By Dave Goosselink
Four robot milking machines are helping a Southland dairy farm to produce record quantities of milk.
Apparently, the cows are quite taken by the Dutch-designed milking machines, which also feed and clean them.
The farmer's rather fond of them too.
At milking time on Bill Overgaauw's farm near Winton, there's no need for herding.
His cows happily wander in from the paddocks, lining up politely for their turn inside the robotic milking system.
"Different total lifestyle than a normal dairy farm," he says.
The farm milks all year round, with four robots servicing the 320-strong herd 24 hours a day.
"You come at one o'clock in the morning, there are always cows here," he says.
"You come at three o'clock in the morning or five o'clock, always cows here."
"They can come to the shed whenever they like," says Ruud Overgaauw, farm worker. "They're a lot freer, they can do whatever they want, and you can see they're really healthy."
The system electronically scans each cow, cleaning them and attaching suction cups. And to keep them happy while they're being milked, the robot also feeds the cows.
Since introducing the robotic milking system, production has increased by around 20 percent.
Robots also take care of messy jobs like cleaning the floors, and distributing and moving silage.
Electronic cow collars send data back to the main computer system, giving staff an instant picture of each animal's health and productivity.
"They probably spend more time looking at the computer, finding out more about their cows," says Reece Hegarty, robotic system importer, "and also picking up things before you'd actually notice on a normal conventional system."
The systems are common in Europe, but there's still only a handful here.
At an initial capital outlay of over $200,000 per robot, the system can take seven to 10 years to pay for itself.
But Mr Overgaauw says it frees him up to do other jobs, leaving the robots to keep on milking until the cows come home.
3 News
source: newshub archive
