farm and in wet weather up to 25 acres of grazing country is underwater.

Grant and Leesa started using multispecies plantings more than 10 years ago, to supplement pasture.

Grant has noted improvements in butterfat and protein levels and good cow health indicators with a cell count of 63-100.

He said the multispecies approach required 60 to 80 days to establish on his farm, and he has spent years of trialling different times of sowing.

Now, 50 per cent of plantings in autumn and spring are with multispecies pastures. The balance of pasture is a ryegrass and clover mix.

“As a result, we have reduced most of our fertiliser inputs,” Grant said.

“Last year I only put 100kg of fertiliser on the farm.

“I don’t put a lot of nitrogen on because we seem to have enough and the plants have a good colour.

“And soil tests show no decrease in soil nutrient levels.

“Pasture utilisation doesn’t appear to have changed since we changed both dairies to robot units.”

Grant uses a slurry truck to spread effluent from the dams, and makes compost from components including the washdown from the two dairies and the feed pad, that he spreads regularly to feed the soil.

“The slurry and compost makes us pretty well self-sufficient,” he said.

Grant and Leesa said the most recent installation (2021) was paid off within three years.