I’ve been on a number of newly converted dairy farms over the last number of weeks. From talking to the farmers, some of them former beef or tillage farmers, many have a fear of the labour involved in milking or a lack of understanding of how to milk. Hence, many are deciding to consider a milking robot.

I’ve been on farms where land is not limiting and yet milking robots have been installed which will not utilise any land for grazing. That’s fine if you can make full-time indoor milking pay the bills and leave you a margin, but our colleagues on the continent struggle to make this work profitably. We have over 15 years of experience of unprofitable European dairy systems where cows are milked indoors all year round in robotic systems. The farms don’t go out of business, but debt levels increase and the farms get larger to try and dilute costs further.

Don’t set your business up in a system that has been proven to be unprofitable. By all means, if you want to move into robotic milking, consider how you can match this with grazing. Investing in a milking robot will take the daily chore of milking away from the farmer, but research on whether it fits into the Irish grazing system is still very much in its infancy. New Zealand and Australia have some research carried out with grazing and all results point to a system of three grazing allocations per day and a milking frequency of less than two milkings per day. This is a completely different system to that in which the majority of milking robots in Ireland are installed.

In this supplement we focus on what you need to know about the latest research and the basics of a robot milking system with three grazing blocks. Research is research, and it is not meant as a vindication that a system will work. Research results and basic financial assessments might yet prove the milking robot will not fit in with a growing dairy farm in a grass-based production system.