"“The service has been fantastic, we actually haven't had an issue at all and our robots are running better than they have in a long time. When you make a call within an hour they’re here, we’re more than happy with the service that's being provided by Johan and all the guys”."

Clydevale Holsteins is a family run dairy business that is owned by the family. Together with Adrian and brothers Marc, Kevin, Adam and Colin, the family is managing a 2,700 acres dairy farm in Northern Victoria.

The first robotic compost barn in Victoria

The farm houses 500 Holstein dairy cows in a compost robotic dairy barn with 8 Lely Astronaut A5 milking robots. Before Lely robotics, they operated in a 22 swingover herringbone which from two milkings a day required around 10 hours in the dairy a day. The family speak about how the previous setup "didn't really leave a lot of time for any outside work, let alone having any kind of lifestyle."

The new barn is segmented into four herds with two robots designated for each herd. The milking robots milk the cows and work in harmony with the two Lely Luna Cow brushes in each section and five Lely Cosmix Feeders in total that provide fresh feed to the herds. Their Juno feed pusher runs through the barn about every hour to ensure cows are provided with an even and efficient distribution of feed. 

The Dee's set their goal on production around the benchmark of 31 liter average per cow. Within the first six months of the robots being installed, they achieved 39 kg per day and are now currently doing about 35 liter per cow per day.

"One of the biggest advantages we have found is the amount of data we have... It just gives us the whole big picture to really concentrate on the cows' health and wellbeing so that they're living their best life in here." - Mandy Dee

Video interview - the Dee family