MANNINGTON DAIRY FARM EMPLOYS MILKING ROBOT
Submitted by eigenlance on Sun, 08/23/2009 - 8:48am

A farm may be the last place you'd expect to find a robot but apparently, some of these machines have long been taught to milk cows.

Doak Dairy Farm is New Jersey's first farm ever to install the Lely Astronaut A3 robotic milking system. Actually, Astronaut A3 was first launched in 1992 and is already being used by many dairy farmers worldwide.

Joe and Cindy Doak, the farm's owners are delighted with the robot's capability to milk 65 cows daily, with each cow being milked 3-4 times a day. What's more, including shutdowns, which the robot automatically performs thrice daily to clean itself up, it can operate 24/7 throughout the year.

If you watch the video at the bottom, you'll notice how the cow enters the milker's holding area voluntarily. A microchip in the cow's collar is then scanned to determine whether it is ready for milking. If it is, the cow is locked in, her teats cleaned, and then milked.

Everything is done free of human intervention. Thus, Joe and Cindy can go about other farm chores, making them even more efficient and have ample time to take a break.
Quality is not compromised; au contraire, the milk's color, blood, and viscosity is analyzed before being released.

The Lely robot does not come cheap though. It costs a dazing $225,000. However, if you consider the savings it brings in, Joe and Cindy are expecting bigger returns in the long run.

Michigan State's KBS Dairy gets onboard with LELY robotic milkers

FORBES magazine recently published an Associated Press article about the new Michigan State University experimental dairy with the latest in dairy technology, including LELY robotic milkers. The Kellogg Biological Station (KBS) is Michigan State University's largest off-campus education complex and one of North America's premier inland field stations.

public for the first time. Along with the self-milking system, the dairy includes such LELY innovations as automated rotary back scratchers and automatic manure scrapers.

Equipment like the self-milking system can help reduce small and mid-range farmers' labor costs — important when milk prices are low, as they have been in the past year.

"It's tough for small operations. We've lost four dairies in the course of the last year," said Matt Leonard of Belleville, Wis.-based Argall Dairy Systems, an equipment supplier to farmers in the area southwest of Madison. The LELY robotic milking system is designed to make small and mid-sized dairies remain competitive, at the same time allowing the dairyman a measure of freedom and the ability to focus attention on other aspects of the dairy or his family life.

As robotic milking takes hold in the U.S., LELY is at the forefront as the world leader in robotic milking.