Robots for Real

Dutch Experience Shows Farmers and Cows Adapting to New Technology

Presentations at a recent robotic milking conference in Holland and visits to 10 Dutch dairy farms using robots leave no doubt in my mind that robotic milking is here to stay.

Robots milk about 700 European dairy herds today. The 10 farms I visited had 23 years combined experience with robotic milking and included seven brands of equipment. Among these was Lely, which has by far the most systems on farms. Other brands included Prolion, sold under several brand names in Europe, the Fullwood Merlin, soon to be introduced here by Bou-Matic, and brand new entries by Alfa Laval and Westfalia.

Back on this side of the ocean, Ontario milk producers are definitely the leaders in robotic milking. Over the last 18 months at least 16 farms have opted for voluntary milking systems. Except for one herd in the Maritimes, these are North America's first and, to date, only commercial robotic milking installations.

Since the capital cost is high and automated milking is free-stall based, robotic milking isn't for everyone. If you plan to milk 60 to 150 cows in free stalls, however, you need to take a serious look at the robot option. While the European experience has been generally positive, there are certainly lessons to be learned as we embrace this new technology.

My Dutch travels clearly showed me that the challenge of attaching a milking machine without the operator present has been resolved. Most farmers with 60 to 120-cow herds reported culling only one or two cows that failed to adapt to robots.

While there's some variation between brands, today's equipment seems able to milk most shapes of udders. In the herds I visited, both cows and new heifers adapted readily to voluntary milking.

Most fresh heifers catch on in two to three days with the odd one requiring up to two weeks of training. Researchers report that cows prefer voluntary milking systems and show fewer signs of stress than in milking parlours.

Most cows are milked an average of 2.8 to three times daily at variable intervals. Some cows enter the stall more frequently so the systems are programmed to require a minimum time between milkings. This ranges from five hours for higher producers to eight hours for later lactation cows.

It does appear that five to 10 per cent of cows will have unacceptably long milking intervals if left entirely on their own. All the farmers I spoke to had five or six - usually lower producing cows - with long milking intervals. They routinely chased these cows to the milking stall or to a holding area in front of it as part of daily herd management.

Eight of the farms had a series of one-way gates dividing the barn into resting, milking and feeding areas. This encouraged cows to head to the milking stall by directing them from the free stall area, past the robot and to the manger. Grain fed in the milking stall gave them extra incentive to be milked.

European dairy farmers don't commonly use total mixed rations, or grouping by production level or age. Ontario research may be needed to determine how to combine these management practices with automatic milking.

Several reports indicated mixed results in the milk quality area. Average bacteria counts were well within acceptable ranges but higher than industry averages. Counts tended to increase in the same herds after they switched to a robot. Freezing points were higher, suggesting small amounts of water enter the systems. The higher free fatty acids indicate more aggressive milk handling. Still, results are well within the acceptable range for good quality milk.

Both European experience and our own suggests that good robotic milking installations require a systematic approach for handling milk from the time it leaves the cow until it leaves the farm. Since cows are milking continually, this poses several challenges for cooling and cleaning (see related story).

Technology associated with robotic milking to identify abnormal milk, mastitic cows and sick cows is advancing rapidly. It involves a combination of data collection on quarter milk yield, electrical conductivity and colour of milk combined with computer interpretation of these results. These records are most accurate where data are collected by quarter. Nearly all these robotic systems use individual quarter removal. Milk flow rates at the time of quarter removal are being studied.

Without exception, the Dutch producers I visited were pleased with the lifestyle changes that voluntary milking provides them. Economic benefits may be less clear, especially if labour costs are low. One Dutch producer participating in an economic analysis said milk output per person increased 44 per cent while cost per litre rose 1.25 cents.

However, robot milking systems do take up less space than parlours. When you add up all the costs, robotics may be comparable to a big automated parlour needed to get milking done quickly. For smaller free-stall herds, swing parlours, flat barns and tie-stall milking are more economical than either of these choices. They may be sensible alter- natives and let you delay the robot- versus-parlour decision for a few years.

Dairy extension staff at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs are taking a keen interest in robotic milking. They're working with producers, producer organizations and milking equipment manufacturers on projects to address management issues related to this technology.