Alistair and Dessie Taylor, based in Finvoy Co. Antrim, are currently milking 250 cows on four Astronaut A5's since January 2019. They installed the Lely Vector automatic feeding system in March 2021 currently feeding 4 different batches, divid into 2 batches of milking cows, dry cows and bulling heifers. The herd is currently averagine 10,400 litres at 4.5% butterfat and 3.5% protein.
Alongisde the dairy unit, Alistair and Dessie Taylor have two broiler houses for MoyPark and their own Bio-digester system.
Since installation of the Vector, Alistair claims they had ''milk yield increase, cow visits to the robot increased and a labour saving with less feeding to do''. This labour saving is an impressive decrease of 14 hours per week to just 4 hours spent filling the kitchen, freeing up the four labour units working on farm.
Alistair emphasises how; "since installing the Vector, we can run the farm with one less person at the weekends. It frees up more family time," highlighting the transformative impact of Lely's Vector on operational efficiency and quality of life for his family.
Notably, Alistair points out the increased productivity of his cows since introducing the Vector, "We noticed an increase of 1.5 liters straight away, with more frequent pushing up and more frequent feeding, it feeds each group seven times per day''.
