Teaching milking cows to use robots proves challenging

Robotic milking may take away the daily grind of dairy farming, but it does present other challenges, particularly in how cows are fed

Lancashire farmer Chris Bargh believes every dairy herd in the UK will be milked by robots within the next 15 years.

It’s six months since three robots were installed on the 150-cow herd he runs with his wife Erica at Osbaldeston, Blackburn, and while the system is presenting new challenges in terms of teaching cows how to “run their own lives” he reckons it’s the best decision he has ever made.

“For the first three months I was exasperated and completely exhausted by having to get cows to use the robots. I was convinced we’d made a huge mistake but now I’m totally convinced that robotic milking is the way forward. It’s not a system you should install simply to free-up time.

“It’s a new and fascinating way of managing cows that can have massive advantages,” Mr Bargh told farmers at an open day organised by feed compounders Carrs Billington.

Following a break from milking cows, the Osbar Holstein herd was set-up in 1998 and is now run in an immaculately maintained unit supplying a Sainsburys contract through Wisemans.

“We look after these cows to the highest standards possible. Cow comfort, welfare and management are paramount. We don’t compromise on anything.”

But it’s not that long ago that the Barghs were considering their future in milk. “We were feeling stale and wanted a new challenge. The robots were one of several options and we looked at 18 different farms milking with robots before we made our decision. But it has definitely proved to be the right one.”

The herd, which has maintained a 305-day average of more than 11,000 litres for the past five years, is not on a complete diet system. Silage is fed down a central feed passage and a sophisticated computer system balances individual concentrate allowances delivered through the robots and out of parlour feeders.

“Robot milkers will bring about big changes to the way we can manage dairy cows in the future and part of that will be a swing away from complete diet feeding – I’m convinced of that,” said Mr Bargh.

The feeding system has been devised – and is still being fine-tuned – to deliver a “three-course meal” approach to daily rationing. Transponders allow the robots to deliver each cow the “starter” course of its daily ration at its first visit. The out of parlour feeder delivers the “main course” and the computer programme is set-up to ensure the cow then receives its “pudding” as a third feed allowance from the robot.

“But one of the biggest challenges is to teach cows to ‘think for themselves’ and not rely on us to tell them what to do. We’ve got to encourage cows to have a positive attitude to the robots – particularly the late lactation cows.

“What we’re trying to do is teach these dairy cows how to become suckler cows. We aren’t there any more to drive them into a parlour. They have to do it themselves and for lower yielders there has to be an incentive to go and get milked. Otherwise we risk these cows drying themselves off too early.

“We want cows to get up voluntarily and go to the robot. We’ve got to make sure we teach these cows to have a positive mentality about wanting to be milked.”

Each Fullwood Merlin robot is currently taking an average of 1830 litres of milk a day off the 144 cows with individual animals giving an average of 12.5 litres a visit. Each cow visits a robot an average of 2.7 times a day.

A new gating arrangement will be introduced this summer to control access to grazing close to the buildings. The “grazing gate” segregation system will allow cows out to grass that have visited a robot in the previous two hours. These cows will then be further channeled by a second gate system and, depending on a range of criteria put into the computer and based on yield and stage of lactation, they will be given access to one of two grazing areas.

High yielders will be restricted to a loafing paddock while lower yielders will be turned onto a strip-grazing system in fields further away from the unit.

Kieran Fitzgerald of Carrs Billington said his company was responding to the new approaches to rationing now required by herds milked by robots.

“We are trying to establish a forum for milk producers installing robots. Cows need feed to make milk, but we’re now looking at feed fulfilling an additional role in attracting cows to the robots.

“Enhancing palatability is something we are looking at and we are about to start a trial assessing flavour enhancers. Late lactation cows may need to be fed a different ration that is low protein, high energy and high DUP. On a robot system cows don’t have the structure to their day that conventional milking systems create and cows in late lactation can get lazy, voluntarily reduce their feed intake and prematurely dry themselves off.”