Aad and Wilma Van Leeuwen’s robotic dairy barn at Makikihi, South Canterbury.
One of the world’s largest robotic dairies is now up and running at Makikihi in South Canterbury.
The $22 million, 13,000-square metre cow barn, owned by Aad and Wilma Van Leeuwen, started milking 740 friesian cows on 12 DeLaval robots on September 25 – and is only operating at half capacity.
The Van Leeuwens, who have extensive dairy farm holdings in South Canterbury, said they were on the ”verge of retirement” when the 600-hectare Makikihi property came up for sale.
”We decided it would be viable to have a large herd under a roof if constructed properly and managed properly,” Aad Van Leeuwen said.
No strangers to technology, this is the third robotic freestall milking barn in the Van Leeuwen Dairy Group portfolio. Behind the drive to install their first robotic system was the premium price paid for winter milking, which a robotic system enabled, as well as a response to a shortage of skilled staff.
”Land is also getting more expensive, and additionally, this barn environment enables optimal feed management, cow comfort and access to comprehensive herd information in order to make crucial decisions on farm,” he said.
The vast barn, which housed cows for 10 months of the year, had rubber-floored stalls and lanes for cow traffic, as well as multiple concrete feed lanes on which maize silage, lucerne silage and protein additives was distributed. Cows decided when they ate, slept and were milked through the DeLaval voluntary milking system.
Enticed by feed slowly trickled into bins inside the milking stalls, the cows were milked by robots with hydraulic arms guided by optical cameras and dual lasers.
Each teat was individually cleaned with warm water and air, stimulated, pre-milked and dried before milking, and disinfected after milking.
Each robot was controlled by a touch screen, with the capability of remote operation from a designated office.
The Van Leeuwens said the cows had adapted remarkably well, with all 725 cows milking successfully within one week.
It was hoped that the other half of the barn, with an additional 12 robots and 750 cows, would be fully functional by Christmas.
It was expected that the dairy would be producing a massive 1.2 million kg of milksolids a year within the next few years.
The project was DeLaval’s largest commission under roof to date globally, with managing director Richard Alderton saying the robot/barn combination fitted with the company’s vision of sustainable food production.
”Land is becoming limited; we must now do more with less,” he said. ”We are starting to talk more output per cow, rather than output per hectare. With robotic milking, labour can be diverted to more value-added activities on farm, such as feed production.
The barn is increasingly being seen as a viable solution to cow comfort and environmental concerns.”
Source: NZ Farmer
