Robots running empty is costly.
Richard Drew has been dairy farming at Callers farm for more than two decades, in 2016 they decided to make the move from milking in the parlour and are now milking 180 cows on three robots. The move from the parlour has been done strategically over a period of time, making the transition easier for both the cows and the team at the farm.
Initially, one silo was supplying two robots and Richard monitored feed usage via the system software although this had limitations, when the last of the cows came onto the system a third robot was added and due to the positioning, even though it was using the same feed type, this was supplied by a second silo. The robot system didn’t have capacity to log feed from two sources and so was not able to supply accurate feed usage for reordering purposes, unfortunately resulting in a couple of feed outages.
A good balanced diet is key to milk production, a missed feed in the robots, or the parlour, affects this nutritional balance and impacts on production and quality levels of the milk, impact is immediately following an outage although unfortunately building the cows back up to expected production levels is not quite so quick, with quality and quantity taking a few days to restore resulting in a financial loss.
Frustrated, when chatting to his feed supplier FeedCo, they told Richard of a low-cost silo monitoring solution that could be easily fitted to existing silos, FeedAlert.
FeedAlert is a weight-based monitoring solution that can be quickly and easily fitted to agricultural silos, it is installed at ground level and so there is no need for lifting gear. Ideally the silo should be tared when empty to get an optimised set-up, calibrating the silo post delivery to set the scale. If you’re planning ahead, getting silos suppling robot systems empty can be a challenge but the FeedAlert team can help, running the feed as low as possible when setting the silo up, prefill, and with your help the FeedAlert team adjust the figures to take the remaining feed into consideration.
Accuracy is to within a 5% variance of full capacity, but this is a variance window, always follow their top tips on how to install an optimised system. Ian Wormleighton Director of silo monitoring at Collinson advised, ‘the majority of installations are textbook and achieve the required accuracy first time however occasionally there are anomalies, this is nothing to worry about though as we have a fantastic support team, and once flagged they investigate the data and work with farmers to refine accuracy to provide reliable inventory control data.’
Richard has chosen to share visibility of his data with FeedCo, more eyes on the silo guarantees that smooth running, Richard, and his account manager can now make feed delivery decisions using reliable data, no more guessing.
Richard said,
“The alerts are great, since installing the system we’ve had no outages at all, FeedAlert gives me peace of mind as its one less job to worry about, I just wish I’d have heard about it sooner!’
Richard checks in on the silo weight via the free app and the alerts, which come as push notifications and/or email prompt reordering, so no more feed ordering stress at Callers Farm and more importantly the girls happy. With systems from only £450, it isn’t worth the stress, never mind the financial loss of an outage, never again!”