Robotic milking prompts lifestyle change
Dinner out, eight-hour days - it's part of the package, and price, of truly automated milkingBy Don Stoneman
Dairy farming couple Stefan and Esther Arkink had a strange feeling as they went out to dinner at 6 p.m. on Easter weekend. That's a time when Stefan would normally be home in the barn.Instead, a pair of Lely Astronaut robots milked the cows in the Arkinks' eight-month-old freestall barn northwest of Plattsville in Oxford county. If anything went wrong, his cell phone would ring.
Lely says the Arkinks can lay claim to the first commercial robot milker installation in North America. The first cow went through the robot stall on March 17. Already, the Arkinks say, milking with robots has changed their lives for the better.
Stefan is well-versed in the daily rhythms of dairy farming. He grew up on a dairy farm in the Netherlands, and worked on a farm in southern Ontario when he moved here in 1996. In his own new barn he milked cows for seven months in a double-four parlour.
There is a rhythm to the chores that still need to be done, such as feeding, but the rigorous milking schedule and the hours that were spent morning and night preparing the parlour, milking and cleaning up are now eliminated. There's time to make farming an eight-hour-a-day job, while still caring for the animals.
"You can plan to do things," Esther says. "It's less labour intensive, less stressful."
"You do other things you never did before," Stefan says.
The robot "will absolutely change the dairy farming industry," predicts Aart van't Land, Holland-based sales manager for Lely Industries robotic milking systems. Dairy farms can be automated, he says, as hog and poultry farms are. In the European Union, where animal welfare is a high priority, robotic milking has passed the closest scrutiny.
In the barn office, perusing the plethora of information that comes from the management computer, Stefan gets to know his cows in a different way. The exact time of each milking is recorded, with the robot monitoring the flow of milk from each quarter, as well as the length of time needed to milk. Deviations from the norm are noted. The conductivity of milk is monitored, an early indication of the onset of mastitis.
The milking system even indicates which quarter may be suspect.
The robot itself is a marvel of modern technology. When a cow steps into the milker, the robot identifies her, calling up information from its memory about when she was milked last, and also the location of her teats in relation to a board that gently rests against her backside. The milker arm cleans teats with rolls, then disinfects the cleaning rolls in a spray of disinfectant. Lasers find the cow's teats and the robot attaches the cleaned cups. The amount of milk from each quarter is individually monitored, and so is the rate of milking.
As she is being milked, a pellet ration is doled out 50 grams at a time. As soon as the first teat cup is released, the feeding stops, discouraging her from staying in the stall.
Arninks' cows and the milking stalls are housed in a four-row, 96- x 240-foot freestall barn with a centre drive-through feed alley. They eat mostly corn silage, with computer feeders providing a supplement geared to each animal. There is no TMR mixer. An attached 36- x 52-foot side building houses an office, a utility room, a milk tank room, and a diesel generator that provides standby power.
An underground pipe carries the milk from the robots to a 3,000 gallon main milk tank. Continuous milking by the robots requires a 600-gallon buffer tank, used to hold milk while the main tank is being emptied and cleaned.
Every 10 milkings the robot flushes the milking system. Every eight hours a full wash of the milking system is completed. The system is also washed after milking a cow that has been flagged for a discard. Her milk, undesirable because it contains either colostrum or antibiotic residues, is diverted to a discard pail.
There is also a device to sample milk for individual cow records. Stefan and Esther started milking last August, after buying first-calf heifers through Shore Holsteins International and Mertin Shore. They wanted to introduce young animals to the system. Some heifers were reluctant to go into the parlour at first and required some help. The management computer flags cows that aren't approaching the parlour.
Henk Roest, Burlington-based vice-president of marketing and sales for Lely, says service will be a priority. Robots will only be installed within a 100-kilometre service circle of Lely's Woodstock office.
A technician and truck are dedicated to serving the units, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, within 90 minutes of a service call. A second technician is being sought and will be trained in Holland. A second barn is being equipped with Lely robots west of Hensall.
The Lely system costs $250,000 for the first robot and stall, which will milk 60 cows. Additional robots "are cheaper," says Roest, because there is no need to add an additional management computer and software, compressors and switches. The Lely system requires a stall for each robot.
The maintenance contract is "an additional cost," says Roest. No price has yet been set for the contract which will include a 90-minute response time guarantee, and eight preventive maintenance checkups annually.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Robotic racing
The race is on to put robotic milkers into Ontario dairy farms. Lely has the first units installed on a farm in north Oxford county. A second farm will be equipped with Lely robots west of Hensall.But hot on their heels is Prolion's AMS Liberty milking system. The first system will be installed in a new barn with capacity for 300 cows near Thorndale, north of London, where the ground wasbroken in late April. The Liberty milker is being sold by Norwell Dairy Systems in Drayton.
Rick Richardson, sales and marketing for AMS, says as of February there were 185 of the systems installed on farms in Europe. The Liberty system is a little different from the Lely, Richardson says. One robot will milk cows in as many as four stalls. The first stall will handle between 50 and 60 cows; additional stalls are required for each additional group of 30 cows. One robot will be able to handle as many as 150 cows.
This system costs about $225,000 for the first robot and one stall, and $75,000 per additional stall. Richardson says the Liberty will perform milk sampling functions and also test for milk conductivity, a sign of a rising somatic cell count. The robot uses ultrasound to locate the cow's teats. Richardson says Prolion thinks that ultrasound is less susceptible to dust and dirt than laser.
The robot on the Thorndale farm will milk between 100 and 110 cows at first; extra stalls will be added as needed.
"We want a technician no more than 90 minutes away from a location," Richardson says. Norwell Dairy is looking for a technician-candidate in the Ottawa area who will be trained in Holland.
Peterborough-based Alfa Laval also has plans to introduce its robot, developed in Sweden, to Ontario.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
Healthy rationale?
Robotic milker manufacturers are touting the herd health benefits of milking with machines. A study at the University of Guelph concluded robots are no better, but no worse, than milking in a parlour.Ken Leslie, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College, conducted studies on the rate of new udder infections on the herd at the Elora Research Station, which was milked with an older model Prolion robot for several years.
"We didn't find any significant difference in the rate of new infections" between cows milked with the robot and cows milked in the parlour, Leslie says. The study encompassed two lactations from the same group of cows.
The studies are just now being published in peer-review journals so that scientists can determine if the studies were conducted in a scientifically sound manner. More complete information will be published later this summer.
A study on animal behaviour was also conducted, but it remains to be completed.
John Walton, chairman of the department of animal science at the University of Guelph, has mixed feelings about the robot. Testing the robot at Elora in its early years was a trying experience because of breakdowns and lack of technical support.
"It is absolutely the technology of the future," Walton says. There still remains the question as to "who will bear the brunt of the teething."
In Holland, six dairymen using Lely robots shared information and determined if management was improving on their farms. Group chairman Anton Stokman, contacted by e-mail, says the robots have proven to be beneficial. He believes robots will be the common way to milk cows in the future. On his farm, cows produce 10,500 kg of milk in 305 days with 4.3 fat and 3.55 protein. The 95 cows are milked on average 3.8 times per day.
Since May of last year, milk production on the six farms has increased up to 20 per cent after robots were installed. The incidence of mastitis has fallen between 30 and 90 per cent.
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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Summer heat, cool breeze
Tiestalls' typical tunnel ventilation is proving to be a good fit for freestalls, tooBY DON STONEMAN
Summer's sweltering days and nights will be upon us shortly. Are you and your barn ready?Cows don't eat or milk well in the summer heat - ask any American dairyman. Canadian dairymen know that as well, and many are taking heat-relieving cues from their peers in New York and Pennsylvania, including fans in new building plans and retro-fitting older facilities, according to Harold House, OMAFRA Clinton-based agricultural engineer. House and Woodstock-based dairy production system program lead Jack Rodenburg have both conducted extensive tours of neighbouring states' dairy barns recently.
No matter how high the side walls are in a new freestall barn, there is likely a 10-day stretch each summer with no wind or air flow, says Rodenburg.
That week-and-a-half of hot weather has a long economic tail, with missed breedings and other health consequences for the herd. The better managers operating freestall barns prepare by installing box fans.
The fans are bolted at 20- to 30-foot intervals to the posts that hold up the roof. All fans blow in the same direction, carrying fresh air from the door opening down to the cows.
To increase effectiveness, says Rodenburg, some U.S. farmers are introducing a slight negative pressure. They close the side walls and turn on fans at the end of the barn to create tunnel ventilation, a method more prevalent in tiestall barns.
Holstein breeder Gerry Roefs, Lakeside, Oxford county, has adopted this method. He has two 48-inch exhaust fans in the end of his tiestall stable. He shuts the doors to draw the air through the barn.
During the hot summer, cows are kept inside during the day and let out at night. The fans change the air in the barn every minute.
Last year, Roefs' purebred Holstein herd averaged 11,000 kg of milk on 35 records with 3.7 fat and 3.4 per cent protein. His cows do well both in the show ring and in terms of production.
For farmers in older two-storey tiestall barns, tunnel ventilation is a must, Rodenburg says. "You get a big bang for your buck." Both cow comfort and operator comfort are increased. On the hottest days of summer, cows are left inside, where they are more comfortable. "You can give them some wonderful shade."
Rodenburg is convinced that tunnel ventilation is the right thing to do in tiestall barns. Installation of three or four fans in a tiestall barn costs about $5,000, he estimates.
The value "is far less well defined" in freestalls, says Rodenburg. Most are built with natural ventilation and fans that stir the air. Closing the barn walls is very different from what is done the rest of the year, Rodenburg says. It involves closing curtains - a lot of labour and effort for a short period of time in our climate. Rodenburg is also concerned that the barn becomes dependent on power to cool the cows. "You'd better make sure there is standby power, and that it comes on automatically if you aren't home," he says. "Otherwise, you have dead cows."
Manitoba producers, because of the extreme winter cold, are turning to insulated barns. But because they need as much ventilation in the summer as is sought by Ontario farmers, they're leaning toward tunnel ventilation in their freestall barns as well, Rodenburg says. He says he's seen "some interesting looking barns in the U.S. where the end wall is all fans."
Manitoba has fewer naturally ventilated barns than Ontario, says Rodenburg. Farmers there, he says, have tended toward fan-ventilated freestalls, so tunnel ventilation fits in simpler. Most common are box or panel fans down the length of the barn.
House agrees that tunnel ventilation "has done wonders for old barns because of the low ceilings."
The ideal barn for tunnel ventilation is long and narrow. A low ceiling increases the air speed going past the cows, cooling them better. An air flow of 100 feet per minute is "an absolute minimum," House says. A flow of 200 to 250 feet is preferable.
An inlet area of two square feet per 1,000 cfm of fan power is required to let air into the barn and also out the opposite end. A 40-foot-wide barn with an eight-foot ceiling would require a minimum of 32,000 cubic feet per minute fan capacity to achieve the 100 feet per minute flow level recommended. Air flow in the barn is increased because of obstacles in the stable reducing the area of the barn where the air can move.
Fly control is a side benefit, House says. "Flies don't like hanging around in the air stream."
The challenge in a tiestall is to open up the ends of the barn walls, House says. Farmers have dealt with this by cutting openings through the floor of the upstairs, installing the fans in the side of the loft area and framing in the opening. Another advantage of installing in the loftis noise reduction in the stable.
Fans in the end of the barn pull air through, whereas with alley fans, says House, "you get only a localized effect."
© copyright 1999 Agricultural Publishing Company Limited.
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