Horwood Farm

Wiltshire farmer, George Dalton believes robotics complement his forage-focused, autumn block calving system perfectly, facilitating effective paddock grazing and optimising cow performance. 

He says the installation of four Lely A5 milking robots and a Grazeway Gate has transformed the farm into a “data-driven business,” whilst maintaining its core values as a low cost, grazing and forage-centric system.

“It’s going from treating the herd to treating the cows as individuals,” he explains. “It’s a chance to automate some of the jobs and daily processes on the farm. And I thought if I was making a plan for 20-30 years, robotics and technology should form part of that. I’m trying to hit that happy medium of using technology, but still using a simple feeding system.”

The crunch point came in 2022 when George realised his spring block calving system was unsustainable due to a relatively small grazing platform and high stocking rate. Extreme weather was also making out-wintering a challenge, whilst their milk buyer, BV Dairy was demanding more milk in December, which made autumn calving attractive. However, there were limitations around how the existing 20:40 swingover could be extended and insufficient housing meant serious investment was needed.

Ivor Davey from CowPlan reviewed how the system could be adapted with a parlour, but also drew up options for robotic milking. The robots would fit into the collecting yard, whilst a self-feed silage clamp would remove the need for a feed passage and mean sufficient cubicles could be installed in the existing shed, with just a one bay extension.

Going autumn calving

Having already made the leap from an all year round calving, predominantly housed system to spring calving, in 2012, George was not afraid to change. Autumn calving made sense and George knew his herd had the potential to produce more.

“It’s cost a bit more to invest in the robots rather than a parlour, but we feel that’s future-proofed the type of work that will be needed on farm,” he explains. “It’s easier for me to manage it with other people doing the day-to-day work rather than relying on people to deliver consistent cow management at milking.”

Lely was George’s first choice with Lely Center Yeovil arranging for him to visit a number of block calving herds, grazing on robots. “Lely have got a very good name for back-up and service in the area and I knew that had to be high up the list. And I like the Grazeway Gate and their system,” he explains.

The Grazeway Gate can be set up to automatically draft cows towards grazing or into the shed for milking through the robots, depending on individual cow eligibility. To facilitate optimum grass utilisation and robot visits, George wanted to use the gate to operate an ABC paddock grazing system, where grazing is split into three, eight hour blocks. George decides which paddocks to graze through regular grass plate metering.

Grazing set-up

Paddock A is grazed from 2am to 10am, paddock B from 10am to 6pm and C from 6pm to 2am. Depending on the time of day, the Grazeway will automatically draft cows one of three ways. Cows tend to learn when the gate changes to send them to a new block and head back to the gate.

“You’re trying to do everything to encourage voluntary movement from grazing back to the robot and out to the next paddock,” he explains. “The important thing is allocation of grass. Too much grass, they’re likely to stay out there. Too little and they’re likely to come back as they’re looking for the next feed. A combination of plate-metering and grass allocation is the key thing to remember there.”

Cows will be buffer-fed silage at grass when calving begins, before being housed and fed robot concentrate and self-feed grass and maize silage which is layered with rape meal. Some silage is fed through troughs whilst George fine-tunes the self-feed system. The herd will likely be turned out in March and will move to purely grazed grass and an average of 2kg of robot cake/head/day as the season progresses to maximise milk from grazed grass.

The 2024 calving season was the first with all cows and heifers calving in the autumn. The new system has already translated into better performance, with the herd on track to achieve 7,500 litres a cow half way through lactation; up from 5,500 litres when spring block calving. “I can see them doing 8,000 litres (per cow per year) as an average,” George says. Milk solids have also risen from 510kg milk solids per cow per year to 640kg with cows averaging 570kg in body weight.

Cow data

Automated heat detection collars have also proved “100% spot on,” helping to get cows in-calf for the 10 week block. “Our conception rate is 65% on the cows which I’m very happy with. I put that down to it being a very stress free, happy environment for the cows,” George adds.

The robots also monitor for the early signs of mastitis, allowing prompt treatment. This could mean treating cows with UdderSalve and a non milk withdrawal anti-inflammatory.

George says: “Early detection has been a massive help. The number of cows treated is far less than it used to be. We’re rolling at seven cases per 100 cows, which is basically half what it used to be,” he says.

Farm Facts

D Dalton and Son Ltd includes five farms each separately run by members of the Dalton family. George runs the autumn block calving dairy herd at Horwood Farm with the other businesses run by his cousins: Sam Chambers and Douglas Dalton; father Peter Dalton; and uncle, Tim Dalton.

•   Horwood Farm, Ansty, Wiltshire.

•   500 acres farmed split two thirds for dairy and one third arable.

•   150 acre (61ha) grazing platform arranged into thirty, five acre (2ha) paddocks off a central track.

•   250 British Friesian x Holstein x Norwegian Red cows.

•   Calving from 20 August for 10 weeks.

•   7,550 litres a cow a year at 4.65% fat and 3.7% protein.

•   3,230 litres per cow per year milk from forage.

•   Milked through four Lely A5 Astronaut milking robots.

•   Average daily robot visits of around 2.3. Ranging from 3.2 to 2.1 depending on time of year.

•   Average bulk somatic cell count of 155,000 cells/ml.

•   Bactoscans average 15.

•   The robotic system is now run with one less labour unit, with two full-time staff, including George, and relief staff as and when needed.