Robotic rotary dairy in Oz

Marketed under the AMR the new milking system was developed collaboratively by Swedish dairy equipment company DeLaval and the Sydney-based FutureDairy team.

The Dornauf family have been milking with the AMR since February this year, and are delighted with the results.

"It is a different approach, not just to milking cows, but the farming system in general," says Nick Dornauf who runs the farm with his partner Rebekah Tyler.

The Dornauf's AMR is currently milking 250 cows but has the capacity to milk up to 600 cows. The plan is to further develop the property and expand the herd to capacity over the coming years.

The Dornauf's AMR has a 24-unit internal, herringbone rotary platform. Milking tasks are performed by five robots: two for udder preparation, two for cup attachment and one for teat disinfection after milking.

Cows wear electronic collars which are recognised by the robots, smart gates, automatic feeders and the herd management software, Delpro, giving the Dornauf's the ability to manage many of the farm operations from the computer.

Richard Alderton, Regional President, DeLaval Oceania, says the company has worked closely with the Australian dairy industry to develop the AMR.

"We collaborated with the FutureDairy team to design an automatic milking system suited to Australian conditions, particularly larger herds within a pasture feedbase," Alderton says.

However the system is flexible enough to operate in a variety of dairy systems including free stalls and loose housing that are typical of overseas dairy operations.

The reasons the Dornaufs invested in the AMR included the ability to retain labour, flexibility of farm management, improved stimulation, freeing up time from milking to focus on farm management and improved lifestyle.

While the Dornaufs are still getting used to this new way of farming, they are already seeing some of the benefits.

"I jump out of bed in the morning. It's really exciting to be adopting new technology and challenging the paradigms for dairy farming. There's lots of intellectual stimulation for me," Nick Dornauf says.