Lely

Lely Astronaut A3 Next - Ferme Landrinoise

Jean-Marie Landry and his sons Carl, Daniel and Éric, owners of Ferme Landrynoise in St-Albert, Québec. and, the dog Gina. 1100 cows in lactation and 1700 hectares (4200 acres) of grassland. They have worked with 10 Astronaut A2 robots from 2003 to 2010; all replaced by 19 Astronaut A3 robots in January 2010.

19 ROBOTS, 1100 CALM COWS AND SILENCE DURING MILKING

The Ferme Landrynoise property was purchased in 1960 by Jean-Marie Landry. From an old house and a deteriorated barn, the very audacious founder has created a huge enterprise.

The first residence was constructed in 1962. Initially, Jean-Marie started raising beef cattle, bought 15 dairy cows and was among the first farmers to install a bulk tank. He relentlessly pursued the expansion and modernization of the farm, in co-ownership with his sons Carl, Daniel and Éric.

In 2002, the farm had 18 employees...and a very tumultuous milking parlour! While visiting an automated farm, Daniel was stupefied by the calm that reigned there. Along with his brothers, Daniel took Jean-Marie to "listen" to the silence of that farm, which convinced him of the advantages of automation.

The first automated milking was performed on February 3rd 2003, after an investment of $6 million, including construction of the buildings and installation of 10 Astronaut A2 milking robots. Now, in 2010, they have all been replaced by a total of 19 Astronaut A3 Next robots.

Today, the cows are milked in quiet surroundings and the milk yield has increased by 5 to 10% compared to the milking parlour. The need for management of human resources has been lessened by a reduction in labour. The T4C management program is another major asset. It can, among other things, follow the animal health and detect the first symptoms of illness in order to be able to intervene quickly.

The enterprise is specializing in kosher milk, which represents 65% of its total production. Ferme Landrynoise has also had its own truck fleet since 1998, and a cheese factory project is being considered.

Jean-Marie Landry, visionary farmer, has been mayor of St-Albert-de-Warwick for the past 33 years and still sits on the board of directors of Ferme Landrynoise.

His son Daniel thinks that the next decade will bring us to the automation of tasks other than milking. The farm already owns two Lely Juno feed pushers and an increase in feed consumption has been observed. As a possible innovation, he suggests a cage to trim the hoofs...in the near future please! This arduous manual task is sometimes neglected due to lack of time. Regular hoof trimming would be an additional advantage to cow health.

In the farms of the future, Jean-Marie sees successful family enterprises. Automation offers a better quality of life for the family and the new generation having grown up with computer technologies, could be interested by the management tasks.

"In the context of persons who want to work 40 hours a week, robotic milking is the technology to tame. Those who don't will undoubtedly leave the farming lifestyle behind."