50 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Comins Farming Every eight hours the cows are moved to a different area of the farm for a fresh break of grass. Lely’s platform management sytem combined with Allflex cow collars put all the relevant information at Ian and Carmen’s fingertips. Robotics a win-win for busy couple Kelly Deeks Now into their fifth season of robotic milking on their Kihikihi dairy farm, Ian and Carmen Comins are now fine tuning their feeding regime as they seek to get the best out of their cows and their robots. Ian and Carmen converted a 29ha maize block back to dairying in 2012 and were milking 100 cows through an old 10-a-side herringbone shed. When they saw the Lely Astronaut automatic milking system at the Mystery Creek Fieldays, they thought it would be well-suited to their small farm system. “I’ve always been interested in machinery and we saw robotic milking as the next step,” Ian says. “I’m also an agricultural contractor and I spend a lot of time off the farm, while Carmen takes care of the farm.” The Comins installed their first Lely robot in 2018, as well as enlarging and reconfiguring the existing herringbone. The benefits were immediate, with happier, friendlier, and more relaxed cows milking at their own pace and providing more production. In 2020, Ian and Carmen installed their second robot, and they target annual production of 45,000kgs milk solids. Ian and Carmen don’t rear heifers, they buy in cows and they adapt very quickly to the robot system. Interestingly, they seem to prefer one robot to the other, and will often wait around to access their preferred unit, even if the other is empty. The cows are milking an average of 2.6 times each day, some milking 3.3 times, where they receive a pre-determined feed of meal. Every eight hours they are moved to a different area of the farm for a fresh break of grass. “That really helps to drive the cows. They love a fresh break of grass and a nibble of meal while they’re being milked.” The automated system not only frees up a considerable amount of time for Carmen and Ian, as it used to take two and a half hours to milk twice a day through the old herringbone, it also removes the 4am starts and the uncomfortable drudgery of milking through heat and flies during the summer months. Ian is free to focus on his contracting business Comins Contracting, while the robot system stays in constant contact via smart phone. Lely’s platform management sytem combined with Allflex cow collars put all the relevant information at Ian and Carmen’s fingertips. The robot scans the cow’s collar to find out all the data from her previous milking, where to put the cups on, how much meal to dispense, her cell count, her udder health, and any other animal health situations including whether she’s on heat. Corresponding alerts are sent straight to Ian and Carmen, as the system continues to monitor the cow’s general health. Its accuracy in detecting mastitis several days before symptoms are apparent has saved the Comins’ a significant amount of antibiotic use. “We don’t get any downgrades on our milk, and we’re also able to treat cows earlier, more naturally, and more holistically.” With their robots reliably taking care of milking, Ian and Carmen are left with only their feed decisions to fine tune for further production gains. The cows are milking an average of 2.6 times each day where they receive a pre-determined feed of meal. DIGGER TRACTORS TRUCKS COMINS CONTRACTING LTD FOR ALL YOUR AG. REQUIREMENTS Phone: 07 872 2865 - Bryan 027 476 8215 - Ian 027 259 5033 - General Cartage - Silage / Hay Cartage - Lime delivered & Spread- 8 Tonne Spreader - K2 muck Speeder - Chicken & Duck Manure - Ploughing & Discing - Loaderwagons x2 - Round and Square Bales - Undersowing - 3 Mtr Air Seed Double roll Roller Drill - Grader Blade - Ripper - Thumb - Laser Levelling - Race Upgrades - Vee Draining - Tilt Bucket
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