The Rural Voice, 2006-05, Page 24GS1-TI?4c
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production we have now before."
The robots are on a yearly
maintenance contract so the cost is a
known quantity. Lely's technical
staff go over the machine every eight
weeks. They've only had two
breakdowns in three years to which
staff responded quickly.
"Even then it's no big deal if the
machines are down for an hour." says
Ella.
There's enough free time on the
robots that they can catch up by the
end of the day even if the machines
are down three or four hours. Frank
add.
nce both robots were up and
working the old milking
parlour was removed and a
calf pen was created in the space it
took up. In keeping with the family's
acceptance of the leading edge. they
installed an automatic calf feeder.
Again the Outdoor Farm show
played a role in their acquisition of
the latest technology. Lely wanted to
demonstrate the calf feeder at the
Farm show so asked if they could
take calves from the Kieftenburg
farm. "We're open to new things,"
says Ella. "We're willing to try new
things."
Lely installed the calf feeder in
their barn for free and provided free
milk replacer powder in order to train
the calves. The calves and the
machine went to the farm shoe in
September, then came home until the
calves were finished. "We finished
the calves and started talking and we
eventually Just bought it." Frank
says.
Currently they're only feeding 10-
12 calves at a time. "The area we're
using isn't perfect," Frank says.
Eventually he hopes to build a new
calf barn with two pens, one for
calves from newborn to three weeks,
one for older calves. The unit can
handle up to 60 calves with two
different feeding units. At that point
he'd keep the bull calves that he's
currently selling, "If we can make a
bit of money on the bull calves, the
machine is already paid for," Frank
says.
They used to warm up milk from
the cows to feed to the calves but it
would have sat there for several
hours and every 20 minutes the
bacteria in milk doubles so the calves
were being exposed to bacteria,