Robotic milking
Dairy farming is New Zealand's biggest industry. However, the labour-intensive nature of dairy farming could limit productivity gains. Will automatic milking provide a solution?
The dairy industry is New Zealand's biggest export earner. This is largely because our farms currently produce milk more efficiently than anywhere else in the world. Continued improvements to this productivity will have a big effect on the standard of living not only for dairy farming families, but also for all New Zealanders.
Over the years, New Zealand has developed a very special farming system:
- Efficient grazing (as opposed to the high use of supplemental feed in other countries)
- Large-scale processing of the products
- Innovative dairy products and creative marketing
- Lots of scientists researching better ideas
The history of dairy farming in New Zealand
Over the last 65 years, New Zealand dairy farming has developed from hand milking in "walk-through" dairy sheds ... to machine milking ... to the use of massive herringbone and rotary sheds.
Get information sheet: The changing face of dairy farming in New Zealand
The problem now is that New Zealand dairy farms are becoming bigger and the average herd size has almost doubled since 1990. More farm workers are needed to keep up with the work, but there are fewer around. Robotic milking could help to solve this problem. It could also have a big impact on the lifestyles of dairy farmers.
Get video: Why have automatic milking?
What is automatic milking?
Robotic milking is when a type of robot called an Automatic Milking System (AMS) replaces a person to do all the jobs involved in milking a herd of cows. The system is set up to:
- Guide the cows to the milking shed
- Identify each of the cows individually
- Milk the cows
- Check the milk
- Record data about individual cows
Get video: How do robots milk cows?
The first Automatic Milking Systems were set up on commercial farms in The Netherlands in 1992. By the middle of 2005, over 2,500 farms worldwide used one or more AMS to milk their cows. They are mostly in north-western Europe, although there has recently been large growth in Japan and North America.
The Greenfield Project
Internationally, AMS have been used effectively on farms where cows live mostly in barns, but would it work for New Zealand cows farmed in paddocks? The Greenfield Project was set up by DairyNZ in Hamilton to see if automatic milking can work in a pasture-based system, and if it can be economic for New Zealand farms.
Get video: What is the Greenfield Project?
The first kiwi cow was milked by the robot ‘Merlin’ in 2001 at DairyNZ’s Greenfield Project farm.
Get information sheet: Setting up the Greenfield Project's research farm
How automatic milking works at the Greenfield farm
On the Greenfield farm the cows have to take themselves from the paddock to the automatic milking machine and then back out to the paddock again. The cows’ movement is directed using temporary fences and a system of cow-controlled and computer-controlled gates.
Get video: Automatic milking systems and controlling cow movement
Electronic information on each cow is stored in a computer, and is used to determine whether a particular cow is due to be milked or not. When the cow enters a ‘selection unit’ a signal from the computer directs the gate to open, either letting the cow back into pasture, or directing her up to the dairy for milking.
Get interactive activity: To moove or not to moove
Get video: Automatic milking systems and the importance of farm management
Cow training
The cows have to be taught how to use the AMS and how to take themselves to be milked. Incentives, or rewards (such as water, or the promise of fresh grass), are used to encourage the cows to move into the selection units.
Get video: Using incentives to control cow movement on farms
Get information sheet: Training cows to milk themselves
Individual attention
An AMS means that a lot of individual information about each cow can be recorded and stored. The farmer can track her movement through the paddocks. The amount of milk being produced by each cow (and even each teat!) can also be recorded.
'Sensors', or electronic measuring devices, can be used to record the amounts of specific substances in the milk, providing extra information on the milk quality and/or health of individual cows. Examples of substances that farmers might want to measure include antibiotics (so that the milk can be separated from the rest of the batch), somatic cell count (which might indicate the presence of infections like mastitis), milk solids (an indication of milk quality), or specific high-value substances like lactoferrin. The AMS also allows farmers to easily separate the milk of certain cows from the milk of other cows. This is useful if a cow is producing colostrum, or if she is being treated with antibiotics.
Get video: Automatic milking and getting to know individual cows
Milking 24/7
In New Zealand, the whole herd is usually batch milked twice a day. In contrast, a robotic milking machine can only milk one cow at a time - but the milking process can be carried out continuously. The system is most efficient if cows are milked throughout the day and night. In an ideal situation, a steady stream of cows will arrive at the machines over the whole 24 hour period.
Experience at the Greenfield Project has shown that the actual flow of cows into the dairy is not continuous, and there is a very quiet period during the early hours of the morning. To gain the maximum economic benefits from the robotic technology, the challenge is to develop farm systems which can maximise the period of time which the machines are in use.
Get video: Automatic milking and getting the robots to work 24/7
Farming with clever cows
The Greenfield herd is 85% Friesian, and the remainder are Jerseys, Ayrshires, and crossbreeds. At the moment it does not look like one breed is ‘better’ than another for an AMS, but it is important that the cows have suitable udders (occasionally the milking robot does not seem to attach very easily to a particular cow); are intelligent; and can learn to use the system quickly.
Get video: Automatic milking and the perfect cow
Where to next?
The Greenfield farm is a model for totally automated dairy farming in New Zealand, and is now expected to run economically. Future research will focus on making AMS more financially rewarding by improving cow training methods and increasing AMS utilisation. There is also the challenge of applying AMS to the range of physical environments that make up New Zealand’s dairy farms.
Get video: The Greenfield Project: Where to next?
Other work is being carried out to test the potential for using an AMS to separate specific components in the milk as it comes out of the milking machine. This technology could be used, for example, to separate specific proteins that are of high value but low concentration in the milk, such as lactoferrin.
In the future it may be possible to actually separate out these high-value components right there on the farm, instead of pooling all the milk together and sending it off to a big dairy factory to be processed.
Who’s involved?
The Greenfield Project has DairyNZ scientists and farmers working with engineers from Sensortec Ltd. The University of Waikato and the Waikato Automatic Milking Farmer Group also help out. People with a range of different skills are needed to make this project successful.
Get video: Who is involved in the Greenfield Project?
The fact that several companies are involved on the project means that the ownership of ideas that are generated (‘intellectual property’) has had to be considered.
Get information sheet: Intellectual property issues and the Greenfield Project
