Dairy NZ

Farm Facts:
Herd size:	450 milking Jerseys and 390 milking Friesians
Number of AMS:	16 robots – 8 per barn
Calving pattern:	4 times a year
Commissioning date/year:	Barn 1 2009, Barn 2 2010
Technical Support:	Winslow Farm Technologies
Features:	- Year round housed, 2 herds per barn - Farm support area: Around 170 hectares per barn (based on 500 cows)

Automatic milking in a free stall barn operation in South Canterbury has provided a more relaxed environment for both animals and staff.

Farm manager Marieke Gerhards has been involved since the system was first introduced in 2009 and has learnt how to get the best out of the technology.

Marieke manages three farms together with partner Rodney van Leeuwen,  that are part of the Van Leewen Dairy Group – one conventional with a 60 bail rotary and two barn systems, each with eight robots and a capacity of milking and housing 500 cows each.

In one barn 480 jersey cows are milked, in the other 390 friesians as they are still in the phase of getting up to the 500 milking cows per barn.

The jerseys were the first to be milked by the automatic milking system, says Marieke. 

“One and a half years ago we started with the jerseys, they were moved to the new barn and then we started training the friesians – we are still in the middle of that process” says Marieke.

“Milk production is good with some cows milking over 500 days per lactation. “They’re happy and healthy and doing well.”

Because the robots are in the same barn as the cows there is no need for a special gating system, like in a grass-based system. Cows are able to walk in the robot 24-7 at their own call.

“They can walk in and walk out whenever they feel like it. If they are not meant to be there, they’ll walk in but not milked.”

“There are cows milking once-a-day and cows milking four times a day.  We leave that up to the cow. The system is set up that the cows need to have a minimum amount of milk to be able to get milked. Automatically the system calculates this out on the daily production and the amount of hours between milkings.”

Marieke gives an example of one cow doing 35 litres a day. That means she is able to be milked 4 times a day but she would only visit the robot once a day by herself. They tried to fetch this cow to get her in for twice a day milkings but this particular cow did not want this and they let her settle on a once a day scenario.

“You lose production on this cow but it’s about the cows in the barn and if she wants to milk once then we let her, as long as she is a happy cow.”

Staffing is minimal.

There is one person per barn from around 7am until 5pm, who carries out general duties with Marieke going between barns every day. "if something goes wrong at night the system alerts me and my partner. There is also someone that feeds out in both barns and an extra person during busy periods.”

Calving occurs four times a year on the first of August, November, February and May.

“There is always four weeks of mating and four weeks of calving. If they don’t get pregnant they’ll move on to the next mating. As long as the cow is giving good production and she is healthy, she will keep on milking till she is pregnant and it is dry off time.” 

Because the cows spend most of the year indoors, grass, lucerne and maize are grown on the farm where the barns are located. 

“The only time they are outside is when they are dried-off, otherwise they’re indoors on grass silage, lucerne silage, maize silage and canola, if the protein of the silage is not high enough, in the robot they get pellets.”

System Layout: