Breeding the Ultimate Robot-Ready Jersey Herd
In the beautiful, scenic expanse of Invercargill, Joanne (Jo) Crack of Southern Star Farms is redefining what it means to run a modern, self-sufficient dairy operation.
Launched at Lely’ head office in Rotterdam last month, the A5 milking robot means stress-free milking for farmer and cows.
Lely says observation of cow-machine interaction and feedback from many farmers has led to a system that combines proven automated milking principles with unmatched reliability, ease of use and cost efficiency.
“The thoroughly tested A5 contributes to Lely’s aim of making the lives of farmers easier, their business more successful, all opening up a bright future for them and their families,” it says.
Lely says healthy and stress-free cows put more milk in the tank.
Cows feel comfortable and perform well in Lely’s farm environment with free cow traffic, plus the easy walk-through and spacious milking boxes.
A new hybrid arm has further improved cow comfort: silent, faster, energy efficient and more accurate, it results in consistent milking. Instantly following the cow’s every movement during milking, and remaining close to the udder, it quickly corrects itself if unexpected movement occurs. This ensures a fast and thorough milking process, even with heifers.
The company’s new Teat Detection System (TDS) improves post-milking teat spraying by pre-scanning the udder before spraying, ensuring optimal udder hygiene and limiting the risk of contamination.
The redesigned, intuitive user interface makes automatic milking easy to understand. From a cow’s first milking to everyday maintenance, all relevant information is available on a single page. Instant actions, such as feed allocation, cow-specific routing and daily maintenance tasks, are a one-click task.
To reduce the total cost per kgMS produced, Lely redesigned its entire milking system and tested it with 30 customers (worldwide) doing at least 2 million milkings across a wide temperature range. In all tests, detergent and water consumption were lowered and energy use was reduced by up to 20%.
Bright future
Based on farmers’ needs the new Astronaut A5 milking robot, which is compatible with the A4, fits Lely’s vision perfectly.
Chief executive Alexander van der Lely says milking a cow has never been so easy and comfortable for farmer and cow.
“The Astronaut A5 contributes to our aim of making the lives of farmers easier, their business more successful and opening up a bright future for them and their families,” says van der Lely.
“That is why we listened to farmers throughout product development and thoroughly tested the Astronaut A5 with farmers all over the world.... It is they who will ultimately determine how successful this new Astronaut will be.”
The Lely Astronaut is available in New Zealand and the Lely Dairy New Zealand team will be on-site at Fieldays (K 28) to discuss its features and application.
