DeLaval Farm Stories
HOUSED SYSTEM WITH 3 VMS300'S
Wood Lane Farm
Steve Apperley farms near Market Drayton in Shropshire and in 2023 he decided that his existing 12/24 swing over parlour had reached its sell by date. His father and uncle was also actively involved with milking their Baldry herd of pedigree Holstein Friesians on an all year round calving system and Steve wanted him to reduce their workload. So, they started looking at all of the options open to them with robotics, by visiting local farms and speaking to the dealerships in their area.
Why DeLaval?
The Apperleys already had a suitable cubicle building and so their idea was to simply extend it, to accommodate three robots to milk the whole herd. They looked at several manufacturers but they finally decided on DeLaval, because they wanted a guided system and they also liked other features such as the 3D camera and the local dealership, Dairy-Scope’s flexible approach and support. “We looked at free access”, explains Steve “but as we were trying to reduce our labour input, we didn’t want to be collecting cows twice a day.”
The existing building had a central feed passage and so it lent itself to a group of 60 heifers on one robot and the main herd of 120 cows, on two machines. So, the family ordered three VMS300’s which were up and running by April 2024.
Herd Performance
“The transition has been great”, continues Steve “and we have seen milk yields increase from 11,200 to 12,800 litres with the cows and from 7,500 to 9,500 litres with the heifers, and crucially milk quality hasn’t been compromised by the more frequent milking. “We have also reduced labour, as two of us pretty much run the herd on a day-to-day basis and we have flexibility in our day. On a weekend we could actually manage with one person which was never possible before.” They do their own AI and have a calving index of 385.
Chosen Features on VMS300
- Identification: ear tags
- Milk quality: Quarter conductivity and blood detection
- MDI programme: Mastitis detection programme.
Layout
Steve wanted to combine separation at the robots, into a small high attention group with their own cubicles, with foot bathing. So, the two robots on the main group of were positioned in a toll booth layout, while on the heifer group, the single robot was placed parallel to the end of the building.
“This is a milk first system,” explains Steve. “Once the cows have been milked, we can then segregate any animals that require attention before guiding them through the footbaths on certain days of the week. They then have access to the mixed ration on the feed fence before going back to the cubicles. We are also using pre-selection before the robots, so that only cows with milking permission can enter the robot waiting area.”
Nutrition
The main herd is averaging around 40kg per cow per day while the heifers are averaging 32Kg and so they are fed for 28Kg and 20kg respectively outside, before being fed to yield in the robots.
The outside ration is made up of the following:
- Maize and grass silage 50:50 mix
- Soda Wheat
- Blend
- Chopped straw
Slurry Handling
Steve opted for rope scrappers as an effective solution. “We looked at various options, but as we had wide 16’ passageways in our shed, combined with slatted channels, we knew that this would provide us with the simplest solution as this stage, because we don’t get large waves of slurry building up when the scrappers run. However, we might look at automatic collectors at some stage in the future.”
Cooling
Dairy Scope installed a 15,000 litre silo to give plenty of capacity for every other day collection, which works in conjunction with an 800 litres buffer tank, so that milking can continue uninterrupted when the silo is being emptied and washed.
Future plans
“We are really pleased with our progress in such a short space of time, since converting to robotics” says Steve.” Future plans are to install some additional cubicles for the heifers, as we feel that we have enough time on the system to push this group up to 70. In addition, we are keen to challenge the herd to eat more of the mixed ration and to reduce the level of concentrates in the robots. So its really a case of fine tuning at this stage to maximise our efficiency.”
Housed system with nine VMS V300'S
Greenville Dairies.Northern Ireland
Jason Mitchell farms at Greenville Dairies, which is situated just outside Newtonstewart in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. In 2017 he had reached a crossroads with his aging 20-year-old rotary parlour and increasing cow numbers and so he looked at all the options in the market with his herd manager Pauric Mc Kenna.
Why Delaval?
The decision was made to look at robotic milking and although various manufactures were considered, in the end they decided to go with DeLaval because they really liked the guided system with pre selection.“We wanted to maximise output from the robots and so we only wanted cows in the robots that required milking,” explains Pauric “and so although we looked at other makes, the DeLaval system ticked all of the boxes for us.”
The herd had grown to 850 Holstien cows in milk and so it was decided that the conversion to robotics would have to be done in stages, with a proportion of the herd still being milked through their conventional parlour.
Stage 1
Six DeLaval Classics were installed in 2017 by local dealer Albert J Jones to milk 300 of their highest yielding cows. The results were good, with each robot producing up to 2200 litres per day and so the decision was taken to install a further two machines in 2019, which were the new VMS V300 series.
The difference in performance was significant, as incomplete milkings dropped from 3% to 1% which combined with an improved attachment speed resulted in the output per robot increasing to 2600 litres per day on the new machines.
Chosen specification
- Quarter conductivity
- Activity monitoring
- Cell count analysis was available but not include
Stage 2
“Last year we decided that we wanted to push on again”, explains Pauric “and so we costed out part exchanging our seven-year-old six Classics, for new V300’s. The maths stacked up for us with the increased output per machine and a good offer from DeLaval. So, we part exchanged them in December last year and also added an additional machine in February this year”
The nine robots are now milking up to 500 cows producing an average of 45 litres per day or 2600 litres per robot per day.
Herd Management
All cows are milked conventionally for up to 10 days before a joining one of the robotic groups and then return to the parlour when their yields drop to around 30 litres per day.
“We use the robots to maximise the output from all of the cows which are in early to mid-lactation” explains Pauric,” with all late lactation cows returning to the parlour. We link both systems to Uniform Agri and so we all of the data is retained for each cow’s full lactation.”
Nutrition
All groups are fed for maintenance plus 35 litres outside and then fed to yield in the robots up to a maximum of 10kg per cow per day. “We were feeding up to 12Kg in the robots,”explains Pauric” but we are challenging the highest yielders to eat more of on the feed fence now and it seems to be working.”
Future Plans
Building work is now underway to allow for the installation of three more VMS V300’s early next year.” This will take us up to twelve machines,” continues Pauric,”to milk up to a maximum of 700 cows in the herd, leaving us with 150 to go through the parlour. This will be a good balance for us and the parlour will just be used to give us flexibility and to optimise the performance form the robots.”
AB Grazing with VMS CLASSICS
Fagwrfran East.Puncheston.Pembrokeshire
Michael Williams farms at Fagwrfran East, near Fishguard in Pembrokeshire with his parents and his family, where until 2017 they were milking through a 10x20 herringbone parlour.
With a young family, he then felt that he wanted a better quality of life and decided to install 2 DeLaval VMS Classic robotic milking systems in a new building designed for a feed first, guided system. In this way, once the cows have been milked, they return to feed or the cubicles. The cubicles are in the middle of the building and access to the two feed fences through one-way gates. They then have to pass through smart selection gates, to either access the robots for milking or to re gain access to the cubicles.
The system worked so well, that in 2019 he extended the shed to house 150 cows and installed an additional machine.
Chosen specification
- Ear tag identification.·
- Quarter conductivity·
- Blood detection. ·
- Herd Navigator which was retro fitted to provide progesterone monitoring and replaced the original pedometer system. It is now relied on completely for heat detection. This also provides mastitis and Ketosis detection.
Herd Performance
The aim is to produce 1800 litres per robot per day with 150 cows in milk averaging 36 litres. Michael feels this is a good balance between getting the right return on his investment and not overloading the machines, which can cause stress on the system. “I like to have about 15% free time on the system ,” explains Michael “ so, if one machine should shut down for some reason in the early hours of the morning, then I know that it can wait for a few hours before I get there to sort it out.”
The guided system means that Michael only trains heifers for about 3 days before they get used to the system and start visiting the robots themselves. There after no animals are fetched.
Grazing
Fagwrfran is a First Milk supplier and is part of their Regen scheme, which means that cows have to graze for 6 months of the year. This is achieved with the use of a grazing gate at the end of the cubicle shed, which allows cows out of the building from 8am to 4pm, if they have recently been milked.
They then have access to a designated paddock where they strip graze, but also have the option to return to the shed at any time for milking, before returning to the paddock for more grazing. The cows remain in the building at night and in this way the herd maintains a visit rate of 3 milkings per day when they are at grass, with an impressive average yield of 36 litres per cow.