Robotic milkers might have the stamina to keep running while we’re all tucked up in bed, but installing them within your existing dairy set-up doesn’t guarantee the best results, as North Yorkshire dairy farmer Tim Gibson found out.

He was an early adopter of robotic milkers when his first Lely Astronaut A2 landed on-farm back in 2001.

His 90-strong herd of mainly Holstein Friesians took to the machines quickly but, despite the robots being available 24-hours-a-day, Mr Gibson began to notice unnecessary peaks and troughs in milk production.

The root of the problem was his once-a-day feeding regime.

It meant that when dinner was served the bully cows were fully occupied with scoffing the silage, which gave the heifers and shyer cows their only opportunity to visit the milker.

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At that time, Mr Gibson had the robots running at near-full capacity. Since then, he’s dropped that back to 85% efficiency, which allows the heifers more time to get confident with the machine and takes away some of the pressures of the cow hierarchy.

Tim Gibson

What were the herd being fed?

The herd had been living off a mix of grazing, fresh-cut grass and silage to make the most of the farm’s pasture.

However, sending the cows trudging out to forage for themselves from March to October meant the herd had to trek a long way from the robots to find fresh fodder.

Understandably, the cows were more reluctant to return to the Astronaut as frequently, so the system was only of real benefit to low-yielding groups.

Danish automated systems inspired

Mr Gibson first looked into automated feeding systems in 2004.

His research took him to Denmark to see some in action but, after investing his available capital in more land and cows, the move to install them was delayed until 2008.

By that point the herd had expanded from 90 cows on 35ha to 140 cows and 110ha.

A new feeding system was crucial if yields and quality were to improve, so he hurried to get building work under way.

Planning automation that fits the farm

For anyone looking to go down the automated feeding route there are lots of different options. Infrastructure varies massively from one farm to another, so there’s no one-size-fits-all solution and each system has its benefits.

The narrow passages and awkward positions of the existing buildings at Hunters Hill Farm pretty much ruled out the option of a tractor and wagon.

A monorail system was also considered but the farm sits awkwardly on the brow of a hill so there’s as much as 3m height difference between sheds.

Fitting a delivery system to cope with that would have been riddled with problems, so the idea was abandoned early on.

The real temptation, says Mr Gibson, was to flatten the existing sheds and sketch out plans for a new building, or even put down a wedge of cash on a new farm.

But both of these would require serious investment and a potentially clumsy planning process.

In the end, Mr Gibson settled on developing a system using a static mixer and criss-crossing conveyor system to each of the three sheds.

A Kramer shovel is used to load the 20cu m Cormall mixer (below).

The Cormall blending mixer arrived on farm in 2010.

Putting it all together

The static Cormall blending mixer arrived on the farm in 2010 from a pet food blending plant in Denmark. It cost £19,000, and was the first major part of the feeding jigsaw to be put in place.

Next, £4,000-worth of conveyors arrived from eBay. In total there’s 55m of rubber carrying the feed from mixer to cows, which drops the ration into 1.2m-wide troughs.

Remanufactured byre scrapers – an idea pinched from old 1960s dairy housing – are used to carry the feed the length of the trough, while an overload protection system detects any conveyor blockages.

By the time the feeder had been fitted the herd had grown again, this time to 200 cows.

How often does it feed the cows?

It takes just 25 minutes to fill the mixer with silage ready for 24 hours. During the day, food is served every two hours, while nighttime feeds are delivered once every three hours.

Straights – predominantly oilseed rape, soya and sugar beet – are bought pre-mixed and augered into the mixer from a silo next door.

Buying pre-mixed blends is a convenient, but expensive, arrangement, so this year there will be four new 15t bins installed to store each component separately.

They can then be pre-mixed on-farm, which Mr Gibson reckons will knock as much as £40/t off the feed bill and allow far more control over what is going into the ration.

Feed is carried by a series of conveyors before falling into the trough. ©Nikki Ramsay

Where does the power come from?

Like many farms, Mr Gibson had no three-phase electric to run the rig, so he invested in a generator to provide the system with its own power supply.

Another £3,000 went towards an LCD touchscreen that allows the herdsmen to set specific times that the feeders run and the quantities of food that they deliver to the different sheds.

Further modifications on the cards

Feeding a TMR with the static mixer has improved milk quality and consistency, but Mr Gibson hasn’t finished fiddling with the set-up.

This year he plans to automate liquid feed, so molasses and other supplements will be dealt out, too.

The Cormall mixer is also beginning to show its age, having stirred-up 2,000t of silage each year, so this season will be chopped-in for a new 24cu m Trioliet Triomatic T20.