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The whole herd is milked three times a day, the old parlour only allowed time for high yielders to be milked three times a day
coming to the farm and other small matters. Their perception of large scale dairying is that we are factory farming.”
Edward takes any opportunity to show local Clubs and groups around the farm, which has included the WI. “It is an opportunity to show them how well looked after the cows are and explain how welfare has improved although cow numbers have increased three fold.” There is certainly plenty of evidence of better cow management and welfare. Cows are now housed in deep sand beds compared to a large straw court previously and instead of standing for up to four hours in the concrete collecting yard they prefer standing for an hour on a rubber matted yard. The whole herd is also milked three times a day, the old parlour only allowed time for high yielders to be milked three times a day. The attention to cow health and welfare during the project has already proved to be working well, with the mastitis issues created with straw housing almost completely eliminated. “Both vets bills and medicine costs have reduced dramatically despite the increase in cow numbers. “The herd was established in 1946 by my father,” adds Edward. “He moved from a 100 acre farm to 250 acres at Sludge Hall Farm in 1963. He was a very hard working man and his investment in land has allowed the following generations to progress.
’
“The first milking in the old parlour which was the first direct to line parlour in Leicestershire had 70 cows and on the last milking in March 2014 there were 245 cows milked. It was a case of running a 300 cow herd through a system
built for 100 cows while trying to pay for a 700 cow system.” Not wanting to make a false start Andrew and John researched their options fully with ideas taken from the UK, Germany, Holland and New Zealand. “We wanted to see everything working, all aspects were full researched and then a trip to see how it worked was planned. We went to Germany because at that time there was no Boumatic external rotary in the UK. By being so heavily involved in the planning process and seeing the project develop ourselves rather than having someone else manage it means that Andrew and myself know every nut and bolt in it,” explains John. “Everything from the rotary parlour to the automatic shedding system, 12 stall herringbone race for AI and then handling system has been thoroughly thought out and planned, even resorting to the toy farm to have a test run at cow flow. In addition there is also a spray robot taking care of post milking spraying, an automatic foot bath on the race out of the parlour and complete Boutmatic ID system.”
Building started in June 2012 with the first of two 220ft by 104ft cows sheds, the first housing 196 cows with 45 inch centres, followed by another with 188 cubicles with 48 inch
TOP ABOVE Tiptoe Shottle Rosedrop is John’s favourite cow and is always first in the parlour.
LEFT The parlour is scrubbed every three days. 24 THE JOURNAL FEBRUARY 2015
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