How Lely automation became essential on our growing farm

Andrew and his family, who run a 330-acre dairy farm near Winkleigh in Devon, have used Lely automation to manage their herd's growth more efficiently. Installing a Lely Juno and two Lely Discovery Collectors has resulted in time savings, improved cow cleanliness and a reduction in cell counts, while creating a calmer, more productive operation.

We asked Andrew why he chose Lely automation…

We’re a third‑ and fourth‑generation family farm running about 330  acres, and as our herd has grown, so has the workload. We wanted a way to dip our toe into automation without overhauling everything at once.

We first became aware of Lely in 2012 when I was taken to Holland by Lely Center Holsworthy on a Young Farmers trip, and it opened my eyes to what Lely did that other companies hadn't, and to the length of time Lely has been in automation. Since that trip, at least 15% of us in that group have gone down the route of some sort of Lely product, which is pretty good.

Seeing the technology already well established gave us confidence in the brand and its long-term vision.

We introduced the Lely Juno feed pusher first, and the time savings were immediate. It takes care of feed pushing day and night, which frees us up to focus on other jobs around the farm. You don’t realise how much work it’s doing until the rare moment it stops when you forget you’ve paused it.  And that’s when you see just how much time and yield it supports in the background; suddenly, you’re back to pushing up feed and losing time you could be spending elsewhere.  It’s flexible, it’s consistent, and it just gets on with it. It was also a great introduction to robotics on the farm.

We then installed Lely Collectors. I originally designed the sheds with automatic scraping in mind, although I was initially unsure how the Collectors would cope with sand bedding. In reality, with good bed management, they’ve worked perfectly, so much so that when our herd grew from around 120 cows to 200, we added a second Collector. We’ve cut out 45 minutes of manual scraping each day and the difference in cow cleanliness has been huge. Cleaner cows have also helped us maintain exceptionally low bactoscans, consistently below 10 and recently as low as 3. The cows adapted within a day or two and now barely notice the machines.

What I like most is that automation doesn’t replace people — it gives you more time to focus on the important areas of the business. Instead of spending time on repetitive tasks, we can focus on what really matters.

The machines are clever but simple. Most of the servicing I can do myself, and if there’s ever an issue, the backup from Lely is spot‑on. A quick message and 90% of the time it’s sorted straightaway. I’ve got no complaints — none at all.

When we design anything on our farm we keep efficiency and automation in mind from the start, and these products have definitely helped us run a more efficient, calmer, and healthier operation.  For us, automation has been about working smarter, improving cow health, and freeing up time — and it’s delivered on all of that.  I can see us continuing down this path in the years ahead, whether it’s Astronaut milking robots or a Vector feeding system down the line, we know the infrastructure is ready. For now, the Juno and Collectors have made a huge difference to our day‑to‑day work, and they’ve proven exactly why we chose Lely in the first place.

Farm fact file:

·        1 x Lely Juno and 2 x Lely Discovery Collector C1

·        Milking  cows; 220 in the herd

·        Farming 330 acres

·   Growing 36 acres of maize, 25 acres winter wheat, and the remainder in grass.

·        Supplying Arla

·        Calving all year round

·        Average somatic cell count, 100 and Bactoscan, 6