Changing to Lely after 7 years robotically milking

Changing to Lely after 7 years robotically milking

Willie John Kehoe has been robotically milking since 2017 but in late 2023 he made the change to three Lely robots. In doing so, he moved from a guided flow system to free cow traffic. The change to Lely robots has been transformative for the farm according to Willie John; “We probably have higher milkings on average across the herd, cell count has seriously dropped over the last 12 months, TBC (Total Bacterial Count) has dropped and yield has gone up a long way.”

This improvement is evident from Willie Johns’ official ICBF performance report for 2024 which has seen somatic cell count drop by 178,000, from 376,000 in 2023 to 198,000 in 2024. In the same time milk solids have increased by over 106kg per cow.

“Cows seem a lot happier, there is generally not a sound in the shed, cows are moving around very well,” Willie John said.

Service

Alongside the dairy enterprise, Willie John also runs a feed milling company and a contracting business which means he cannot afford any downtime on the milking robots.

“It has been life changing, in the last 13 months (since changing to Lely) I think I have rang the on-call about four times but the robots have never actually stopped. The engineers just come and service the robots and you would never know the lads were here, cows just continue to milk away,” Willie John outlined.

Shed layout

The existing robots in the shed had to stay in operation while the Lely robots were fitted and commissioned which presented challenges. This resulted in two robots being fitted together with access to a cubicle separation area and the single robot being fitted at the other end of the shed with access to a straw lie back area.

“I had doubts about the single robot being so far away from the dairy and the other two robots, but it is working well, TBCs have not been a problem and I am happy to have access to a straw lie back from one of the robots,” Willie John said.