The Lely M4Use unit is installed next to a robot milking unit to collect milk from cows that have been drafted through that unit because they are fresh-in-milk or being treated with animal veterinary products.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
One of the challenges with dairy farming is separating the milk of those heifers and cows that are fresh-in-milk or being treated with antibiotics.
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Lely has a solution with the M4Use, which enables colostrum and milk to bypass the vat and be collected from those heifers and cows.
The M4Use contains buckets where the individual cow’s colostrum or other milk is collected into.
This can then be disposed of, or in the case of colostrum, given to calves.
Dale Serong, from Lely Center Gippsland, said there is a lid on each bucket, which enables the quality of the colostrum to be checked.
“The robot unit’s software enables the farmer to identify the cow whose milk is bypassing the system, and the calf that should receive the colostrum,” Dale said.
“The farmer can also draft so all fresh-in-milk cows come through the one robot unit.”
This means only one tray of M4Use buckets needs to be installed in the dairy.
Each M4 Use unit contains three buckets.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
Peter Joyce had the M4Use installed when his two new Lely robot milking units were retrofitted, into what had been his herringbone dairy at Strzelecki in Victoria.
He feeds the colostrum to his newborn calves by carrying the buckets to the nearby calf rearing shed.
All other calves receive fortified milk powder mixed with water.
Peter also uses this system to separately collect the milk from cows that are being treated for mastitis.
“I used to hate when a cow got mastitis, but with this system it’s easy to monitor and treat her,” Peter said.
“If I had a cow that had a bit of a high cell count from a herd test, I’d probably treat her.
“I’m finding now, I draft her to this robot unit and collect her milk separately, and I can watch her cell count come down daily.
“I can check in the bucket, and if she’s got clots, I might give her a dose of penicillin in the quarter.
“A lot of the time, the cow’s cell count will come back down on its own.
“And the system will automatically put the cow into the robot unit with the buckets, and the milk goes down the drain.
“I can program into the system to keep doing drafting the cow to that robot unit and continue to dump her milk down the drain, until her cell count comes down to normal.”
The bucket system can be automated at the receiving end, by installing pipes that convey the milk to the calf shed.
Alternately, the buckets of colostrum could be transported in a trailer.
Each individual bucket is paired to a cow.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
The milk in the bucket can be checked for clots or other irregularities, so the cow’s health can be monitored.
Photo by
Jeanette Severs
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