Boumatic Farm Stories
HOUSED SYSTEM WITH TWO DOUBLE BOXES
Martin Brown farms in Staffordshire with his wife and 3 children, Henry, Grace and Magnus. In 2016 he suffered with ill health and had to take some time out, leaving the rest of the family to milk the herd of 150 Friesian Holsteins through their herringbone parlour.
“The children were still at school back then,” explains Martin,” and so it put us all under a huge amount of pressure.”
Thankfully, Martin made a good recovery but knew that something had to change to make life easier for him and the next generation. So, it was either a case of selling the herd or to look at installing robots.
He looked at various manufacturers and was considering 2 single boxes, to enable him to milk up to 120 cows before looking at The Boumatic Gemini, double box robot. These would allow him to milk up to 180 cows, but he liked the idea of running under capacity with 140 and not stressing the system.
”By opting for 2 double box robots we got the maximum milking output from our building, for the least cost and they also fitted in very nicely to our new layout” explains Martin.
So, the decision was taken to keep the cows and the robots started up in the summer of 2022, operating on a free access, housed system but with ability to route cows if necessary.
Chosen specification
· Collar identification with activity monitoring and rumination
· Quarter conductivity
· Blood detection.
Herd Performance
The herd are fed a PMR diet outside of grass silage, maize and a rape meal blend, which is worth M+27 litres and the remainder is fed through the robots.
Today he is milking 142 cows, averaging 34 litres with 3 visits per day. Importantly though, Martin runs the system with 25% free time on the robots, which means that there is no pressure on him or the robots.
Future plans are to work the yields up slightly and to get more milk per visit. Martin is also interested in grazing the herd next year, for part of the day on an AB system, as he does like to see cows out at grass as long as it is not effecting yield.
“Robots have been good for us as a family,” explains Martin, “at one stage I though that the cows would have to go, but this has future proofed our dairy farm, for the next generation.”
HOUSED SYSTEM WITH ONE DOUBLE BOX
Family team, Brian, Margaret and Mark Price, farm their herd of 90 Freisen Hosteins in Asterley near Shrewsbury. In 2023 they had reached the point where they knew that they had to replace their existing 6/12 herringbone parlour, which was installed in 1996 because milking was taking too long and it was passed its sell by date.
Mark was spending a good deal of time off the farm working as a nutritionist and so couldn’t commit to milking the cows twice a day while Brian felt that he wanted to take a step back from being tied to the cows twice a day. So, they decided that the next stage could be robotic milking if they could get the economics to stack up.
They considered a few different brands but were attracted to The Boumatic Gemini because the double box offered them the ideal solution for their cow numbers and layout.
Why Boumatic?
“The nice thing about the Gemini,” explains Mark, “is that the double box can milk up to 100 cows. So, with our herd of 90 it was a great fit, as we only needed one machine. It is also modular and so the building worked required was minimum.”
So, the robotic milking system was ordered in March 2022 and Mark set about doing most of the building work himself. “We liked the idea of incorporating a pit in to the design as this would make it easier for any manually attachments or treating the cows,” continues Mark. “Apart from that it was only a case of putting slurry channels in and extending off the existing building.”
The robot was craned in and positioned straight off the lorry and they were milking a few weeks later.
Chosen specification
- Ear tag identification
- Quarter conductivity
- Blood detection
Herd Performance
The cows are housed and have access to a ration outside of 50/50 maize to grass silage worth M+22 litres, before being topped up in the robot up to a maximum of 12Kg of concentrates. The herd is very young and is made up made up of 70% first and second calvers, giving an average yield of 30 litres, visiting the robots 3.4 per day on a free access system.
The aim is to move the yield up to 35 litres per cow over the next 12 months explains Mark and to produce around 3000 litres per day. In that way we will be getting a really good return on our investment without putting huge pressure on the system.
Future Plans
The aim is to move the yield up to 35 litres per cow over the next 12 months explains Mark and to produce around 3000 litres per day. In that way we will be getting a really good return on our investment without putting huge pressure on the system.