$4.5 million invested in dairy robotics barn

Within any industry there are people happy and keen to push the boundaries, pushing for excellence, and setting new standards for production.

The van Leeuwens have always been at the forefront of new ideas and technology in North Otago and their indoor housed dairy operation, complete with robotic milkers, has yielded some impressive per cow production statistics.

With the robot machine nambed after his bank manager, we can be assured this development has not come cheap, but every industry needs innovators and boundary pushers to keep stimulating the industry pack moving ahead.

Housing 500 dairy cows in a barn may not fit the image of a typical NZ dairy farm, but it is hard to question the method when you see relaxed and contented cows quietly chewing their cud reports The ODT. Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen have invested $4.5 million in a European-style, self-contained facility at Morven in South Canterbury, in which the 500 cows are housed in a barn and milked by six computerised robot milking machines.

Milk production was about double that of cows outdoors at about 500kg of milk solids a cow, but Mr van Leeuwen believed 600kg/ms was achievablem as 80% of the Jersey herd are first-calvers. The unit required just 1.5 people to run.
 
There may be 500 cows housed in the shed, but they are happy, relaxed and there is little noise.  The Jersey cows will each eat 5000 to 5500kg dry matter a year, but over winter they will eat about 8kg of dry matter a day compared to between 15kg and 16kg dry matter a day if outdoors.
 

"The dairy industry has grown rapidly in New Zealand in the last 15 years, herds have got bigger, but the skill of staff has not kept pace." There were fewer people with the right skills than there were jobs. "I have swapped human capital for technology." Eventually he wants to milk 600 cows which will each spend 10 months in the shed.