On the authority of Lely, Jos Donkers - a student of the Agricultural Institute for higher professional education -has carried out research into the time that is actually spent on milking on a daily basis by dairy farmers who are operating a Lely Astronaut milking robot.
The results of this study have shown, once again, that as an average a dairy farmer only has to put in 30 minutes a day to ensure an optimum performance of his Astronaut milking robot. Research was also conducted on a similar basis in 2000, when an equivalent outcome was reached. It has been made clear that all robot related activities can be carried out in a matter of 30 minutes, starting with studying attention lists and going from cleaning and checking the robot to dealing with udder problems, if any.
Within this framework of spending time, it is especially the flexibility that dairy farmers experience as a major advantage. Proper cow housing layout and a carefully considered place for the milking robot are essential to ensure optimum functioning of the robot, as is fine-tuning of the size of cow groups to the number of milking robots installed.
The researcher has come to the conclusion that a robot milking an average of 500,000 litres per year clearly requires less time than any other method of
milking.
Click here to open the results of the time study . If you want to download the results of the time study to your computer, right click on the link and choose "Save Target As..."