Robotic dairy revolution
The Australian-invented robotic rotary dairy is up and running on a commercial pilot farm in Tasmania. The dairy, which can milk up to 90 cows an hour, started operating in February on a new farm established by the Dornauf family just outside of Deloraine.
The Australian-invented robotic rotary dairy is up and running on a commercial pilot farm in Tasmania.
The dairy, which can milk up to 90 cows an hour, started operating in February on a new farm established by the Dornauf family just outside of Deloraine.
The Dornaufs are milking about 300 cows on the farm and plan to build numbers to 600 in the next three years.
Three generations are involved in the family’s dairy farms - Ian and Jenny, their son Chris and his wife, Lyn, and their son Nick and his partner, Rebekah Tyler.
The family jumped at the opportunity to be the pilot commercial farm for the Automatic Milking Rotary (AMR) when approached by DeLaval and its northern Tasmanian dealer Agri Tech.
"I think my family all love a challenge," Chris said.
"I love the animal side of it - the animal psychology. I find that really fascinating.”
Nick, a Melbourne University agricultural science graduate and qualified dairy nutritionist, is also relishing the challenge. "I jump out of bed in the morning," he said.
Five robots operate the dairy, which was manufactured and installed by Swedish-based DeLaval. The first two wash and prepare the teats for milking, the second two attach cups to the cows and the last one sprays the teats before the cows leave the platform.
The cows are not fed while milking but given access to grain in feeders in the yards after they have finished milking.
The yards comprise a series of smaller yards, separated by Smart Selection Gates (SSGs) - automatic gates that can draft cows in two or three different directions.
The AMR was developed by the FutureDairy project at Camden, NSW, a collaboration between DeLaval, Dairy Australia, NSW Department of Primary Industries and the University of Sydney.
Source: DeLaval
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