Cow and farmer friendly
Cows benefit from robotic milking. They are more relaxed, healthier, and reward farmers with more milk.
Lely's new milestone in automated milking, the Lely Astronaut A5, will debut at the National Fieldays.
Launched at Lely’ head office in Rotterdam last month, the A5 milking robot means stress-free milking for farmer and cows.
Lely says observation of cow-machine interaction and feedback from many farmers has led to a system that combines proven automated milking principles with unmatched reliability, ease of use and cost efficiency.
“The thoroughly tested A5 contributes to Lely’s aim of making the lives of farmers easier, their business more successful, all opening up a bright future for them and their families,” it says.
Lely says healthy and stress-free cows put more milk in the tank.
Cows feel comfortable and perform well in Lely’s farm environment with free cow traffic, plus the easy walk-through and spacious milking boxes.
A new hybrid arm has further improved cow comfort: silent, faster, energy efficient and more accurate, it results in consistent milking. Instantly following the cow’s every movement during milking, and remaining close to the udder, it quickly corrects itself if unexpected movement occurs. This ensures a fast and thorough milking process, even with heifers.
The company’s new Teat Detection System (TDS) improves post-milking teat spraying by pre-scanning the udder before spraying, ensuring optimal udder hygiene and limiting the risk of contamination.
The redesigned, intuitive user interface makes automatic milking easy to understand. From a cow’s first milking to everyday maintenance, all relevant information is available on a single page. Instant actions, such as feed allocation, cow-specific routing and daily maintenance tasks, are a one-click task.
To reduce the total cost per kgMS produced, Lely redesigned its entire milking system and tested it with 30 customers (worldwide) doing at least 2 million milkings across a wide temperature range. In all tests, detergent and water consumption were lowered and energy use was reduced by up to 20%.
Bright future
Based on farmers’ needs the new Astronaut A5 milking robot, which is compatible with the A4, fits Lely’s vision perfectly.
Chief executive Alexander van der Lely says milking a cow has never been so easy and comfortable for farmer and cow.
“The Astronaut A5 contributes to our aim of making the lives of farmers easier, their business more successful and opening up a bright future for them and their families,” says van der Lely.
“That is why we listened to farmers throughout product development and thoroughly tested the Astronaut A5 with farmers all over the world.... It is they who will ultimately determine how successful this new Astronaut will be.”
The Lely Astronaut is available in New Zealand and the Lely Dairy New Zealand team will be on-site at Fieldays (K 28) to discuss its features and application.
Rural banker Rabobank is partnering with Food Rescue Kitchen on a new TV series which airs this weekend that aims to shine a light on the real and growing issues of food waste, food poverty and social isolation in New Zealand.
Telco infrastructure provider Chorus says that it believes all Kiwis – particularly those in the rural areas – need access to high-speed, reliable broadband.
World Veterinary Day falls on Saturday 27 April.
The Director General of MPI, Ray Smith says it's important for his department to celebrate the success of a whole range of groups and people around the country.
A small company which mobilised veterinarians around the country to deal with Mycoplasma bovis was one of the winners in this year's Biosecurity Awards, held at Parliament.
One of the country's top Māori sheep and beef farms is facing a five-year battle to get back to where it was before Cyclone Gabrielle struck just over 14 months ago.
OPINION: Talking about plant-based food: “Chicken-free chicken” start-up Sunfed has had its valuation slashed to zero by major investor Blackbird…
OPINION: Synlait's financial woes won’t be going away anytime soon.