With the average herd size increasing and the economy facing full employment, the labour scarcity on dairy farms is likely to increase over the coming years.

Even where herd size is not increasing or where labour is plentiful, time can still be scarce. Running a more efficient dairy farm has benefits for all; less labour, more time off and lower running costs. There are a number of easy wins that farmers should target when trying to become more efficient. Efficiency is spending less time or money per unit of output.

Milking

In a Teagasc labour study conducted on 38 commercial dairy farms, about half of the total hours spent working on the farm involved milking cows.

In spring, more time was spent milking compared with calf feeding, feeding cows and all machinery work combined. Even in autumn, when the overall work hours decline, about half of the time is still spent milking. Because of this, if efficiencies are to be made, it is best to start by looking at milking.

There are two things to look at when deciding on how to milk more efficiently; the facilities and the processes. Facilities can’t be changed overnight. In most cases they are what they are, but sometimes, small changes can be made that don’t cost much.

Facilities should be all about cow flow. Operator comfort is important too, but for me, the best comfort the operator can have is knowing that he or she will be in and out of the parlour as quickly as possible. There is no reason why that can’t be achieved without compromising operator comfort.

The first thing is that cows should be able to walk into and fit into the collecting yard unimpeded. Too many yards have rough areas in front of the gate into the collecting yard. This slows down cow flow dramatically as cows want to pick their steps to avoid walking on stones and hurting their feet. If not enough cows fit into the collecting yard, the flow of cows into the parlour will be poor and the milker will have to leave the pit more often.

By right, the milker should never have to leave the pit and a row should never be empty. This is a key point. On most farms, the front gate opens manually from the front of the parlour. The cows walk out and when the last cow is out the front gate closes and then the milker opens the back gate. But in an efficient parlour, the row will never be empty as cows that are milked walk out while, simultaneously, cows to be in milked walk in.

This happens when the milker can open the front and back gates while swinging over the last few clusters on that row. As the cows that are milked walk out, the cows to be milked walk in. The trick is to be able to close the front gate just as the last milked cow exits. When this happens, the first cow to be milked is standing in the first stall ready to be milked and the milker can start swinging over clusters again.

Manually operated swinging front gates do not facilitate this. Air-operated guillotine front gates are a better option, but manual scissor gates are probably best as the operator has more control. These can be opened and closed from anywhere in the pit and they cost about €2,600 to buy a pair. Back gates are important to prevent cows from backing out with clusters attached. They should be opened at the same time as the front gates to allow the cows to enter, so there is no lag time and the operator can start swinging over clusters straight away.

For this process to work, milking in batches is key. Milk cows in groups of five to 10, depending on the size of the parlour. If one person is milking in a 20-unit parlour, he or she should swing over the first 10 units. Then they should go back to the start and teat-spray these cows, ready for exiting.

The front gate should be opened when there are three or four clusters left to be swung over to allow the milker to take them off and be back to spray the eleventh cow before she starts to walk out. This process eliminates downtime for the milker and speeds up the number of cows milked per hour but it cannot happen where sequential bailing is in place.

If cows can walk directly back to the paddock after milking, cow flow will be better than if they are being held in a yard. Cows that have to wait in a yard to cross roads, or wait for cows to enter the collecting yard before they can go back to the field, will be slower to leave the parlour. In the long term, investments in an underpass and larger collecting yard will improve cow flow and milking times.

Drafting cows is another area that takes up a lot of time. Every time the milker leaves the pit, time is lost. Not having a proper drafting facility leads to stress for the cows and the milker.

Owner operators might handle this stress, but it is not acceptable for employees to have to milk cows and pull out cows for AI. Some form of drafting is essential, whether automatic or manual with the preference being automatic drafting but this type of system costs in the region of €10,000.

One of the main reasons for milkers leaving the pit is to bring cows into the parlour. Well-known New Zealand vet and cow flow expert Neil Chesterton says that cows should walk in themselves if the environment is welcoming. That is if the parlour is at the same level as the yard, it is well-lit and the milkers are not aggressive. Backing gates should not be used to push cows. They should only be used to reduce the space available in the yard for cows so they gather closer to the parlour entrance. A backing gate will cost in the region of €14,000 depending on the size of the yard.

Labour-saving

In terms of costs, a milking parlour can cost anywhere from €2,000 to €10,000 per unit depending on the level of spec. Many of the extras are sold based on the promise of being labour-saving, but how many actually are? A 20-unit milking parlour should be capable of milking 150 cows per hour on average. This equates to eight minutes per row. At that rate of output, over-milking will not be a problem so what is the advantage of automatic cluster removers?

Automatic washing units cost about €6,000. Manual washing of the plant takes about 15 minutes. If the parlour is running for 330 days a year and cows are milked twice a day, that is a total of 165 hours a year spent washing. At €15/hour, that time can be valued at nearly €2,500. Therefore, the payback time is 2.5 years. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that electricity costs are higher with automatic washers. Milk meters, auto ID and dump lines do very little to make milking more time-efficient.