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Reaseheath College

Lely Technology Centre

The Benefits Of The Lely Robotics Centre

Lely Astronaut Robotic Milking Technology Center at Reaseheath College

Thanks to a huge £80 million investment across the Reaseheath College campus, Reaseheath College are able to offer some of the best specialist facilities in the country. One of the latest additions to their state-of-the-art facilities is two Lely A5 Astronaut's and a Lely Discovery 120 Collector which were installed and started-up in early 2021.

The robotic dairy, which also has an automated cleaning system - the Lely Discovery 120 Collector, operates alongside the college's traditional milking parlour, which provides the farm management team, and students, with the unique opportunity to directly compare both milking methods.

Early results show that those on the robotic system choose to make 3.7 visits each day to be milked compared with twice daily milking on the traditional system. The average daily milk yield per cow has increased to 39 litres and resting time has lengthened by three hours daily, benefitting fertility.

The data provided by Horizon is available on touch screen in the college's new Robotic Milking Centre and on large screens in the Data Hub, and is based in the college's refurbished FIC 5 classroom.

We are extremely proud to be working so closely with the college, an industry leader in educating the next generation of farmers, herdspersons and industry professionals. A number of our team were educated at Reaseheath College, and so we are proud to be supporting the next generation in their education.

The facility is also available to be used by our Lely clients, as well as members of the farming community and specialist engineers. Additionally, it will enable the Reaseheath College team to provide training and research opportunities to their college students and undergraduates too, in the emerging areas of digitalisation, robotics, sustainability and data-driven dairy management.

This installation will also play a part in us ensuring next generation farmers and industry clients can harness the necessary data and digital technologies needed to produce sustainable food within the confines of climate change – necessary skills within this fast-evolving industry.