Dairymaster is launching three new products at this year’s National Ploughing Championships, including a robotic sprayer.
Established in 1968 by Ned Harty, the hi-tech dairy equipment manufacturer is based on a 13.5ac site in Causeway, Co. Kerry.
John Harty, chief executive of Dairymaster, told a press briefing that the company has “continued to grow and gain market share” over the past three years.
“Our vision is to be the world’s most dynamic, innovative and customer-focused dairy technology company,” he said.
Dairymaster said that the new three products have been developed in response to the changes happening in Ireland and internationally in the dairy sector, including larger herd sizes.
The innovations follow the launch of the company’s software platform, DairyVue360, last year.
Robotic sprayer
John Daly, research and innovation manager, said the new robotic sprayer, RoboSpray, for both new and existing rotary milking parlours, would give a more precise and consistent spray pattern as the spray head would be closer to the cow’s teats.
The technology would also cut back on labour demands, particularly on large international dairy herds where cows are being milked on 24 hour basis.
Daly said what set the technology apart from others already on the market was the ability to link the robotic sprayer to Dairymaster’s software platform.
This enables a farmer to delay the teat spray if a cow needed to be inspected or kept on the rotary for longer.
The camera system on the robot also allows for “machine learning” which aims to help teat health.
“We know which cow is coming to the robot, we can predict what height the udder is at, what the typical confirmation of the udder is and therefore where we need to go with our spray pattern,” Daly said.
The product is initially aimed at Dairymaster parlours but the company is hoping it can be integrated into competitors’ parlours in the longer term.
Rotary parlour
Visitors to the National Ploughing Championships will be among the first to see Dairymaster’s new DM3X+ rotary milking parlour.
This rotary has been developed to suit the needs of very large international commercial dairy herds which are milking thousands of cows three or four times per day.
Herd size for these farms is often determined by the number of cows that can be milked in an 8-hour shift.
David Fleming, Dairymaster engineering manager, said the new parlour would be milking over 21 hours/day, with the aim of milking one cow every six seconds.
“One year of a large commercial dairy rotary parlour usage is about the same as 10-and-a-half years of a typical Irish rotary parlour,” he said.
The key focus of the DM3X+ is cow comfort and ease of operation while ensuring high rotation speeds and high levels of cow flow.
The lower profile of the bail divider follows minimalistic design principles and includes a “SmartSwitch” traffic light like system for operators and patented track technology.
Milking platform
Dairymaster is also launching their latest milking software; the “Swiftflo personalised milking platform”.
As the name suggests, this software allows farmers to tailor their milking to each individual cow in the herd and accounts for the traits of different breeds.
This includes increased pulsation rate for the first 60 seconds of cluster attachment to stimulate milk let down, removing the need for manual stimulation of the teat.
The system also has a dynamic pulsation rate and ratio depending on the stage of milk out and variable take-off of clusters.
Dairymaster said that peer-reviewed research from Teagasc showed time savings of almost 1.5 minutes/cow/day.
As part of this innovation, the company has developed a new milking machine liner, which has been trialled on Irish and European farms, to facilitate cows with higher milk flow while protecting teats.
The software is currently available for rotary parlours with work underway to roll it out to other parlour types.
Dairymaster
Fergus O’Meara, international business manager with Dairymaster, said that the National Ploughing Championships is “a great shop window” for the company.
“We have many overseas buyers coming specifically to see these new products,” he said.
O’Meara said that the company has already secured “a lot of orders” for these products in 2024.
The products have also been nominated for awards in the UK and at the National Ploughing Championships.
Dairymaster, which employs around 350 people, has customers in over 45 countries, with offices in the UK, Netherlands and Germany.