Wales Farmer JANUARY 2014 NEWS


‘Come into my parlour’ offer at new demo farm


ANEW Farming Connect demonstration farm has


opened its gates. Nuffield


scholar Rhys


Williams of Trygarn dairy, opened the parlour on the Lleyn Peninsula foranopen dayin December,wherepeople had the chance to learn about the trials, plans and projects set to take place at the farm. Gethin Davies,Farming Connect knowledge transfer facilitator fornorth, said: “Working with apioneer like Rhys is agreat opportunity for Farming Connect to explorenew opportunities in dairy farming thatwill ultimatelybenefit the whole industry.” Trygarn is acoastal farmcon-


sisting of 173 acres of owned land with an additional 74 acres of rented land with a300 spring- calving NewZealand crossbred herd. Tenacres of kale,rapeand


stubbleturnips aregrown to pro- vide winter forage forcowsand youngstock. The keyelement of the system


at Trygarn is to maximise pas- ture, by extending the grazing season to the maximum and reducing winter costs. The main aim is to maximise


the profitability of the milking herdand to keep growing the business. Rhys plans to milk record each cowinorder to establish


OPEN DAY: Rhys Williams at Trygarn dairy. if


which cows aremost profitable and to aid decisions on the futurestructureofthe herd. He is also keen to improveani-


mal health through implement- ing aflukecontrol programme following aproblematic year last year.


Initially, Rhys will be checking 9


thereisresistance to


Triclabendazole within the herd, which will aid him in choosing the best control strategy fornext year.The milking herdisatgrass from early February to early December and has an average milk yield of 5,200litres,with a butterfataverage of 5.3 per cent


and 3.7 per cent protein. The milk is sold to South Caernarfon Creameries. Other trials which will be run


at Trygarn arereducing reliance on fertiliser while maintaining cowperformance and the use of EID to monitor youngstock per- formance.


The future’shere and now as robots take the strain


TO most people robots conjour up images straight out of science fiction, buttofather and son Richardand MatthewRoberts, working with robots is far from being afantasy. Cefn Maesoglan Farm is situ-


ated on 260 acres in the south- west corner of Anglesey between Brynsiencyn and Llangaffo. After Richard’sson Matthew,


now24, graduated from Harper Adams keen to farm, they went into partnership and started farming together. They currentlyrun aherdof


133 pedigree Jerseys imported from Denmarkand arelooking to push this to 160 in 2014. The cows areall heifers in


theirfirst lactation and areaver- aging 24 litres per cowper day with 5.6per cent-plus butterfat and 3.4 per cent proteins,sup- plied to Glanbia, Llangefni whereitisused formaking moz- zarella cheese. They areestablishing apedi-


gree herdunder the title of Menai Jerseys. They also grow 75 acres of


cereals forwholecrop silage and grain and straw and cut at least three crops of grass silage. Abig investment in robots


and associated specialised build- ing worksisnot forthe faint-


hearted. Richardsaid: “I knew we had to spend some time first getting it right, starting our research from 2010 onwards. “One of the keythings wasto


approach alot of milk buyers to ascertain what they wanted and once we knewthat, other things fell in to place. “Wewent to Denmarkand the


Netherlands as well as plenty of robot farms hereinthe UK to learn and to get ideas.Wesaw units on which we based ours wherethe cows have plenty of socialising space and neverget separated and arenot stressed.” The cows aremilked via two


LelyAstronaut A4 robots.There is also arobotic manurescraper and silage pusher. All the cows at Cefn


Maesoglan arehoused under one roof in abuilding that, in addi- tion to the milking robots,has some highlyspecialised purpose- designed features,including an underground slurry lagoon, steep pitched roof and asimulat- ed sunlight lighting system which influences both fertility and milk yield. “Robots give youback your


life –they takeout the mundane, added Richard. “Even when youare asleep at youare


night milking. HANDS OFF: Milking is an automatic process.


Automation is doing it foryou around the clock. “For example,the silage at the


feed face is pushed up every two hours,day and night, and by automating this,wehaveseen cowintakes rise,which has put one to twolitres of milk extra per cowper dayinto the tank. “However,you have to be


comfortablewith computers and arehighlyreliant on uninterrupt- ed electricity supplysowehave to have agenerator to get every- thing back up and running in a couple of minutes if thereisa powercut. If at anytime we decided to stop milking, the robots areportableand easilyre- sellable.”


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