With well over 40 years of farming under his belt, Graham is certain the decision to fill the pit of his 20 year old 24 aside Herringbone shed and replace it with four Lely Astronaut A4 milking robots is the right one for him and his family.
No stranger to the ins and outs of farming, Graham has spent over 40 years farming in various regions of New Zealand before the decision was made to sell the majority of his sheep and beef farm (keeping 55 hectares to use as a run-off). North bound Graham has been spending the past couple of seasons developing a 200 hectare dairy which isn’t only environmentally friendly; it’s now is future friendly. Thanks to the Lely Astronaut robotic milking system.
Change to Lely Astronaut
On his Northland dairy farm, Graham Turner eagerly awaited the installation of his red robots to help him better monitor his 200 dairy cows, saying “the advancement of technology and systems creates the need for automation.” Also saying, “Individual cow analysis versus whole herd analysis is the most progressive reason behind the change to Lely robots”. Looking at his options when it came to converting his shed, Graham chose Lely as he believed “Lely to be the more forward-thinking company in comparison to its competitors. I think in a very short time, everyone will need to know more about their cows and robotics allow for that.”
Less cow waste
For Graham, the advantages of having robots far exceed the ability to milk 24/7, 365 days a year. With the implementation of robots his farm is able to tread softly on the environment, whilst boosting production levels, without having to increase herd numbers. “Environmentally, the discharge of cow waste is less by a large proportion. With the robots it’s only ten minutes of standing time for the cows, this will lower waste material significantly.” – Graham Turner.
Help from Lely Center
According to Rebecca Turner “ You get told all about how to train the cows for robots but when you're actually doing it's quite daunting, I found the support we got from Lely with training was great, We literally couldn't have done it without them. You're sort of in a haze during install but it's good to have technicians and trainers on farm that know what they're doing. If you’re worried you have someone from Lely there that tells you: “it's time to do this now.”
Improvement in production
The milk production of the herd has increased following the installation of Lely robots on the farm. “Once we moved into the robots, things improved for the rest of the season, that was a pleasant surprise and this year compared to last, we're doing much better production wise.” - Hayley Turner.
Having contact with cows
Rebecca and Hayley Turner were told by many people that they’ll lose contact with their cows once they have an Automatic Milking System. Through this system they get information about the health, milking, feeding and day-to-day behavior of each individual cow. They feel they have closer contact with their cows than ever before. Hayley Turner mentions: “A lot of people think that because they're going through an automated system, you're not in contact as much. The truth is without the distraction of having to stand there and cup cows you notice much more. When I go into the shed to look at my cows that's all I'm doing, I'm focusing completely on them, they're more comfortable and relaxed. It’s so easy to pick up any unusual behavior. The robot picks up on any other things I may have missed or didn’t know about, it’s surprising in a good way.”
Less cases of mastitis and lameness
Cows have less cases of mastitis and lameness since transitioning from herringbone to an Automatic milking system. “In the old system you don't really know about mastitis until you see the tanker docket, you see a spike then don't know which cow is affected, you have to strip every cow out to find her. Now the Lely robots will tell you which cow needs attention before the milk is in the vat.” - Rebecca Turner
Automation starts in the paddock
“I suppose automation starts at the paddock, it's not just in the milking shed. I'm not going down there and pushing the cows out, it's up to them to decide when they're ready for milking. The whole farm runs differently now with cows flowing all over the farm, all the time. This allows us to have more than two milking sessions a day and we don't have to stick to a set schedule.” - Hayley Turner