Can "IT" work?

A large cross section of farmers from Counties Antrim, Armagh and Down recently attended a CAFRE IT and Dairy Automation event. The event, organised by CAFRE Advisers and Technologists in conjunction with Westfalia and Mid Ulster Dairy Services, took place on the farm of Robin and George Bingham, Sevenmile Straight, Nutts Corner.

The Bingham’s manage a herd of 500 cows plus followers with an average yield in excess of 8000 litres/cow. Those attending the event were shown how this unit makes use of Information Technology and automation in the day to day management of the herd.

The event focused on the following technology:

William Talbot from Mid-Ulster Dairy Services, who installed the Westfalia parlour, gave an in-depth presentation on the parlours features. William demonstrated how the person milking could access detailed information held about individual animals and how additional automated features could be managed from the pit.

Feed efficiency is an important issue on many dairy farms and local CAFRE Development Adviser Gary Haslem discussed it’s strong link to dairy enterprise profitability. The Bingham’s milking herd is managed in four  groups. Cows are batched according to level of production and stage of lactation with diets formulated to ensure that the TMR is appropriate for each batch and  production level with cows “topped up” in the parlour.

Dr David Mackey CAFRE, gave a demonstration on the use of automatic calf feeders which are becoming increasingly popular on Northern Ireland farms. These labour saving devices can feed 50-60 calves on a two feed station installation. Studies carried out at AFBI Hillsborough would suggest a saving of 3.5 hours per day when feeding 50 calves on a traditional individual bucket fed system.  Feed settings on the feeders were discussed to ensure that calves reach target weaning ages and weights.

Controlling the milking operation and generating information used to manage cows efficiently is a key requirement for the Westfalia Dairyplan software used by the Bingham’s, as demonstrated by Dr Ronan Coll CAFRE and Oliver Moore, Ireland Director for GAE Westfalia. This software maintains detailed production records and allows cows to be automatically identified on entry to the parlour and fed to yield.  It also identifies cows in heat by the use of activity sensors in the cows pedometers and controls the autodrafting system to segregate identified animals. All of this information can be accessed in the parlour or in printed reports.

As herd size increases and labour costs continue to rise, dairy farmers are increasingly considering ways to automate routine tasks. For chores such as pushing up silage to feeding cows and scraping slurry from slats, farmers can save time by installing a range of different automatic equipment. The key consideration is the capital cost of installing the equipment versus the costs of doing the task manually.

Other benefits such as improvements in feed intake, reduction in waste, or improvements to cow health should all be considered, as well as health and safety for both operator and cow!

A number of automated features were demonstrated at the event by Ciaran Hamill, CAFRE. These include a Lely Juno feed pusher, automatic scraper system for pushing up silage, backing gate in the collection yard and autodrafting to name a few.

IT and Dairy Automation can be successfully utilised on many dairy farms to automate routine tasks and better use available labour. However, this doesn’t remove the need for management of the system. Dairy farmers must ensure that they make best use of available technology to efficiently manage their enterprise.

William Talbot, Mid Ulster Dairy Services pointing out some of the features of the Westfalia 70.70 rapid exit milking parlour

Gary Haslem, CAFRE Dairy Development Adviser explaining the steps being taken to improve feed efficiency on the farm of Robin and George Bingham

Dr David Mackey, CAFRE Dairy Technologist detailing the current management of the calf rearing enterprise on Robin and George Bingham’s farm

Dr Ronan Coll, CAFRE IT Technologist discussing how the Bingham’s make best use of the collected production data from the milking herd

Ciaran Hamill, CAFRE Senior IT Technologist, discussing the automated features on the unit of Robin and George Bingham