Kendra Davis
The following article was published in the NZFW earlier this month is worthy of some comment. I am interested to hear what you think and particularly any response from Lely or other members of the group who have experience with rumination data.
Manufacturing/R&D
NZ’s First Robotic Dairy Farm Does Not Meet Expectations
The New Zealand Farmers Weekly/Annette Scott 6 July 2009
New Zealand’s first commercial robotic dairy farm has finished its first season below expectation, reports The New Zealand Farmers Weekly (“NZFW”). Initial low grain intakes followed by poor rumination had a major impact on targets with a February peak killing the season, said Stradbrook Farm Manager and US dairy robotics expert, Paul Berdell. Owned and operated by Mid Canterbury-based Winslow Agricultural Group (“Winslow”), Stradbrook Dairy Farm was the only one of just two in the southern hemisphere when it robotically milked its first cow on 8 August last year. The first season at Stradbrook, while not meeting targets, has supported that all farmers in the world are milking cows when cows don’t want to be milked, reports NZFW. The most milkings were recorded from midnight to 3am. “Cows don’t like to milk from 3am-5am, the period when the least milkings were recorded” Mr Berdell said. Positives from the inaugural operation milking 275 cows included few mastitis cases, virtually no lameness and very few equipment issues. Among the negatives poor rumination has clearly impacted production. In February rumination started to fall and milk production decreased. “This was a direct correlation between the amount of times cows chew cud per day and milk production” said Mr Berdell. “What we have learned this season is that weight loss has a big impact on production. Rumination does matter. Rumination times impacted on production and that has had significant impact on the farm.” The goal for the first season was 550/kgMS but that is currently tracking at 400/kgMS with an expected end of season finish around 460/kgMS. The best cow achieved 700/kgMS with the worst cow at 210/kgMS, reports NZFW.
Full story:
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The negative tone of the article takes away from some of the very positive aspects reported. Particularly the low incidence of mastitis and lameness and the high level of machine reliability. However, it will help to ensure that future adopters are realistic about their expectations of an AMS system - this is obviously imperative.
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The full article mentions a lower than expected labour saving - everyone will capture labour savings differently, it appears on this farm that hours worked has been reduced (particularly the early starts) but that perhaps this has been captured more in lifestyle gains than in $$$ savings.
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If the farm finishes the season at 460 kg MS/cow then the production will be 15% below the expected level. We have always suggested that farmers budget for a 10% drop in production in year one whilst the people and the cows learn the system. Good routines need to be developed and a good understanding of how to finetune system performance for the individual operation needs to be learnt. The true effect of that first season will vary from farm to farm and can be largely impacted by training regimes prior to start-up and the stage of lactation of cows during adaptation. The timing of the installation and commissioning can have a large impact on whether or not it is possible to carry out any training regimes prior to start-up.
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The lull in visitation in early morning is something that we see continuously reported with pasture-based AMS farms. This makes it very difficult to consistently achieve machine utilisation levels that are at the levels reported from indoor/European style farms.
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Using a KPI of rumination is not something most farmers would be able to benchmark against or even be familiar with. To me there would be two key reasons (plus other more minor ones) why rumination would be reduced. One is increased stress (probably unlikely from all we know about AMS) and the other is reduced intake. I wonder if the milking frequency targets were met, and if they had large queues of cows at the dairy - impacting on grazing time.
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I am not familiar with detailed rumination data and how it changes with seasons and stage of lactation so have no benchmark for the comments on reduced rumination in February. It would be interesting to see trends in relation to waiting times etc for this parameter. Also how the diet changed at this time of the season, possibly more supplement during this period of summer, grasses would have been lower digestibility than say spring (I am assuming).
Anyway, I look forward to your comments, take a look at the full article on the link above if you are interested.
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Kind Regards Kendra
Dr Kendra Kerrisk |
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FutureDairy AMS Research Leader |
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Faculty of Veterinary Science The University of Sydney | ||
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0428 101 372 (mobile) 02 4636 6327 (dairy office/fax)
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Juergen Steen
the headline is a bit misleading. Whos expectation have not been met?
The Stradbrooke farm achieving 460 kg/ MS/ cow means that they will be
about 30% over national average in their first year. Not bad especially if
you also consider that this is a first year dairy conversion with the
owners beeing new to the dairy industry. A goal of 560 kg / MS/ would mean
60% above national average. Paul beeing a very ambitious herdmanager has
very high expectations, the financial budgets and their targets are
possibly a different story.
Regarding reslistic expectation i would always say: year1 is the
introdcution year with a steep leaning curve for man and animal. In year 2
will be the finetuning year . The steepness of the learning curve and the
possible impact on per cow production can be managed. We also have now
another farm finshing their first year with a comparison group beeing
milked traditionally on the home farm. There is no evidence of any per cow
prodcution drop on the robot farm, I seek authorisation from the farm owner
to publish his data when the season is finished. We have two other fresh
start ups now that also show no signs of a disadvantage in per cow
production.
The overall milkproduction per robt in the introduction year is a valid
point. Training a full herd is time consuming and it will not be possible
to achieve a per robot production of a finetuned experienced robot farm
with a selected herd already in year 1.
Rumination:
The approach in a TMR based system would be to monitor the rumination
effect of the diet fed. You look there at the balancing of the ration, not
so much on the dry matter intake. Same rules apply for grazing with more
factors entering the equasion. The main factor we can see influencing
rumination under grazing I believe is the variation of dry matter intake!
Therefore it could possibly be a good early indicator of incorrect grass
allocation. Lely has most of the farms down under equipped with this QwesHR
rumination tags and we will evaluate this as a management tool for grazing.
The other obvious possible benefit for rumination monitoring is the health
observation. You can get the cows that reduce intake because of health
reasons the same day. The next day you would see a reduced milk production
and than after a while loss in condition/ weight loss but then it is too
late to react.
best regards,
Jurgen Steen
Manager Dairy Equipment South West Pacific
Lely Australia PTY LTD
48 Mackay Street, Rochester
3561 Victoria, Australia
Phone: +61 354 844000
Fax: +61 354 841 513
Mobile: +61 417 102 303
jst...@lely.com
www.lely.com
"Kendra Davis"
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| | | | | |
|Kendra | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Dr Kendra Kerrisk | | | | |
| FutureDairy | | |Faculty of | |
| AMS Research Leader | | |Veterinary | |
| www.futuredairy.com.a| | |Science | |
| u | | |The | |
| | | |University of| |
| | | |Sydney | |
|----------------------+------------------------------------+-+-------------+-|
|0428 101 372 (mobile) | | | | |
|02 4636 6327 (dairy | | | | |
|office/fax) | | | | |
|ken...@usyd.edu.au | | | | |
| | | | | |
Juergen Steen
a second thought about a possible prodcution drop per cow with the
introduction of robots:
There is no reason in my eyes if the cows are milked on their target
milking frequency and their intake doesn't drop. If the system underperfoms
in these areas the 10% disadvantage mentioned by Kendra could easily
happen.
best regards,
Jurgen Steen
Manager Dairy Equipment South West Pacific
Lely Australia PTY LTD
48 Mackay Street, Rochester
3561 Victoria, Australia
Phone: +61 354 844000
Fax: +61 354 841 513
Mobile: +61 417 102 303
jst...@lely.com
www.lely.com
"Kendra Davis"
<kendra.davis@usy
d.edu.au> To
Sent by: <futur...@googlegroups.com>
futuredairy@googl cc
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Subject
[FutureDairy]
14/07/2009 11:30
PM
Please respond to
futuredairy@googl
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| | | | | |
|Kendra | | | | |
| | | | | |
|Dr Kendra Kerrisk | | | | |
| FutureDairy | | |Faculty of | |
| AMS Research Leader | | |Veterinary | |
| www.futuredairy.com.a| | |Science | |
| u | | |The | |
| | | |University of| |
| | | |Sydney | |
|----------------------+------------------------------------+-+-------------+-|
| | | | | |
|02 4636 6327 (dairy | | | | |
|office/fax) | | | | |
|ken...@usyd.edu.au | | | | |
| | | | | |
Kendra Davis
I think the important thing here is that the title of the article was
somewhat misleading and suggests that the robots were to blame for "poor
performance". We can debate whether the performance was good bad or
otherwise but the real issue is that the article portrays that the
robots were to blame. I would suggest otherwise - if the rumination
levels were low then the cause was more likely to be as a result of
feeding. Perhaps a misallocation or poorer than desirable combination
of pasture, supplementary feed and concentrate were the true cause of
the reduced rumination.
Rumination time is simply measured as time spent chewing in minutes/day
or minutes/kg DM. This is affected by fibre level (more fibre = more
rumination) provided the cow has something to chew in the first place.
It should be realised that there is an "optimum range of "effective
fibre"; too little will reduce rumination (acidosis) and too much will
increase rumination but reduce the total DM intake and therefore milk
yield.
Rumination is of course important but cannot be correlated to cow
performance so vaguely as the NZ article suggests, much less so to the
milking system.
In practice, how much the cows eat and the quality of the feed (both
driven by management) - not rumination or milking system - are the key
determinants of cows' performance.
I agree that a rumination device could be a good indicator of times when
the feed allocation and amount of effective fibre in the diet are not
optimal.
I also agree fully with Juergen that cows in a new AMS system that are
milked at milking frequencies at least above twice a day (assuming they
were previously milked at twice a day in conventional system) and with
good intakes should not have a 10% disadvantage in the first year of
operation. I think in addition to the milking frequency there is an
impact of variation in milking interval. One cow milking twice a day
could have intervals sitting around 12 hours whilst another cow could
have intervals more in the order of 6 and 18 hours (depending on her
routine) which could reduce milk production compared to a more
consistent interval.
I guess the challenge is making sure that all farmers are knowledgeable
enough to be able to achieve the desirable milking frequencies, milking
intervals and maintain daily intakes during the adoption period. If
this happens then they will be more likely to achieve the targets that
they set themselves. It sounds easy when we say it fast and I think the
key to it all is having a good understanding of how much the cow is
being allocated and whether the mix of supplement and pasture is
suitable at given times of the year.
Kind Regards
Kendra
FutureDairy