left or right milking station

[Heritage Farm]

Hello, our farm is in the process of designing a two station milking shed and leaving room for a third robot station if needed in the future. I had thought of putting a left and a right station with their cow gates facing each other for ease of cow choice in spotting the empty station. But have been given opinions that some cows will prefer only a left or right station and may hold up the flow of milkers to get their choice. Do any farmers have experience of cows holding up the flow to get to their favoured station?

Regards

David Yates

[Kendra Kerrisk]

Hi David

I had heard that you have made the decision to invest.  Congratulations, all the best for your new venture.  I hope that this forum proves to be a useful source of information as you go through the planning, installation and commissioning phases.

 

It is true that some cows will develop a preference but I believe this can be managed to ensure that the impacts on cow flow are minimal.  When training cows try to encourage them through both machines and make both experiences as positive as each other.  This is also important when you bring annual replacements into the herd - maximise their exposure to all machines (even if they are all the same orientation).  The majority of cows will willingly swap between the two machines.  However, if one machine is down for servicing or in the middle of a wash or unavailable for some other reason you may see a small proportion of cows that refuse to use the machine of least preference. 

 

The other thing to consider is that the spare parts are often opposite for the left and right hand machines so your dealer will have to carry more spare parts if you have opposite machines and you will be more likely to find that you don't have a spare part available when it is needed (hopefully this won't be too often).  This may be an important consideration when you are the only person in the country that  has this brand of machine so that you are needs dictate the stock that is held in the country. 

 

If you have the machines all the same and end on end it can create a nice people working environment without having to cross any yards or cow ways.  However, this design can make training cows a little more difficult I think and will result in a yard of mixed, milked and unmilked cows.  I think having the machines lined up side by side is often nicer for cow flow and cow training aspects but will mean that you more likely to have to pass through a cow yard or lane to and from machines.  However, with the later it will be very obvious at all times which cows are pre-milking, post-milking, drafted, released to paddock etc.  

 

The other thing to think about is that if you have a left and a right hand machine now - what will the third machine be when it comes time to place the order.  This is when you will be more likely to have cows starting to develop a stronger preference I think. When you have two of one orientation then cows by chance will be milked in the more common one 2/3 times (supposing they have no preference) which may end up creating a preference - can't be sure if this will be of significant impact or not. 

 

From my point of view either option (1xLH & 1xRH or both the same) is workable but having them all the same would probably be the preference so long as it doesn't impact on the design of drafting systems and cow traffic.  The reality is that cows are not silly and the majority will generally choose an empty machine rather than stand in a queue of more than about 2 cows.   

 

I know I haven't given you a straight answer but hopefully have given you some more points for consideration.

Kind Regards

 

Dr KENDRA KERRISK | AMS Research Leader
Department of Veterinary Science | FutureDairy 

 

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From: futur...@googlegroups.com [mailto:futur...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Heritage Farm
Sent: Thursday, 11 February 2010 8:23 AM
To: futur...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [FutureDairy] left or right milking station

Hello, our farm is in the process of designing a two station milking shed and leaving room for a third robot station if needed in the future. I had thought of putting a left and a right station with their cow gates facing each other for ease of cow choice in spotting the empty station. But have been given opinions that some cows will prefer only a left or right station and may hold up the flow of milkers to get their choice. Do any farmers have experience of cows holding up the flow to get to their favoured station?

Regards

David Yates

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[Kendra Kerrisk]

Hi David

This afternoon I sent your question out to some of our AMS farmers that are not on the Google group and have had three responses regarding Left or Right hand preferences.  I won't disclose the responders but here are the comments they have made from their own experiences.

 

 Farmer 1 said: "wouldn't think it would be a problem. I know some of ours always go to the same machine but I have never seen a queue at one at the expense of another.  Very important to breed ambidextrous cows.  I don't know whether I should have attempted to spell that word or not.  Good luck to Dave."

 

Farmer 2 said: "We have 2 left and 1 right AMS. It’s really not noticeable that cows wait for either left or right. They certainly do have their favourite robot but if it’s occupied the majority of cows will look to see if another robot is empty left or right. There is exception thou and those small number of cows always chose same robot."

 

Farmer 3 responded that they have separate groups.  Each group has its own AMS so cows don't have a choice. When they move cows from a LH group to a RH group 95% of the cows accept the change immediately, 3% need a bit of attention and 2% don't accept it. They think it's the same proportions as with a herringbone dairy, when cows do have the freedom to go left or right they develop a preference but when they don't have a choice they have to accept.  

 

This might add a little more confidence.  It seems from farmer 2 that have 2 LH and 1 RH should not pose a problem for the future.

Talk soon.

 

Dr KENDRA KERRISK | AMS Research Leader
Department of Veterinary Science | FutureDairy 

 

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From: futur...@googlegroups.com [mailto:futur...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kendra Kerrisk
Sent: Thursday, 11 February 2010 9:44 AM
To: futur...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: [FutureDairy] left or right milking station

[steve]

hi all

havent posted in this forum before

but has anyone looked at the sac robot from denmark

it is one robot both left and right stall which would really suit a herringbone conversion

ie its about the right spacing to suit most sheds

we looked at the delaval one but they wanted us to buy one of their vats and associated equipement wwhich pushed the system out of our current budget range by about 150k

the sac might be a machine to consider in this case for david anyway

regards

      steve currie

 

gippsland

[Juergen Steen]

Dear Steve,

I want to reply to your idea of converting an existing dairy.

We have good examples of robot installation using the existing dairy. There
are the obvious benefits of reusing the existing infrastructure like lanes,
effluent systems, yards, silos, vats etc . Robots usually fit well due to
their small footprint. However you need to make sure that you don't
sacrifice functionality and future expansion opportunities.

If the robots don't fit into the existing dairy they might fit near the
dairy into a simple"lean to" or something similar.

Hope this helps with your planning.

I am off to Woolongong now ....

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

steve
<securrie@sympac.
com.au> To
Sent by: <futur...@googlegroups.com>
<futuredairy@goog cc
legroups.com>
Subject
Re: [FutureDairy] left or right
17/02/2010 07:13 milking station
PM


Please respond to
futuredairy@googl
egroups.com

[Kendra Kerrisk]

Thanks Steve for you comments for discussion.

I think it is important for people to be informed of what options are available.  I have five key things for consideration in the context of your comments:

1. The milk harvesting equipment is one thing but the infrastructure around is often included in the price as well and one should be very clear what the price includes.
2. When a company tries to sell you their vat and associated equipment it is important to understand that cooling and storage of milk are integral parts of the automatic milking system.  It is important that the vat and cooling are in tune with the milking part; in general the supplier will take responsibility for the performance of the total system if the components are supplied by them - it is important that other quotes are clear that they do or do not also include this equipment.
3. Often a lot of ongoing hassles might be associated with having one companies products being retrofitted to another companies equipment or even to antiquated equipment from the same company.  This is something to be very wary of.
4. Whilst there are many brands of AMS available in the global market - as far as I know right now there are only two companies that are in the Australasian market.
5. If one has the opportunity to investigate multi-box systems (like the SAC robot you talk about, and there are others) ensure that you have a very good understanding of the actual throughput you are likely to achieve.  Two boxes with one robot will not allow you to achieve twice the throughput of a single box unit.  Ensure that you price the equipment in regard to cost of capital per cow or per litre of milk harvested to ensure that you are comparing apples with apples. 

I hope these comments are of some use.

Kind Regards

 

Dr KENDRA KERRISK | AMS Research Leader
Department of Veterinary Science | FutureDairy 

 

THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

T +61 2 4636 6327 | F +61 2 4655 2374 | M +61 428 101 372  

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From: futur...@googlegroups.com on behalf of steve
Sent: Wed 17/02/2010 7:13 PM
To: futur...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [FutureDairy] left or right milking station