Dairy farmers looking to expand production after milk quotas are abolished can discuss options such as the DeLaval VMS (Voluntary Milking System) and AMR (Automated Rotary Parlour) with DeLaval technical and sales personnel on stand 221, block 3, row 17 at the Ploughing. The DeLaval team will be available to advise dairy farmers on milking, cooling, feeding, cleaning and monitoring systems.

The VMS system has been shown to work well on grassland systems In Australia and New Zealand. There are a number of VMS systems working in Ireland since 2011. The first DeLaval VMS system in Europe is with ABC grazing near Ballyduff in North Kerry where the O’Hanlon family have a mainly spring-calving Holstein herd.

Two DeLaval VMS Supras were installed in Ireland last December and another one in April. Delaval also installed a 16,000 litre DeLaval DXCEM bulk tank with a heat recovery system. Prior to this the cows were milked twice a day in a 16-unit herringbone parlour.

The hygiene on the O’Hanlon farm is excellent and shows how effective the DeLaval VMS Supra is in keeping the milking equipment clean. DeLaval claims that using the system the cows are more relaxed, stress-free and have more grazing time.

A VMS unit will be working on the DeLaval stand and should attract a lot of interest as a recent open day at the O’Hanlon farm attracted over 500 visitors. It is equipped with one milk meter for each quarter to record time, yield, flow, conductivity and blood. The software gives access to the status of each cow.

Each teat is individually cleaned with warm water and air, then stimulated, pre-milked and dried before milking. Only a few seconds are needed for optimum teat sanitation, which results in high milk quality and better milking capacity.

Steve Sefton, sales director for Ireland, said: “The ABC grazing and the DeLaval Smart Gate System is working very well. Cows are achieving optimum dry matter intakes from the grazing area and 95% of the cows were trained in to the system within 10 days.”

There will also be a range of cow comfort products on display such as the DeLaval swinging cow brush, a self-grooming device.