Two Brothers, One Road - Heading to Holland on a Lely Journey

At Agriscot in November we ran a very successful competition with hundreds of entries to win a trip for 2 on a Lely Journey. Our lucky winners were Ben and Adam Stewart. 

Have a read at what they said about their trip:

Overall an impressive and well-run trip by Lely. An efficient modern factory showcasing the robots we invested in and how they are construted. We both saw many benefits from the trip - viewing the vector to see a full automated way of feeding cows. It was interesting to see how technology has advanced over the years and what direction it is going. Also it was exciting to see the new products that have been released recently and how they could potentially fit into our system and make life easier for example the new Automatic milk filter. Visiting the museum dedicated to technological progress in agriculture, showcasing the evolution from manual labour to automated systems. This trip was another way for us to Meet current staff working at Lely Ayr, gaining first-hand knowledge from experts passionate about advancing dairy farming technology. Overall the trip showed us that we made the right decision as there is many different research projects going on in the background and using real life scenarios to carry out these developments.

In February 2023 the family invested in 4 Lely A5 Astronauts milking robots. One of the main factors was Labour on the farm. Brexit had impact on this as the farm employed Foreign workers and that came to a stop. At the time milking was taking 8 hours a day in a 20/40 swing over parlour with no feed dispensers. The family felt this was the correct time to make the investment and improve workload on the farm. After researching the market the family felt that both the Lely robot together with the software was advanced and user friendly and the ethos of free cow traffic was important to them.

In 2008 the Family started making there own artisan Cheese on site using the milk from their dairy. Currently selling a range of different artisan Cheeses across the UK and Abroad. The Family are currently making cheese 5 days a week and using around 20% of the milk produced on farm. 

Since installing the slurry collectors on farm the Stewarts have seen an improvement in cow and cubicle cleanliness and the cases of mastitis have decreased. Cell count was previously around 200 and now sits 145.

They have seen less neck rubbing on cows since the Juno feed pusher has been installed as cows have their ration pushed up more regularly. They feel it is one less manual job to do and is saving time.

Fertility within the herd has improved since transitioning to robotics, previously the family had no heat detection system and manually observed the heats. Calving interval has improved to 380 days.