Since the commercial launch of the Lely Astronaut in 1995, the Dutch company has seen its automated milking units sold into 50 countries worldwide.

Approximately 3m cows are now milked through the various versions of the Astronaut robots, handling 80m litres of milk every day.

Earlier this year, the 50,000th Astronaut unit rolled off the production line and was purchased by Hollybank Farm, owned by the father and son team of Stephen and David Cargill.

The machine is one of four A5 Astronauts currently being installed on the 400 acre dairy farm near Ballyclare, with a target completion date for late July.

Once operational, all four robots will take over milking the Cargill’s 180 high yielding Holstein cows, currently milked three times per day in an 18/36 swing-over parlour installed in 2021.

At an event on-farm last Friday to mark the installation of the 50,000th Astronaut, Stephen and David outlined the reasoning for their investment.

“Labour is getting harder to come by and we rely on employing extra staff to cover night time milkings. It was just getting too labour intensive and the time was right to switch” said David.

He outlined how they have been working with Lely products for a number of years, with two Vector feed units acquired in 2022. The units effectively replaced a tractor and diet feeder, freeing up one labour unit for other jobs on the farm.

Benefits

While automated technology comes at a cost, it has delivered performance benefits with daily yields up 2l per cow. The Vector feed units dispense a consistent mix of fresh forage 14 times per day, encouraging cows to visit the feed rail.

“Both units feed 360 cattle every day in winter. Six different rations are fed across cows in milk, dry cows, young stock and beef animals. That’s a huge labour saving” said Stephen.

According to Lely personnel, the company has around 10% to 14% of the UK’s market share in sales of milking equipment.

Approximately 3,000 Astronaut units are currently on dairy farms in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Around 600 robots are on NI farms with the two original A2 units sold in 1999 still in operation.

Taking a conservative average of 60 cows per unit, that would equate to 36,000 cows or 12% of the NI dairy herd milked on a Lely unit.

Opportunities

However, with just 5% of global market share, Gijs Scholman, Lely’s chief commercial officer, believes there are “huge opportunities” for further growth.

“In Europe, 90% to 95% of all new investment in milking technology is in robotics and automation, removing the need for repetitive work and improving the lifestyle of our customers.

Making the job of milking cows less labour intensive is key to attract the next generation into dairy farming,” he said.

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