Lely

The Zeegers family - A Lely Farm - The Netherlands

Make sure you know your colleagues; nothing beats sharing knowledge with fellow dairy farmers!

Introduction:
In 1989, the Zeegers family made the switch towards automated milking with a (leased) robot. A major reason for purchasing a milking robot was the wish to experience all new developments in the dairy industry; ‘'I don't believe in second chances.' Hay and Rieky also highlight significant progress when it comes to their social contacts. ‘'Finally, we are the people who go home last at a birthday party. We used to plan out entire social live around our work, e.g. having dinner before milking time. Now we are simply doing our work and we can decide for ourselves when we want to have dinner. There is now so much less stress or pressure from the business.'

Reason for purchasing a Lely milking robot:
It was easy to opt for a Lely milking robot, because there were only few satisfied users of competitive makes. Hay Zeegers does not avoid any challenge and he has the benefit of being able to keep pace with the development of automation. All in all, the family would never want to return to conventional milking.

How did you experience the first few weeks, while starting up your milking robot?
How did the start-up process of the milking robot run off? 'Compared with today's starting process, it was rather troublesome. The tings that starting robot farmers are now learning in three days, took us three months at the time. Thinking back now, I feel there was quite some fuss in our time. The robot was so noisy then that you could hardly make yourself understood. We were not yet familiar with free cow traffic, so the cows were packed in the waiting area like sardines in a tin; after all we were used to that situation in our milking parlour. Fortunately, we have been able to contribute towards robot milking as we know it now.'

Goal of the company:
It is easy to prove that Hay is a true-blue entrepreneur. In 2006 he sold his total milk quota, expecting to be able to buy it back at a lower price. In point of fact, he even expected the market to crash, considering the statement of Mr. Veerman, the then State Secretary for Agriculture, that milk quotas would most likely be abolished.  Thus, Hay was to create quite some financial room for his dairy farm. In November 2008, however, the Health Check was introduced, simultaneously with a sharp decline of milk prices, inducing Germany to block farm extensions as well as a decrease of levies. Consequently, the financial results were less positive than Hay had bargained for.

Farm management
Hay highlights the strong performance of his business: 410 kg milk for each hour worked. It is his target to expand towards 500 kg milk per hour worked, i.e. 240 milk cows for a total of 2.5 million kg milk. He is convinced that this number of cows can be managed by one single worker in the future. His secret weapon: simply remain the guy that he is - an optimist.                                                            

To provide some insight into Hay's dairy farm with two milking robots, we would like to refer you to the overview below.

Average number of cows in lactation:                            125
Average 305 days/cow production:                                 9,100 kg
Milk production per robot/day:                                          1,600 kg
Number of milkings per cow/per day:                             2.8 
Number of refusals per cow/per day:                              3.0
Number of cows to be collected per day:                       sometimes 0; 5 as an average
Number of cows to be collected per robot/per round: 2 to 3

Milk quality over the past month:
Protein contents:                                                3.50
Fat contents:                                                       4.40
Bacteria/ml:                                                         8.000
Somatic cell count/ml:                                       280,000
Urea (mg/dl):                                                       24

Other Lely equipment at the farm:   
In addition to the Lely Astronaut milking robot, the dairy farm also boasts the following products: A Lely Calm calf drinking station, 2 Lely Discovery barn cleaners as well as 6 Lely Luna cow brushes.

Advice for your colleagues:
To wind it all up, Hay, do you have any useful tips for your colleagues? ‘'An optimist has a longer and better life.  It's no use complaining.’

 Photograph: the cow housing of the Zeegers family, built in 2007