Father-and-son team Kevin and Patrick Kiersey installed a robotic milking system on their 140-acre grazing platform in Ballyvadd, Co Waterford. Up until recently, Kevin was farming in partnership with his brother and the 140-acre block was used as an out-farm for drystock and silage production. The decision was made to set up a new dairy farm on this outblock where Kevin and Patrick could form their own partnership.
Instead of the traditional herringbone parlour, the Kierseys installed two robotic milking machines. Kevin said they had four main reasons for going down the robotic route:
They felt labour availability would be an issue in the future and with the robots there would be less manual work required.Given the speed at which technology is advancing, Kevin wanted to have a system that would not be dated in 15 years’ time. It was more or less a greenfield site which made it easier to design a grazing system suitable for robotic milking. The Kierseys felt they will have a better lifestyle when the system is fully functional and more time to pursue interests outside the farm if required. 
So far, the spring has been very busy. The two DeLaval robots were installed just in time for milking in February but there was other construction work taking place on the farm at the same time. This work meant cows’ access to grazing was delayed and grazing management was affected.
The Kierseys are getting on top of this now and have cut a lot of strong paddocks for silage. It is still early days with some trial and error but Kevin says they are happy with the investment so far.
How robotic milking system works
Figure 1 shows how the robotic system works on the Kierseys’ farm. This is guided cow traffic. The two robots are situated inside the cubicle shed. This means they can be used for indoor milking if weather conditions are not suitable for grazing or if they ever decided to winter milk.
On the Kierseys’ farm, there are four smart selection gates used. The gates are very much part of the robotic milking system and manage cows heading to and from the robots. They are there to direct cows, depending on set criteria, such as time of day, to either the grazing paddocks A, B or C or for milking.
Firstly, there are two gates installed inside the building. One preselects cows on the way to the robotic milking machines from the feed area so that only cows that need to be milked are sent to the robot and the cows that do not have milking permission are sent back to the cubicles. The second one is used to separate cows for attention, such as AI or hoof trimming, and let cows return to grass through the ABC yard.
The ABC grazing system is the grazing system used for robotic milking cows. The farm is divided into three grazing areas which are available to the cow at different times of the day. The software in the smart gates will decide if it is the correct time for the cow to be milked again.
For example, if a cow was in the night paddock at 9am in the morning and she was last milked six hours ago, the parameters preset for her on the system will mean she has milking permission. This means when she walks through the first electronic selection gate, it reads her electronic ear tag, recognises she has milking permission and lets her through to the milking robot to be milked.
After milking, she no longer has milking permission and because grazing area B is now open she is sent into the fresh pasture.
If the cow had tried to come back from paddock A before she had milking permission and depending on the time of day, it would either direct her back to paddock A or on to the next grazing area, Paddock B.
After a certain amount of time, cows coming from paddock A may be sent directly to paddock C for grazing, skipping B, which may be grazed out at that stage.
During milking, if the system detects a high cell count or for any other reason that the cow may need attention she will be automatically drafted into the separation area and Kevin will be alerted. Kevin said cows generally go to the parlour themselves for milking but occasionally older cows have had to be rounded up and guided in for milking. Much of their time is taken up managing grass now rather than physically milking cows.
Milking
Kevin said when a cow calves she is directed to the milking robot and the teat positions are taught by controlling the robot arm with a joystick manually.
After that, the robot should learn by itself where the teats are as the udder changes shape during lactation. For the first milkings, colostrum is diverted using the milk divert unit to buckets and fed to calves.
So far, Kevin said no cow refused to be milked with the machine but some older cows were hesitant at first to enter. Danny O’Connor from DeLaval claims its robotic milking system is able to harvest up to 3,000kg of milk per day. Therefore the number of cows is dependent on the amount of milk produced per cow per day and how long milking takes.
They said typically one robot can handle 70 cows and sometimes more. The robot records information about how much milk each cow produces, how long it takes to milk them and the quality of the milk delivered. O’Connor claims that, based on accurate somatic cell count, conductivity and blood, the robot decides if the milk from each cow is suitable to be sent to the bulk tank and if the cow needs treatment for mastitis.
Breeding
The Kierseys have continued with their traditional breeding method this year but it will be more automated next year. At the moment, every cow has an activity collar which records her activity throughout the day. Unfortunately, the collars were not fitted for a long enough period before breeding to accurately measure cows or identify cows in heat and the Kierseys decided to stick with the tail paint this year.
They are monitoring and recording cows in heat and inputting the data into the robotic system so that cows will be drafted for AI service in the morning or early afternoon.
Next year, the collars should do all the heat detection to automatically identify cows in heat and draft them into a pen for AI.
Servicing
For the DeLaval VMS system in the Kierseys farm, the service interval is four months, meaning that each robot should be serviced three times per year. Delaval says help is available 24 hours a day if a breakdown were to happen.
The cost of service depends on how much milking has been done but for a busy robot it is approximately €2,000 to €2,400/year.
Cost
The two robots and the four smart selection gates cost €230,000 excluding VAT. This cost does not include the extension to the existing cubicle shed to incorporate calving pens, the robots, dairy and office.
Kevin said that, from carrying out costing, the difference between installing a very high-specification 20-unit herringbone parlour and the two robots was not as big as he had imagined.
He said for that reason and the reasons mentioned earlier they decided to go for the robots.
Robotic milking is very impressive and its use for grass-based systems is improving all the time. However, it is not for everybody, with the initial costs of installation one of the main stumbling blocks.
For farmers entering dairy for the first time, most will argue to focus investments on grazing infrastructure and avoid going overboard on milking equipment, especially where funds are limited.
The labour issue that is becoming more evident on farms could be a driver towards robotic milking systems but farmers should look at all options before going down this route.
Having robots does not mean you can leave the farm to its own devices. Your presence is still required to manage cows and grazing every day.
Dairy grip slats
The Kierseys decided to go with Corbett Concrete Dairy Grip slats because they were trying to avoid accidents and cows getting hurt, which can happen on ordinary slats. The Dairy Grip slats are a patented Corbett Concrete Ltd product. These slats are becoming more popular in cubicle sheds on dairy farms and especially in collecting yards. The slats are moulded with residue drained grooving to alleviate the problem of cows slipping and splaying in yards and sheds. Canty Construction from Dungarvan did the concrete work for the tanks in the shed and Norris Brothers, Stradbally, Co Waterford, erected the shed.
Father-and-son team Kevin and Patrick Kiersey installed a robotic milking system on their 140-acre grazing platform in Ballyvadd, Co Waterford. Up until recently, Kevin was farming in partnership with his brother and the 140-acre block was used as an out-farm for drystock and silage production. The decision was made to set up a new dairy farm on this outblock where Kevin and Patrick could form their own partnership.
Instead of the traditional herringbone parlour, the Kierseys installed two robotic milking machines. Kevin said they had four main reasons for going down the robotic route:
They felt labour availability would be an issue in the future and with the robots there would be less manual work required.Given the speed at which technology is advancing, Kevin wanted to have a system that would not be dated in 15 years’ time. It was more or less a greenfield site which made it easier to design a grazing system suitable for robotic milking. The Kierseys felt they will have a better lifestyle when the system is fully functional and more time to pursue interests outside the farm if required.
So far, the spring has been very busy. The two DeLaval robots were installed just in time for milking in February but there was other construction work taking place on the farm at the same time. This work meant cows’ access to grazing was delayed and grazing management was affected.
The Kierseys are getting on top of this now and have cut a lot of strong paddocks for silage. It is still early days with some trial and error but Kevin says they are happy with the investment so far.
How robotic milking system works
Figure 1 shows how the robotic system works on the Kierseys’ farm. This is guided cow traffic. The two robots are situated inside the cubicle shed. This means they can be used for indoor milking if weather conditions are not suitable for grazing or if they ever decided to winter milk.
On the Kierseys’ farm, there are four smart selection gates used. The gates are very much part of the robotic milking system and manage cows heading to and from the robots. They are there to direct cows, depending on set criteria, such as time of day, to either the grazing paddocks A, B or C or for milking.
Firstly, there are two gates installed inside the building. One preselects cows on the way to the robotic milking machines from the feed area so that only cows that need to be milked are sent to the robot and the cows that do not have milking permission are sent back to the cubicles. The second one is used to separate cows for attention, such as AI or hoof trimming, and let cows return to grass through the ABC yard.
The ABC grazing system is the grazing system used for robotic milking cows. The farm is divided into three grazing areas which are available to the cow at different times of the day. The software in the smart gates will decide if it is the correct time for the cow to be milked again.
For example, if a cow was in the night paddock at 9am in the morning and she was last milked six hours ago, the parameters preset for her on the system will mean she has milking permission. This means when she walks through the first electronic selection gate, it reads her electronic ear tag, recognises she has milking permission and lets her through to the milking robot to be milked.
After milking, she no longer has milking permission and because grazing area B is now open she is sent into the fresh pasture.
If the cow had tried to come back from paddock A before she had milking permission and depending on the time of day, it would either direct her back to paddock A or on to the next grazing area, Paddock B.
After a certain amount of time, cows coming from paddock A may be sent directly to paddock C for grazing, skipping B, which may be grazed out at that stage.
During milking, if the system detects a high cell count or for any other reason that the cow may need attention she will be automatically drafted into the separation area and Kevin will be alerted. Kevin said cows generally go to the parlour themselves for milking but occasionally older cows have had to be rounded up and guided in for milking. Much of their time is taken up managing grass now rather than physically milking cows.
Milking
Kevin said when a cow calves she is directed to the milking robot and the teat positions are taught by controlling the robot arm with a joystick manually.
After that, the robot should learn by itself where the teats are as the udder changes shape during lactation. For the first milkings, colostrum is diverted using the milk divert unit to buckets and fed to calves.
So far, Kevin said no cow refused to be milked with the machine but some older cows were hesitant at first to enter. Danny O’Connor from DeLaval claims its robotic milking system is able to harvest up to 3,000kg of milk per day. Therefore the number of cows is dependent on the amount of milk produced per cow per day and how long milking takes.
They said typically one robot can handle 70 cows and sometimes more. The robot records information about how much milk each cow produces, how long it takes to milk them and the quality of the milk delivered. O’Connor claims that, based on accurate somatic cell count, conductivity and blood, the robot decides if the milk from each cow is suitable to be sent to the bulk tank and if the cow needs treatment for mastitis.
Breeding
The Kierseys have continued with their traditional breeding method this year but it will be more automated next year. At the moment, every cow has an activity collar which records her activity throughout the day. Unfortunately, the collars were not fitted for a long enough period before breeding to accurately measure cows or identify cows in heat and the Kierseys decided to stick with the tail paint this year.
They are monitoring and recording cows in heat and inputting the data into the robotic system so that cows will be drafted for AI service in the morning or early afternoon.
Next year, the collars should do all the heat detection to automatically identify cows in heat and draft them into a pen for AI.
Servicing
For the DeLaval VMS system in the Kierseys farm, the service interval is four months, meaning that each robot should be serviced three times per year. Delaval says help is available 24 hours a day if a breakdown were to happen.
The cost of service depends on how much milking has been done but for a busy robot it is approximately €2,000 to €2,400/year.
Cost
The two robots and the four smart selection gates cost €230,000 excluding VAT. This cost does not include the extension to the existing cubicle shed to incorporate calving pens, the robots, dairy and office.
Kevin said that, from carrying out costing, the difference between installing a very high-specification 20-unit herringbone parlour and the two robots was not as big as he had imagined.
He said for that reason and the reasons mentioned earlier they decided to go for the robots.
Robotic milking is very impressive and its use for grass-based systems is improving all the time. However, it is not for everybody, with the initial costs of installation one of the main stumbling blocks.
For farmers entering dairy for the first time, most will argue to focus investments on grazing infrastructure and avoid going overboard on milking equipment, especially where funds are limited.
The labour issue that is becoming more evident on farms could be a driver towards robotic milking systems but farmers should look at all options before going down this route.
Having robots does not mean you can leave the farm to its own devices. Your presence is still required to manage cows and grazing every day.
Dairy grip slats
The Kierseys decided to go with Corbett Concrete Dairy Grip slats because they were trying to avoid accidents and cows getting hurt, which can happen on ordinary slats. The Dairy Grip slats are a patented Corbett Concrete Ltd product. These slats are becoming more popular in cubicle sheds on dairy farms and especially in collecting yards. The slats are moulded with residue drained grooving to alleviate the problem of cows slipping and splaying in yards and sheds. Canty Construction from Dungarvan did the concrete work for the tanks in the shed and Norris Brothers, Stradbally, Co Waterford, erected the shed.
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