In this week’s Buildings Focus, Agriland took a trip down to the premier county to speak to Charles and Pat Higgins about their journey into robotic milking.
The father-and-son team, residing near Kilfeacle in Co. Tipperary, are only new to the robotic milking game, with their first cows milked in a robot last Christmas.
Before that, however, Charles’ father, Pat, was milking all his life and up to last year was milking in a 12-unit milking parlour.
The duo moved away from a conventional parlour to robots when Charles decided to come home to the family farm, around the time of the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020.
He had been working as a civil engineer for a decade and after having discussions with his father, he decided to come home full-time to go farming and this led to further discussions on how the farm would move forward in the future.
Speaking to Agriland on their farm during the week, Charles said: “I decided to come home to the farm on a full time basis around the time Covid-19 first surfaced last year.
“I had been working as a civil engineer for 10 years prior to that, but when Dad said he was thinking about taking a step back, I spoke with him and eventually we decided we would farm together and going forward do things differently.
“We decided it was time to move away from a conventional parlour and go down the route of robotic milking, for one main simple reason – better and more flexible work/life balance.”
Striving for a work/life balance
The father-and-son team said that they wanted to balance working on the farm while also creating time for themselves away from it, and not be tied to the farm seven days a week for most of the day each day.
Charles added: “When we looked at our options; we said we wanted to have a profitable farm system, but also have proper time away from the farm as well.
“We didn’t want to be tied to the farm Monday to Sunday, and be up in the yard at all hours in the morning and the same again in the evening.
“I have a young family and I want to be able to spend proper time with them and not be only seeing them for a bit in the morning and before they go to bed in the evening.
“So we felt going with robots was the way to do that, because we didn’t want to be in a situation where we would tied to a parlour morning and evening.
“Between myself and my father neither of us are here before 8:00a.m or 5:00p.m during the week [obviously excluding at calving time when its hectic] and at the weekends, bar hunting in a few cows and moving wires, we have the weekends to ourselves more often than not.”
Using existing sheds to accommodate 2 robots
Having decided on getting into robotic milking, the next port of call was deciding on where to source the robots from.
Having spoken to nearby neighbours who had installed Lely robots and had been happy with them, Charles and Pat got in touch with Lely Centre Mullingar, who within a day of speaking to them over the phone, were out to walk the farm and see was it suitable for a robotic system.
The following day the Farmyard and Design team at Lely Mullingar arrived on the farm to see how to incorporate two robots using existing sheds on the farm.
The Higgins had 100 cubicles for their cows already – which were in a old hay shed with a lean-to on either side.
So at one side of this existing cubicle house lied the 12-unit parlour and on the other side was wasteground – so it was decided to extend out the shed on this piece of unused land.
On this piece of ground, 40 cubicles, a tank, two Lely Astronaut A5 robots, calving pens, a bulk tank room, an office and a treatment area which also joins up to an existing slatted shed were put in.
The Higgins also took the roof off the existing sheds and put up a new roof – which gives it a nice slick look.
Slurry storage was tight on the farm, so the Higgins ensured this wouldn’t be a problem anymore and fitted in a tank that stretches greater than the width of the shed out as far as the grazing gates.
‘Information you get… no good if you don’t use it’
Charles said that robots aren’t the lazy way out of milking cows and that a lot of work is required to make the system work.
He also highlighted the information you get from the robots as “brilliant” and helps to make better informed decisions, while also cutting down on the workload.
He said: “Putting in a robot and expecting not to have to do any work and that all will work fine, isn’t going to work.
“A lot of work goes into getting up and running and then keeping on top of it. The big benefit, as we said, about the robots, is creating more time to ourselves, but that’s only the case because we keep on top of everything.
“The second big benefit is the information you get from it. I describe the robot as like doing a milk recording on your farm everyday.
“Before, in the parlour, you’d milk record every six-to-eight weeks and you’d get information about your cows that way.
“With the robots, you are getting that information and a whole lot more about your cows everyday of the week.
“A couple of features we find great are the heat detection. At breeding time, when the cows come in, the robot will draft any in heat and some mornings when you would come up, you’d have seven or eight cows in the treatment area there for the AI man to come in and do his thing.
“Then just the individual information you get form your cows from the robot is brilliant.
“E.g., if we felt a cow wasn’t herself, instead of second guessing ourselves we can go to the robot and see if there [are] any issues; it’s like nearly getting a second opinion.
“If there is, then we can get the vet out straight away rather than before when you might hold off and say I’ll give her another day and see how she is.
“Also, we can detect an issue of mastitis in a cow a couple of days in advance. So, like I said, the information you get is invaluable, but it’s no good to you if you don’t use it.”
What else is in the new part of the shed?
As mentioned, a new roof was put over the existing part of the shed, which contained roughly 100 cubicles. The new part of the unit, consists of the two robots and calving pens, a treatment area, calf pen, bulk tank room and an office.
The calving area can be laid out in a number of different ways. The Higgins can set up four pens or have a large group calving pen and then have one individual pen, where the calving gate is hung.
A small holding pen for calves is located beside the pen where the calving gate is. Charles said you could hold about six calves in it.
Behind the robots lies the bulk tank room and an office, while to the other side of the robots lies a treatment area which is joined up to an existing slatted shed.
In this treatment area lies a couple of cubicles, while headlocking barriers were installed in one of the bays of the slatted shed, so that cows can be locked in, for example for the AI man to carry out his work.
A Lely discovery can also be found cleaning the shed. A new meal bin was also installed.
The underpass – tying the whole system together
The largest block of land belonging to Charles and Pat are actually located across the road from the farmyard and when Pat was milking his cows in his parlour, he used to walk them across this generally quiet road regularly.
However, for a robotic system to be rolled out on the farm, an underpass was required for it to work.
Charles added: “Our largest block of land is actually across the road. So cows would actually, in the past, have been walked along the road, when they would be grazing over there.
“But obviously, in a robotic system, that wouldn’t work so we had to put in an underpass.
“It was a must-do, but it was a well worthwhile investment.” The underpass cost €30,000 and was completed by Croom Concrete.
Cost to convert to robotic milking
The move to a robotic system was helped by the fact that Pat and Charles could avail of a grant under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II).
The cost of the project is standing at roughly €360,000 (including VAT) which is the cost, minus the value of the grant.
Speaking about their decision to change how they go about milking cows, Charles said: “We are very happy with our decision.
“We are currently milking just over 100 cows and we would like to push that up more in the future.
“It’s a mature herd of cows and, in fairness to them, they have taken to it very well and took no length of time to get out of the routine they were in and get used to the robots.
“Both my father and I have a nice balance between working on the farm and getting away from it – which is what we strived for in the beginning. So, all in all, it’s been working well,” Charles concluded by saying.