DeLaval has released the Rotary E100 at Fieldays. The new dairy system has a cockpit within arms length of the cow bales.
DeLaval has designed a new rotary dairy system aimed for New Zealand farming conditions.
Launched at Fieldays, the Rotary E100 took the dairy farm machinery company three years to design with the aim of combining the best of all of the existing milking shed technologies while being durable and operator and animal friendly.
DeLaval Oceania sales director Justin Thompson said the rotary was designed for pasture-based systems and the needs of the New Zealand farmer.
“It’s about trying to ensure that the technology that has been created in the last 15 years is integrated into these systems in a seamless nature.”
He described it as a “single solution from a single provider”, without needing integration with other systems.
“It’s teat to tank, with all the things in between.”
Thompson said rotary systems in the past had tended to be “cobbled together”, especially after electronic tags for livestock were widely adopted by the industry.
He said the new system looked at milking cows from a farm management perspective.
“What we have tried to do in this development and on-farm testing is look at how we can do milk extraction in an efficient manner, focusing on farm profitability, animal safety, worker safety and making sure there was the best solution for the New Zealand farmer.”
The rotary could be upgraded with farmers able to start with a basic system and add features to it according to their profitability, he said.
The system features a cockpit which is set up next to the rotary platform and is designed to allow farmers to run an entire shed within an arm’s length of where they stood.
It was designed so that one person could operate the milking shed at any time. Each bale can come with a teat sprayer that can apply the spray after milking.
“We have a lot of the technologies that make the milking a truly one person shed.”
Generally, the core of the system – the cockpit and rotary controls – could not be retro-fitted onto an existing rotary. Some of the components could be fitted onto a herringbone shed, he said.
The E100 ranged from a fairly basic system to a fully automated rotary that registers cows when they enter the platform, informs the farmer all the information about the cow at each bale including production and medical alerts.
“If she’s mixed up in the wrong herd and shouldn’t be milked, it will put out an alert before you put the cups on.”
For the New Zealand market, the maximum size rotary that can be built is 80 bales with 50, 54 and 60 bales the three most common sizes and the starting price was $7500 per bale.
DeLaval will have a six-bale rotary demonstrating the new system at their site at Fieldays.
It has been tested on a 500-cow Tirau farm last season and farm owner Jack Scheres said they had never seen animals so calm in a cowshed.
“We’d never worked with DeLaval before. We’ve always thought they imported their technology, so we’ve been pleasantly surprised to see this system developed here for New Zealand dairy conditions.”
“It identifies the cow as she comes in, it tells me milk production or milk loss, and it will automatically draft any cow based on parameters I set,” sharemilker Chap Zweirs said.
Source: Stuff
